The Midnight Folk Read online

  He looked out into the passage, which was now all dark and still: the house was asleep. He could not see Mrs. Pouncer nor her cat. “They’ll be in the magic room,” he thought, “and the magic room is in this direction: it’s in the wall, here.”

  But although it was in the wall, he could not find it, nor any door nor window to it: there was nothing but the bare wall, papered over. “I believe I’m only dreaming this,” he said.

  He was about to go back to his room, when he heard a door open in the northern corridor: a light appeared. He shrank back into the powdering-chamber, as it was called, near which he was standing: lying down on the floor he could see fairly well.

  Blackmalkin appeared, bearing a red light. After him came Mrs. Pouncer, crowned and wearing a long robe covered with magic signs; she bore a staff or wand. After her came Greymalkin, bearing a smoking dish. They did not see him; they went straight down the stairs into the hall. The smoke from Greymalkin’s dish was sweet to smell and gave one an excited feeling.

  “I do believe,” Kay said to himself, “that they are going to practise magic in the hall. I’ll jolly well watch what they do, and see if I can’t do it myself.”

  He gave up the thought of the book: that did not seem nearly so interesting as watching magic.

  Unfortunately, although he climbed to a place from which he could see into the hall, he could not see where Mrs. Pouncer stood, nor what she did. He saw Greymalkin coming round from time to time with the smoking dish, and he could hear Mrs. Pouncer’s voice making the incantation.

  “I know what she is doing,” Kay thought. “Witches make incantations to call their familiar friends, who tell them all that they want to know. I do wish that I could hear what she said. And I wonder what Blackmalkin is doing all this time.”

  He tried creeping down the stairs, so as to see, but the old stairs creaked, and the noise of the incantation, growing louder, frightened him. There came a rushing noise, the hall-door opened with a clang; Kay felt the cool night air in a blast about him. Looking down at the hall, he saw a glittering child enter from the garden. The child strode up to the circle in which Greymalkin had been moving.

  “I am here,” he said, “why have you called me?”

  Mrs. Pouncer’s voice replied: “Tell me, if you know, what became of the ship Plunderer, after Roper Bilges was put on the island.”

  “I do not know,” the child answered. He moved back to the door, growing less bright as he receded; he seemed to fade away. The incantation went on for a minute, then there came another rushing noise; a glittering girl came into the hall and strode up to the circle.

  “I am here,” she said. “Why have you called me?”

  Mrs. Pouncer repeated her command; but the girl did not know what had become of the ship. When she, too, had faded away, other figures appeared one by one, as the incantation went on: an old man, an old woman, a youth crowned with ivy leaves, and a woman riding a black mare. Mrs. Pouncer ordered the old man, the old woman and the youth, each in turn, to tell what became of the Plunderer; each said “I do not know” and faded away; but when the woman on the black mare rode in, Mrs. Pouncer did not mention the ship; instead of that she strode up to the circle, and said in an angry voice: “Why do you come? You are not called.”

  “I am here,” the woman said; “and I will not go without reason.”

  “I charge you to begone,” Mrs. Pouncer cried.

  Kay saw Blackmalkin and Greymalkin run up beside Mrs. Pouncer; Blackmalkin shook his red light, Greymalkin his dish of burning gums; Mrs. Pouncer uttered charms and threatened with her wand. The woman seemed angry, but backed her black mare out of the door, out of sight.

  “The bold-faced thing, to front me so,” Mrs. Pouncer said, as she went back to her incantation. Somehow, the woman’s riding in had upset the spells: it was a long time before another person appeared. When he did appear, he was a stern-looking man all dressed in red.

  “I am here,” he said; “why have you called me?”

  “Tell me, if you know, what became of the ship Plunderer after Roper Bilges was put on the island.”

  “She sank.”

  “With all the treasure on board?”

  “Yes.”

  “With all her crew on board?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I get at the wreck, or where the wreck was?”

  “No.”

  “Nor take the treasure from her?”

  “No.”

  “Where is the wreck, then?”

  “Where you cannot find her.”

  “Answer me, where is she?”

  “Gone.”

  “Where was the wreck; I charge you, tell me.”

  “I will not be charged. Beware, you, how you order me.”

  He spoke these last words angrily, so that Kay, who was frightened, slipped back into his bedroom. He heard them talk angrily at each other for some minutes, making more and more noise, till Kay wondered that the governess did not wake. Mrs. Pouncer seemed to be getting rather the worst of it.

  “Kay,” said a sweet voice at the window.

  Kay hopped round with a start. A light was shining in at the window; someone had opened it. It was the woman on the black mare. They were floating there beside the window, while she looked in to call him. There were golden wings on the mare’s shoulders and hooves: he had not noticed these before. The hooves were treading the air much as a swimmer will tread water.

  “Will you come to ride with me?” she asked. She was a somewhat fierce but smiling lady, with keen grey eyes full of courage, and a face tanned by the wind; her cheeks were a rosy brown and her smile most winning.

  “There’s room on the saddle in front of me,” she said: indeed there was, a most lovely little blue saddle with golden stirrups and a bar in front to hold on by.

  “Won’t you come?” she said.

  “May I, really?”

  She held out her hands to him and helped him into the saddle. One thing troubled him. “Suppose Mrs. Pouncer comes back into my room and finds me gone?” he said.

  “That will be arranged for,” she said. “Look. There’s Nibbins in your bed, so curled up that anybody would think it was you.”

  Indeed, there was Nibbins wrapped in the bedclothes, curled well down into the pillow. It was great cheek of him, Kay thought, not asking leave.

  “How do you know about Nibbins?” he asked.

  “Oh, I know about a great many things.”

  He heard the quarrel downstairs in the hall become very noisy indeed, as though Mrs. Pouncer and the man were flinging things at each other.

  “We will come away from all that,” the woman said, as she touched up the mare. Instantly she had swung away from the house towards the hills, flying high and very swiftly through the cool summer night, so warm in patches above bare ground. They passed quite close to the church tower with its four gold weathercocks.

  “Oh, do let me look at the weathercocks close to,” Kay said.

  “You shall give them some golden corn out of my mare’s nosebag,” the woman said. And then, lo, the mare sidled up to each weathercock in turn, and Kay was able to offer golden corn-grains from the nosebag to each. The weathercocks were old-fashioned and somewhat battered birds, rather stiff upon their perches and blind from the weather. Each, on eating the grains, flapped his heavy golden wings and crowed a little. When all had been fed, they went on with their song, which they hummed together to pass the time.

  The North-West cock sang:

  “I watch the common people live and die.

  Between the hard earth and the windy sky.”

  The North-East cock sang:

  “I watch the great ones ruling, in their pride,

  That cannot last, the life that cannot bide.”

  The South-East cock sang:

  “I watch the wild life stirring in the wood

  The green sap and the hungering for blood.”

  The South-West cock sang:

  “I watch the Mind that
seeks, and will declare

  The meaning and the purpose everywhere.”

  Then they all sang together:

  “We keep the watch and face the wind that blows,

  While under us the heavy hour goes.”

  The wind shifted a little as they sang, so that each of the four creaked a little as they came round to face it.

  “Goodbye, weathercocks,” Kay called, as the mare galloped away. “I should think they love it up there, up in the wind, with the jackdaws and the pigeons, and the bells chiming every third hour.”

  “You wonder what became of the Plunderer,” the woman said.

  “The man said that she sank, with all the treasure on board, and all her crew.”

  “Well, perhaps we shall know more about that presently . . . Come up, mare.”

  They were now going so fast that the rivers and ponds streaked away far beneath them like flashes of light.

  “It is true,” the woman said, “that the Plunderer sank with all her treasure, as well as with all of her crew who were in her at the time; but one of her crew was not in her at the time; he had been put ashore on an island before the ship was wrecked.”

  “Yes, I know,” Kay said, “Roper Bilges, the mutineer, who put great-grandpapa Harker on shore.”

  “Ah, how clever we are!” the woman said with a strange smile. “But we will not talk now, for we have to come down here.”

  “Where are we?” Kay asked. “How far have we come?”

  “We are in the North,” she said, “at Trigger Court. We have come some hundreds of miles.” The mare slackened pace as she glided gently down to the end of a lake, from which a grass slope led to a big house. It was still dark night everywhere. Owls were cruising along the woods near the water; fish were leaping in the lake and rabbits hopping about on the lawn.

  The mare steadied near the front of the house, which had many blank windows, and one wide-open French window, brightly lit, on the second floor.

  The woman stopped the mare beside this window. “We get down here, Kay,” she said. She leaped from the saddle into the balcony, and then taking Kay’s hands, she jumped him down beside her, and at once drew him with her into the lighted room.

  It was a big, bright, pretty bedroom, hung with white chintzes which were patterned with pink roses tied with pale blue ribbon. The furniture was old and very shiny from polish, lacquer and brass. A fire was burning in the grate, although it was a summer night. To their left, as they entered, about fifteen feet from the window, was a big double bed, hung with chintz like the rest of the room. In this bed, propped up by pillows, a wicked old woman in a very gay dressing-gown was reading a sprightly story, at which she was laughing. Beside her, on a table, was a bottle of champagne: she sipped a glass of the wine from time to time. In her mouth was a long cigarette-holder containing a lighted cigarette.

  “He, he,” she chuckled, over one of the jests. “He, he; oh, dear, if I read any more of this, I shall crack my ribs to matchsticks!”

  “Miss Susan Pricker,” the woman called.

  The old lady sat up fiercely in her bed. “Deuce take your impudence, ma’am,” she said, “I’m not Miss Susan Pricker. My name is Piney Trigger, of Trigger Hall. And what are you doing coming in at the window at this time of night?”

  “Miss Twiney Pricker,” the woman said, “don’t think to bluster me, ma’am. Your name is not Trigger, but Pricker.”

  “If I ring for my medical attendant,” the old lady said, “you will be removed in custody.”

  “You may ring for your medical attendant, ma’am, but he will not hear; because, in the first place, the bell will not ring, and in the second place, he has gone to a dance and will not be here until dawn.”

  “Look at that boy,” the old lady replied, “catching his mortal end in pyjamas.”

  “His mortal grandmother!”

  The old lady put down her cigarette: she clenched her fist at them, pulled off her cap and wig and hurled it at them.

  “Take that for your impudence,” she said. “If I rise from this bed, I’ll make you eat it.”

  “Miss Pricker,” the woman said, “a great many years ago your father helped to do this child’s great-grandfather a cruel wrong, which altered his life for him. Your father was swiftly punished for his share in the wrong, and got no benefit from it, but you can at least tell this child what became of the ship Plunderer, and how your father came to change his name. In the meantime, won’t you put on your head-dress; the night air may otherwise strike chill.”

  “Thank you, Miss Whoever-you-are. The night air certainly makes you sufficiently cool. I will put on my cap. And how do you know about Sir Piney Trigger?”

  “He was not Piney Trigger, but Twiney Pricker.”

  “Prove it,” the old lady said; “as they say in the law courts, prove it.”

  The young woman pointed at the wall. “There, Kay,” she said, “is a portrait of this lady’s father, the Twiney Pricker about whom you have read. See if he be like the description.”

  Kay looked as he was bid. The man in the picture had cold blue eyes which stuck out like lobster’s eyes. He had a wide mouth, which suddenly opened to show two teeth gone on the left side. The hair was just the colour of a hank of sea twine; it was twiney hair. The man looked “sinister,” as Captain Harker had said, but with “a great deal in him,” mostly evil, but not all; he was like the old lady in the bed. He wore good black broadcloth, a white stock, and a blue necktie about the stock. The portrait had a label beneath it:

  “Sir Piney Trigger, Honduras Merchant. d. 1850.”

  “Twiney Pricker had that sort of hair,” Kay said, “and those kind of lobster eyes, and two teeth gone on the left.”

  “A great many thousands have all those marks,” the old lady said. “Think again, child. And then perhaps you will remove yourselves.”

  “He had a woman’s heart transfixed with an arrow, done in gunpowder on his chest,” Kay said; “and the fat ox of Bedford in the same on his right arm.”

  “He had nothing of the kind,” the old lady said.

  “Yes, he had,” the woman answered. “Look there. Look at the portrait.”

  As they looked at the portrait, Sir Piney Trigger, Honduras Merchant, stirred in his canvas. His hands, which were coarse, blunt and square-fingered, unbuttoned his waistcoat and rolled back his costly frilled shirt. There was the transfixed heart upon his chest, and the greater part of the ox of Bedford, fat beyond belief: he could not well show the beast as far as the tail without tearing the shirt.

  The old lady poured herself a large glass of champagne and drank it quickly.

  “Very well,” she said, “he was Twiney Pricker. What of it? He is not going to be bothered by that at this time of day, I think. I like to think that he was Twiney Pricker, and had a bit of go and a bit of fun as a young man. He did put his captain ashore, he, he, and ran away with the ship, with all the Bishop’s candlesticks . . . ho, ho, ho! How we used to roar with laughter over it . . . and then he rounded on the gunner who was giving himself airs . . . and put him ashore too. Let me see, what was his name? It was one of these marine names, Squilges or Dirges.”

  “Bilges,” Kay said.

  “Just as I was saying, Bilges. He put Squilges ashore. But the others did not like that so well; for the next night, or almost the next night, they put him ashore on a sandbank. But my father marked some of them first: pinked, they called it then. ‘Pinked them in the plexus’ was the phrase. All these fine old phrases are gone out, since pinafores and temperance became the rage. My father pinked them to purpose; but they were too many for him.

  “My father said that being on the sandbank was easily the hottest time he ever had; there being nothing whatever to drink, except the dew that collected at nights upon his tarpaulin hat. He used to lick this as it collected; and in the day he bathed in the sea. Food he had largely to do without, except a kind of marine worm which he found buried in the sand. Pa used to say that he never put in so much sleep a
s upon that sandbank. That, and thinking what he would have to eat and drink when he returned to civilisation, was how he passed the time: that and bathing, and getting into wet sand to avoid the hottest of the sun, and, of course, digging for these worms: quite the early bird.

  “A man like my Pa is not easily to be quenched, any more than I am. My heart is no more use than a shifting backstay, but I can take my wine, I hope, and begone dull care. I’ll sing till I die.

  “I’ll live to the age of a hundred and eight,

  And then I’ll go courting to find me a mate;

  I’ll live to the age of a hundred and nine,

  And finish my bottle whenever I dine:

  I’ll live to the age of a hundred and ten,

  When I’ll mount on my horse and go courting agen.

  “Deuce take these lily-livered times! I’ll have a devilled bone to my breakfast as long as I’ve a gum in my mouth. Cheer up, my lads, there’s shot in the locker still.

  “What was I saying about my father? Oh yes . . . he was on the sandbank, wasn’t he? How did he get off? Why, a chasse-marée came by, not looking where she was going. He saw someone on board her striking a light with a flint and steel; so he hailed her to keep off or she’d be ashore, and then begged them to take him off, which they did, though most of them thought he was a ghost.

  “Who were they? Well, everybody is young at some time, I suppose; and I suppose everybody has to live: one may as well have one’s fling. Besides, the rich of that time used to flaunt their wealth: it was the greatest temptation to the poor to come to take it. I suppose they cracked people’s crowns to take it. Some crowns are exceedingly easily cracked; and a lot, which are cracked already, are better cracked. Deuce take me, I’d have been a pirate myself if I’d had the chance. Besides, these people who rescued my father weren’t pirates, they were only on a pleasure cruise. Besides, it was legal in a sense, for they were at war at the time, or just had been, or would have been, or soon would be again. Besides, although my father said they had a lot of watches and necklaces in the chasse-marée, that proved nothing, rather the reverse, for one of the party, a very gentlemanly fellow, was a jeweller by profession, and another, who was said to have been a titled person, was a collector of such things, what they call a connoisseur. Lots of people do collect them. What more natural than that he should acquire some on a pleasure cruise? I should call it quite remarkable if he didn’t.