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- Herausgeber: Hesperus Press Ltd.
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
This charming, magical story from award-winning author Elizabeth Goudge beautifully depicts early twentieth century English country life while conjuring an air of magical adventure. Written by the author who inspired J.K. Rowling, it is full of vivid characters, battles between good and evil and wonderful spell-binding moments. Locked away in separate rooms as punishment by their ruthless grandmother, Nan, Robert, Timothy and Betsy decide to make their escape - out of the house, out of the garden and into the village. Commandeering a pony and trap, the children and their dog are led away as the pony makes his way nonchalantly home. The pony's destination happens to be a house that belongs to the children's uncle Ambrose. Gruff but loveable Uncle Ambrose agrees to take them under his wing, letting the children have free reign in his sprawling manor house and surrounding countryside. Befriending the motley collection of house guests including an owl, a giant cat and a servant who converses with bees, and getting to know the miscellaneous inhabitants of the village, the four siblings discover a life in which magic and reality are curiously intermingled and evil and tragedy lurk never far away. Winner of Hesperus Press' 'Uncover a Children's Classic Competition', The Runaways is a truly charming story from a bygone era.
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the runaways
elizabeth goudge
Uncover a Children’s Classic Competition Winner
In September 2013, Hesperus Press ran a competition to find the next children’s classic to add to its new children’s imprint, Hesperus Minor. We asked members of the public to tell us why their favourite children’s book should be brought back in print, with the winner writing an introduction for the finished book.
The judging panel was made up of Annie Dalton, author of the Angel Academy and Tilly Beany books, Amanda Craig, author and The Times children’s books critic, Jennifer Bell, Foyles children’s books buyer, and Melissa Cox, Waterstones children’s bookseller.
Adrienne Byrne submitted the winning book, The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge, and has therefore contributed the introduction that follows this.
About The Runaways
‘Her work has that classic blend of realism and magic, and the story of three runaway children finding their way by accident to their great uncle’s house in Devon and lifting a curse is beautifully told…’ – Amanda Craig
About Adrienne Byrne
Adrienne has had a longstanding love of children’s literature and currently works part-time at Muswell Hill bookshop in London.
Contents
introduction
I was about ten when I discovered this book in my local library. It was the original title Linnets and Valerians that first enchanted and captured my imagination. After many years, I suddenly remembered the book; but the memories were impressionistic. My recent re-reading has brought back the details, and given an adult perspective and appreciation.
In the 1967 afterword to my paperback edition, the author speaks of the countryside in which she lived and how the stories and superstitions she was told about it inspired the richly magical and other-worldly elements and characters of her story. She has written descriptive passages of great beauty, both of the natural world and the immanence of this magic.
An imaginative child, I accepted completely the co-existence of real life and magic. There is a rather wonderful passage in Chapter 11, expressing the point of view of ten-year-old Robert:
Robert’s clear voice once more took up the narrative. He, like all children, could use exquisite tact when telling a true story to grown-ups. He knew one must not ask toomuch of their credulity. Things are seen and heard by the keen senses of the young which are not experienced by the failing powers of their elders, but as powers fail pride increases and the elders do not like to admit this. Therefore, when told by the young of some occurrence outside the range of their own now most limited experience, they read them a lecture on the iniquity of telling lies. This can lead to unpleasantness all round…
There follows a summary of those occurrences omitted from his otherwise eventful tale.
For The Runaways is also an adventure story, involving four resourceful children; assorted adults, both ‘good’ and ‘wicked’; a dog; a monkey; a cat; an owl… and of course, the bees, the children’s protectors at all times. It is about the effect of past malicious actions, and how those actions are finally redeemed.
A thread of gently ironic humour runs throughout, and each child is beautifully drawn with that humour and insight; flawed individuals with complex inner lives and their different perspectives and responses to challenges and loss. Nan the eldest, practical and reflective, with a strong sense of responsibility for her younger siblings, is movingly given her first experience of solitude in the chapter ‘Nan’s Parlour’. Robert: inventive and impulsive, with an amusing and engaging sense of self-importance. Eight-year-old Timothy, a sensitive, more intuitive boy, and six-year-old Betsy who ‘always emerged from anywhere as though shot from a catapult’ but who reveals a touching and instinctive generosity.
As an adult, the story ends for me with the chapter ‘Singing in the Wood’ and its last line, ‘Deep inside the hives the bees could be heard singing’. I don’t think I needed the ‘Happy Ever After’ chapter as a child either, as I initially found I couldn’t remember the ending as an adult. However, there are those who will want the ending as it is. Enjoy!
– Adrienne Byrne, Winner of the Hesperus ‘Uncover a Children’s Classic Competition’, 2013
the runaways
elizabeth goudge
chapter one
the escape
Robert gave the boxroom door a resounding kick, merely for his own satisfaction, for he knew that only the kick of a giant would have made any impression on its strong oak panels, and sat down cross-legged on the floor to consider the situation. Betsy was roaring in the bathroom, Timothy was yelling in the broom cupboard, Nan was sobbing in the linen room and Absolom was barking his head off in the small cupboard where the boots were kept. None of them could get out, for everything in this house locked firmly on insubordinate children. Grandmother said they were insubordinate; Father only thought them high-spirited. But it was what Grandmama thought that counted now, for Father had gone to Egypt, on his way back to India and his regiment, and they had to stay behind and live with Grandmama.
They had no wish to live with her, for she was a very autocratic old lady, a grandmother of a type that was to be met with in 1912, the date of this story, but is now extinct. She believed that children should be instantly obedient and she did not like dogs. She said that Absolom had fleas and must be given away, and if that was not enough, she had arranged for Robert and Nan to go to boarding school while her companion Miss Bolt taught Timothy and Betsy at home. The children were in despair. They did not want to be educated and they did not want to be separated, either from each other or Absolom.
Robert listened. He was not disturbed by Betsy’s roars, for she liked roaring and there was a window in the bathroom, but Timothy’s yells had a hysterical note. It was dark in the broom cupboard and he didn’t like the dark. Nan’s sobs he could not actually hear, for she was a quiet person, but he guessed she was sobbing. Absolom was now not only barking but hurling his body against the door of the boothole with resounding thuds. It’s like the Bastille, thought Robert.
And then suddenly he knew what they would do and it was so simple that he wondered he had not thought of it before. Escape. People always escaped from prison if they could. The question was, could they? Robert was ten years old, stocky and strong, and he had a penknife, green eyes and red hair, and when a question like this presented itself to his mind he did not ask it twice. He had heaved a small tin trunk on top of a larger one, poised a hatbox on top and mounted to the summit while the question was still passing through his mind. The high window had not been opened for a long time and it was covered with ivy outside, but the penknife and obstinacy got it open and clear. To get himself off the hatbox and through it called for both agility and courage, and he was pleased with himself when after a considerable struggle he landed outside on the flat bit of roof that made a platform for the rainwater tank. He decided be would he a burglar of international reputation when he grew up. Until this morning he had been going to be an engine driver, but he realised now that he could do better than that. Any man of normal intelligence can drive an engine, but only a superman can be a master burglar, and there was probably more money in it.
But great gifts take their toll and after the struggle through the window and the ivy Robert found he was hot, and breathless, and he sat down to cool off. It was comfortable with his back against the rainwater tank and the spring sunshine was warm on his face. And from up here on the roof of the old house there was a grand view. He had not known it was like this beyond Grandmama’s house. Four years ago Father had brought them all home from India to visit her, but he had only been six years old then and in the strangeness and confusion of being in a new country he had not noticed his surroundings very much, and this time they had been kept within the large enclosed garden, except when they had gone for short walks through the town with the Thunderbolt. There had been the train journeys from the boat to London and from London to Grandmama, but the knowledge that Father would go back to India without them, cutting short his time in England because of a selfish desire to go exploring in Egypt, was so dreadful that again he had not noticed much. He had had no idea that England was like this.
The town was an old one, with attractive crooked houses and winding narrow streets, and beyond it was a green land of meadows and woods and streams that glinted in the westering sun. And beyond the greenness and the glinting rose the ramparts of the mountains. They were really no more than high hills, misty and blue, but they seemed to Robert higher than they were because they rose so abruptly from the green plain, and because their blueness was almost lost in the blue of the sky. They were mysterious and exciting and their silence called louder than any trumpet. The weathercock on the church tower told Robert that they lay due west.
He stood up and looked around him to get his bearings. He remembered that Elsie the housemaid’s bedroom was beside the boxroom. Behind him and the tank was the boxroom window, to right and left sloping roof, in front of him the sheer drop down to the garden. It made him feel dizzy to stand above that drop and look sideways, but he saw the dormer window only a few feet away from him and the gutter below it looked strong. All the same he never knew how he did it. And yet there was not much to it really, and if it hadn’t been for that drop it would have seemed a mere nothing, for it only meant stepping on to the gutter and then, facing inwards with his body leaning against the sloping roof and his fingers gripping the irregular tiles, edging along step by step until he came to the window, whose casements opened inwards and were mercifully wide at the time. After that it was just a question of taking a header on to Elsie’s dressing table. It was that stepping on to the gutter that was the worst bit.
Nevertheless, lying on Elsie’s bedroom floor all mixed up in her brush and comb and a crochet mat that had been on the dressing table, and damp because a bottle of violet scent had smashed all over him, Robert found he was sweating profusely and trembling like an aspen leaf. He did not know what an aspen leaf was, but he knew it was what you trembled like when a moment of supreme crisis was safely passed. At first there was only one thought in his mind: was there more money in burglary or acrobatics? How much did these fellows get who walked on tightropes in circuses?
Robert’s thoughts ran on money so constantly because he wanted a pony, and though he had been saving for it for a long time he still only had sixpence. That was because he kept seeing other things he wanted, like the penknife, and Absolom, whom he had bought in London when Father’s back was turned from a waiter in a hotel where they had stayed, only half a quid because he was a mongrel.
Robert staggered to his feet and went out into the passage, where he found to his satisfaction that all the keys had been left in the doors; which just showed that the Thunderbolt had not yet realised that Robert was a force to be reckoned with. Betsy and Absolom were still roaring and barking, but Timothy wasn’t yelling any more, and Robert let him out first because he didn’t like the dark. He was eight years old and supposed by Father to be delicate. ‘Come on out, you little blighter,’ said Robert kindly. ‘Keep your mouth shut and run straight downstairs and out to the rubbish heap.’
Timothy flicked himself up from among the brooms and sped down the stairs as though airborne, for he was very lightly made, with smooth gold hair and very blue eyes. But these effeminate embellishments were not his fault and were no indication of weakness of character. He could yell, kick and bite with the best and it was only the dark that frightened him.
‘Stop that row, Betsy,’ said Robert as he cautiously unlocked and opened the bathroom door. Caution was necessary with Betsy, for she always emerged from anywhere as though shot from a catapult and her small round body was very hard. Robert side-stepped skilfully and she landed out in the passage on her nose, her roars soaring to a fine crescendo. Robert lifted her up by the gathers of her smock with one hand and clamped the other over her mouth. Her face was crimson and her green eyes shot sparks. Her rough red curls were as angry as they could be all over her little bullet head, and she kicked out at Robert’s shins with all her strength. Robert kicked back, but gently, for she was only six and he was fond of her because she reminded him of himself when young. ‘Another screech out of you, Betsy, and I’ll skin you alive,’ he said. ‘Go straight down to the rubbish heap and wait there till I come.’
She made for the stairs, thumping down from step to step as though she weighed a ton. She was always very heavy on her feet when she was in a passion, for anger does weigh heavy. But she did not roar any more, for where she trusted she was obedient and she trusted Robert. All the children trusted each other and their father, and he them. To be separated from him was the most awful thing that had ever happened to them, for Mother dying five years ago was now a little dim to everyone except Father, and Betsy did not remember it at all. But they understood that they had to be parted from Father, for he had explained about the new place where his regiment was going being too hot for children, and they knew it was not for always. Nevertheless Betsy, as she thumped downstairs, was calling over and over inside herself, Father, Father. But it didn’t do any good. He was in Egypt by this time and he didn’t hear.
Robert let Nan out next. She had stopped sobbing and was counting the linen to see how many pillow-slips Grandmama had. She was twelve years old and, as the eldest of the family, of a domesticated turn of mind. ‘Come to the rubbish heap, Nan,’ he said. ‘I’ve an idea.’
Nan nodded and followed him, waiting while he let out Absolom and stowed him under his arm. ‘You smell dreadful,’ she said.
‘Elsie’s violet scent. I smashed it all over myself.’
She nodded again and ran with him down the stairs. She did not ask him why he was drenched in Elsie’s scent, for after long experience she had found it best not to know what Robert had been doing, so that when questioned by authority she need not lie. Nan was truthful, loving and serene and it was hard that her hair was sandy and straight and her nose too large, for she was such a dear person that she deserved to be beautiful, but people do not always get their deserts in this world. She and Robert ran down the stairs shoulder to shoulder, very companionably, for they got on well together. Though he was two years younger, the number of ideas that he had made him seem older than his age. Nan did not have many ideas of her own because it was she who had to deal with what happened after Robert had had his.
To gain the garden door they had to pass the drawing room where Grandmama was entertaining a tea party with the Thunderbolt to help her, but there was such a clatter of cups and saucers and voices that there was no danger of their footsteps being heard. It was this tea party that had been the cause of their all being put into the Bastille. Grandmama had arranged it to show off her grandchildren, of whom, had they but known it, she was extremely proud, but they were not socially minded children and they disliked parties. It had been Robert’s idea that they should barricade themselves in one of the hen houses at the bottom of the orchard, with rhubarb stalks for weapons, and the Thunderbolt’s idea, after she and the gardener had found them and overcome the defence, too late for them to be cleaned up for the tea party, to lock them up until they should apologise; which they would not have done had she left them there all night, for they were not apologising children.
And here it should be said that neither the Thunderbolt nor Grandmama were really as bad as the children thought they were. Grandmama could be charming to those who obeyed her, and three of her four sons, the children’s father among them, were devoted to her. Only her eldest son Ambrose had not from his father that yielding gentleness which Grandmama found so pleasing in her younger sons. The children had not seen Uncle Ambrose, for he lived some distance away and did not like either visiting or being visited. Also he had been a schoolmaster and upon retirement had been heard to remark that he hoped never to set eyes on a child again. But even he could appreciate Grandmama from a distance, and the children would perhaps have done so close to, had they given themselves time.
The Thunderbolt too had a bark worse than her bite and was only engaged just now in trying to get the children sufficiently under control for it to be possible to live with them. But it takes a long time to learn to appreciate the excellent motives of those who are trying to control you, and patient waiting was not the strong point of the Linnet children. They had the charming surname of Linnet, and it was a pity it did not suit them.
The rubbish heap was at the bottom of the kitchen garden hidden from the world by a tall yew hedge that bordered the garden upon the west. It was private, and a good place for counsels of war. Usually they sat cross-legged on the rough grass for the discussion of their affairs, but today Robert did not stop to sit down before announcing, ‘We’re escaping. We will walk to the mountains and earn our living there.’
‘Are there mountains?’ asked Nan cautiously. Robert had such a fine imagination that it was necessary to distinguish between what was there and what he thought was there. They were sometimes the same, but not always.
‘I’ve seen them,’ said Robert. ‘Westwards where the sun sets.’ And he swung round dramatically with one arm outflung toward the yew hedge. Should he be the greatest actor of the age? he suddenly wondered. Would there be more money in being a great actor than in burglary or acrobatics? He was so busy wondering that he did not actually look at the yew hedge and it was Timothy who yelled, ‘Look!’
Behind the hedge the sky was a bright blue. It dazzled the eyes and got inside the head and exploded there as a wild desire for wings, so that one could take off and soar up into it. There was a bird up there who had done just that, and his song came down to the earth he had left in a clear fall of music that was lovelier than anything the children had ever heard, and leaning against the yew hedge was a ladder that the gardener had forgotten to take away. Timothy was up it in a flash. His smooth fair head showed for a moment gold against the blue of the sky and then he was gone. Robert gave a gasp of astonishment and then he leapt after Timothy, Absolom still under his arm. Betsy scrambled after him clutching at Absolom’s plume of a tail to help herself up, and Nan came last rather more soberly. She was not expecting to take off into the sky as the lark had done, and it did just cross her mind that it might not be as easy on the other side of the hedge as Robert seemed to think. But she climbed steadily to the top of the hedge, for Father had told her to look after the others, and resignedly fell off it on to the struggling mass of the other four down below.
At first there was a good deal of noise, for though they had fallen on to the grass verge of a narrow lane it had been a considerable fall. Betsy was roaring because she had bumped herself, Absolom was yelping because she still had hold of his tail and the boys were shouting at them both to stow their din.
‘Do you want to bring the Thunderbolt out on us?’ asked Nan as soon as she could make herself heard. ‘Because if you don’t, keep quiet.’
They disentangled themselves in a sudden silence, got up and looked about them. The lane ran between gardens and backs of houses and only a short distance to their right turned left towards the sunset: ‘That’s the way,’ said Robert, and ran down it, the others after him, Absolom bringing up the rear with his tongue out and his ears flopping. He was a medium-sized mongrel, dirty white in colour, very hairy, and apt to get caught in bushes because he was so hairy. His great dark eyes were his only beauty, but it was difficult to see them through the thicket of hair that fell over them. But he could run fast. He had to.
The lane brought them to the back streets of the little town and they followed these towards the sunset. Beyond the town the road began to climb steeply between woods and fields. Streams ran through the fields, quick-running streams that had come down from the hills, and kingcups lay in pools of gold beside them. Birds were singing everywhere, in the woods and beside the streams. The air, coming down from the hills as the streams had done, was cool and yet the golden sun gave a warm edge to it. It made them want to sing and so they sang, not with any particular words, but humming and whistling, laughing and calling out to each other as the birds were doing. They felt happy and it was a long time since they had done that. It was wonderful to be happy again.
And then gradually one by one they began to leave the birds to sing alone. Betsy stopped first and complained that her legs were aching and Nan said, ‘You’d better carry her, Robert.’ He took her on his back with a good grace, being fond of her, but that silenced him too, for she was heavy. Then Timothy stopped whistling because actually Father had been quite correct in considering him not to be as strong as the others. Then Nan stopped singing because she was beginning to feel worried. It was getting dusky under the trees, and when she looked up at the bits of sky that showed through the pattern of their branches, they were no longer gold but rose-coloured. The cool air no longer had an edge of warmth but was downright chilly, and they had not brought their coats with them. She and Betsy were only wearing their linen smocks, Betsy’s green to match her wicked eyes and hers blue to tone with hers that were grey-blue, quiet and gentle. The boys wore linen sailor suits, which were the fashion for the male young in those days, very after the hen-house fight, but there’s no warmth in dirt. And still they were not up in Robert’s mountains but only climbing their lower slopes, and the slopes of mountains can last a long time, Nan knew. It would be dark when they got there, and how did they know if they would find anywhere to sleep or anything to eat when they arrived? She began to think that Robert’s latest idea had not been one of his best, but she did not say so because when an idea has hardened into consequences it is too late to change it for another. That is why ideas should never be put into practice the moment you have them. They should be chewed like cud for twenty-four hours.
But the children tonight were to have a luck greater than they deserved, for rounding a corner they saw a thatched inn beside the road, with light shining from a curtained window. They knew it was an inn because the painted sign of a wheatsheaf hung over the door. A pony and trap stood outside. The trap was the type known in those days as a governess-cart and there was plenty of room in it for four children and a dog. The pony was looking at them over his shoulder and he seemed to like them, for he whinnied softly. He was piebald, chestnut and white, fat but not too fat. There was no one with him and the reins were loosely knotted round an old thorn tree. He was the pony of Robert’s dreams, and before he knew what he was doing he had spilled Betsy off his back on to the seat of the trap and untied the reins from the tree. Then he picked up Absolom and dropped him on top of Betsy. ‘Get in,’ he said to the other two. Timothy scrambled in at once, but Nan hesitated. ‘It’s stealing,’ she said.
‘Borrowing,’ said Robert. ‘There is a difference.’
Nan thought to herself that it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes, but she got in because just at that moment her loving anxiety to get Timothy and Betsy and Absolom to wherever it was they were going rather got the better of her honesty.
They drove off at a good pace, Robert holding the reins. There was no whip, but they did not need it, so eager was the strong brisk little pony to take them to wherever it was they were going. He seemed to know exactly where that was, for whenever they came to a turn in the road he did not hesitate. Robert was in an ecstasy. His red hair lifted on his head with the wind of their going and his green eyes shone like lamps. He had never driven a pony and trap before, but he did it as though to the manner born. He felt as though he and the pony were one person. ‘He’s called Roy,’ he shouted to the others. ‘Rob-Roy. Rob’s Roy. I’m Rob and he’s Roy.’ And throwing back his head he began to sing again. Over their heads the sky was a mysterious green and a few stars were showing.
The others were glad to be off their feet but less ecstatic because they were cold and hungry. However, Timothy, flung off the seat to the floor as Rob-Roy whirled them round a corner, made in his prostrate position a most timely discovery. Under one seat was an old rug full of holes and a bag of apples and under the other a basket of groceries; biscuits and cheese, slices of cold ham, a jar of pickles, lump sugar, a pot of marmalade, eight tins of sardines and a bar of Sunlight soap. ‘Stop!’ yelled Timothy and they stopped by a gorse bush and had a gorgeous meal. They did not forget the pony and Absolom. Rob-Roy crunched up four apples and a quarter of a pound of lump sugar in his strong white teeth, and Absolom had eight biscuits and a quarter of a pound of cheese. When they had finished eating there was nothing left except half a pot of marmalade, the soap and sardines, and they all felt completely different.
From then on it was a wonderful drive, and when the road was so steep that Rob-Roy could only go at a walking pace they looked about them in wonder, for they seemed to be climbing to the top of the world. Great hills shouldered up into that strange green sky, and below they fell steeply away into deep valleys filled with mist. The shadows on the hills were the colour of grapes. Then gradually the colour drained away. The sky changed from green to deep blue, the stars grew brighter, and a hidden moon shone behind a hill that had an outcrop of rock like a castle or a city on its crest, and another rock like a lion’s head beneath it. It grew steadily colder, even with the rug, and they began to shiver. They were a bit scared too, for it was strange and lonely, and they didn’t seem to be coming to wherever it was they were going. But no one cried or complained, for though insubordinate they were courageous. Nan did say just once, ‘Robert, are you quite sure Rob-Roy knows where we’re going?’ but after Robert had answered very snappily, ‘Can’t you see he knows?’ she did not say anything more. But she could tell by his snappishness that Robert was a bit worried too.
And then the moon sailed up from behind the hill and the whole world was washed in silver. They could see more now; low stone walls, clumps of thin trees blown all one way by the prevailing wind, and ahead of them a cluster of cottages on a small hill with lights showing in their windows and a tall church tower rising behind them. Rob-Roy quickened his pace. He rattled them down a slope and over an old stone bridge that crossed a little river, and then uphill again towards the village. Just at the foot of the village street he turned left through an open gate in a stone wall, jolted them over the cobbles of a yard and stopped dead in front of a stable door. They had arrived.
chapter two
where they went
They jumped eagerly out of the trap and looked about them. The yard was enclosed by the stable and three high stone walls and had a pump in the middle of it. One wall was built against the hillside and a flight of stone steps led up beside it to a door at the top. Beyond the door there seemed to be a garden on the slope of the hill and above it a house. They could not see any lighted windows, but there was a glimmer through the trees that made them think there must be a light in one of the downstairs rooms.
‘But we must stable Rob-Roy first,’ said Robert. None of them had unharnessed a pony before, but by dint of unfastening every buckle they could find they got Rob-Roy free and led him into the stable. In the moonlight flooding through the open door they could see a rough towel hanging from a nail on the wall and with this Robert rubbed him down and they put the rug from the trap over him. There was hay in the manger and water in the bucket and he immediately made himself at home. They kissed him and patted him and said, ‘Good night, Rob-Roy,’ and they felt he liked them.
They came out and shut the stable door and climbed up the stone steps against the wall. It seemed to be an old wall, built of rough grey stone, with small ferns and plants growing in the crannies. The door at the top of the steps had a stone arch over it, and seemed old too, but the latch lifted easily and they went through into the garden. It was queer and creepy in the garden because there were so many tall bushes and odd steps here and there. Then the bushes vanished and they came out on a sloping lawn and there was the house up above them, its granite walls covered with creepers and a terrace running along in front of the french windows of the ground floor.
It was the centre one that was lighted up, and framed in the shadows of the creepers it was like a picture hung on a dark wall. There was a table in the window and in front of it an elderly gentleman dressed in black sat writing with a large quill pen, an oil lamp beside him on the table and piles of books all round him on the floor. He had a big domed forehead, with white hair sprouting up on either side of it, and white whiskers, but the rest of his face was clean-shaven. His eyes beneath bushy white eyebrows were looking down at the paper, but Nan was quite sure they were bright and fierce. He was writing with great concentration, his pen spluttering and his grim mouth working. He was a most alarming figure altogether, for his broad strong shoulders suggested he would be at least six feet tall when he stood up. The children and Absolom drew nearer, both terrified and attracted, for behind him they could see in the glimmer of firelight a great globe of the world shining like a second moon, and perched on the high carved back of the chair was a little owl. As the children watched it spread its wings and flapped them twice and hooted. They had now come so close that they were standing at the bottom of a flight of four narrow steps that led up from the lawn to the terrace exactly in front of the window. The owl hooted again in warning and the elderly gentleman looked up.
It was no good running away, for caught in the beam of the lamplight he could see them as clearly as though it were broad daylight. Nor could they have run if they had tried for his terrible gaze transfixed them. At first he was as still as they were, his face a mask of incredulous anger, and then he slowly rose to his feet, so slowly that it seemed his great height would never cease rising towards the ceiling. His big strong chin was propped up on a folded white stock that seemed to make him stiffer and taller than ever. He unfastened the French window, flung it wide and came out on to the terrace.
‘What on earth?’ he enquired in a terrible deep voice, gazing down at them huddled together at the foot of the steps.
Robert was usually the family spokesman, but his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth and it was Nan who replied, ‘Please, sir, four children and a dog.’
‘I have my eyesight,’ said the elderly gentleman, ‘and have already observed that there are four children and a dog, but may I be permitted to enquire what four children and a dog are doing on my lawn at this time of night?’
‘It’s where we’ve come to,’ said Nan.
‘That also I observe. But how did you come?’
Robert’s tongue came unstuck and he said, ‘Rob-Roy brought us, sir. Rob-Roy, my pony. He brought us in the trap.’
‘And where have you left this pony and trap?’
‘Rob-Roy is in the stable,’ said Robert, ‘and the trap in the yard.’
‘I also possess a pony and trap,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘My gardener drove to the town this afternoon to fetch my groceries and I am momentarily expecting his return. What do you suppose my own pony, Jason by name, will make of an intruder in his stable?’
Nan suddenly went very white and then all by herself she mounted the steps and came to the elderly gentleman. They were all brave children, but she was the bravest. She looked up at him where he stood, with his hands behind his back and legs wide apart, glaring down at her, and she said, ‘Rob-Roy isn’t really Robert’s pony. He only calls him that because he loves him so. Rob’s Roy. We’d walked a long way uphill and we were dreadfully tired, especially Betsy because she’s only six, and we saw the pony and trap outside an inn with a wheatsheaf painted on the board, and we got in and Rob-Roy, I mean Jason, brought us here.’ Then she went as red as she had been white, swallowed hard and whispered, ‘I’m afraid we’ve eaten all the groceries except half a pot of marmalade, the soap and eight tins of sardines.’
Her voice died away and she began to tremble, and to her horror she could feel a few hot tears trickling over her cheekbones and down in front of her ears, but she did not take her eyes from the elderly gentleman’s face or flinch when he shot out a large brown wrinkled hand, gripped her shoulder and swung her round so that the lamplight fell on her face. It fell on his face too and she ceased to be afraid. He was not exactly smiling, but there was a slight twitching at the corners of his grim mouth and the grip on her shoulder, though it hurt her, was reassuring. And then a very odd thing happened to her. From one moment to another she loved him.
‘Stealing eh?’ he said. ‘Were you running away, by any chance?’
Nan nodded.
‘From whom?’
‘Grandmama and Miss Bolt.’
‘Merciful heavens!’ he ejaculated. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Anna Linnet,’ said Nan.
The elderly gentleman gave a deep groan and looked down at the others. ‘You three down there. Come up. Come in. Bring the dog. In for a penny, in for a pound. If there is anything I dislike more than a child it’s a dog. Merciful heavens! And I trusted never to set eyes on a child again.’
He made a despairing gesture and led the way into his library. The children followed in single file, Absolom bringing up the rear with his tail between his legs. Then he caught sight of the owl, barked joyously and leapt up into the elderly gentleman’s chair. The owl took off and floated to the top of a large oil painting of some ruins and a thunderstorm that hung over the fireplace. Then he opened his beak, said, ‘Hick’, and a pellet shaped like a plum-stone shot out of it and hit Absolom on the nose. Glancing off on to the carpet, the pellet broke open and disintegrated into a collection of small beaks and claws and a threepenny bit. ‘Do not do that again,’ said the elderly gentleman to Absolom. ‘If Hector is annoyed he shoots out undigested matter in this unpleasant fashion. You, boy, what’s your name? Speak up. What? Timothy? Shovel up the beaks and claws and put them in the fire. You may keep the threepenny bit. Sit down. Do not touch my books or my papers. In twenty minutes I shall for my sins be with you again. Merciful heavens, here’s a kettle of fish!’
He left the room, banging the door behind him. They heard his footsteps in the hall and another door banged.
‘Is he quite right inside his head?’ asked Robert hoarsely.
‘Quite right,’ said Nan. ‘Let’s sit down, like he told us, and get warm.’
They sat in front of the fire and looked about them. It was a big room, but the bookcases that lined the walls could not hold the number of books the elderly gentleman possessed and they had overflowed on to the chairs and the floor. Where the carpet could be seen it was deep crimson, and so were the velvet curtains at the three long windows, but they were faded and torn and the deep leather armchairs had the stuffing bursting out of them. The mantelpiece was comfortably littered with pipes and tobacco jars, and the grandfather clock and the wonderful globe of the world were as kindly presences in the room as the glowing fire. Suddenly they felt befriended, in spite of Hector’s outraged gaze. It was a friendly room, smelling of leather and tobacco and burning logs and home. Absolom expressed the feelings of them all when he flopped down on the woolly hearthrug in front of the fire, laid his chin on his extended paws, sighed twice and fell asleep. Betsy fell asleep too, in Nan’s arms in the deepest armchair, and the boys sat on the rug by Absolom and fed the fire with fircones from a basket that stood on the hearth. The grandfather clock ticked gently and Hector’s expression slowly changed from outrage to resignation.
And then suddenly their drowsy peace was shattered by the sound of a quickly trotting horse coming from the direction of the village. The rider came past the house, slowing down where the hill was steep, crossed the bridge at the bottom and then urged his horse to a canter up the long slope beyond. The sound of the hooves died away in the distance and the children looked at each other in dismay. There were no telephones in those days, and only rich people had cars, so urgent messages were often carried on horseback.
‘Has he sent a message to Grandmama?’ gasped Timothy.
‘How could he?’ asked Nan. ‘He doesn’t know where she lives.’
‘Don’t be such a fool, Tim,’ said Robert.
