Brother Dusty-Feet (11 page)

They cut rehearsals that evening, and spent the time searching again over the country they had already searched in the morning, and next day they returned to the search yet again, but they had no better fortune than before.

It was Christmas Eve, and everybody seemed blithe and happy, hurrying here and there about their preparations for tomorrow’s merry-makings. The wind had blown the last of the clouds away, and the weather had turned clear and frosty, and all the narrow streets of Canterbury were full of people carrying home great bundles of holly and ivy, bays and mistletoe and rosemary for the decking of their houses. But the little band of Players, grimly searching ditch and meadow and spinney which they had
searched so many times before, did not feel Christmassy in the least, for they had all grown very fond of Argos.

Hugh would not go with anyone, not even with Jonathan; he went alone, searching in the same places over and over again, with his face very white and his eyes very black and his curly mouth straight and hard: calling and calling. But he didn’t find Argos.

At last they had to give up and go trapesing back to the Fountain in a weary, dispirited little bunch. They were going to present the Shepherds’ Play that evening, and they must get the costumes ready and see to the decking of the stage, and the lighting. Usually they acted their plays in the afternoons, as all Strolling Companies did, for it was not easy to light an open-air stage after dark. But on Christmas Eve they put on their play after star-time, and lit the stage as best they could with borrowed stable lanterns, because it was more festive to do it that way. So they collected up all the lanterns the inn would lend them, and there was a great cleaning of horn panes and sticking in of new candles, and a great decking of the stage with branches of evergreens, and a tremendous hurrying to and fro and up and down. It should all have been most gloriously exciting, but none of them had much heart for it, and poor Hugh was so desperately miserable that it screwed up his inside into aching knots and made him feel sick.

Argos was to have been a shepherd’s dog in the play. They had spent hours teaching him his part, and he had learned it beautifully. And now they
would have to do without him; and Hugh felt as though his heart would break.

At last everything was ready, and the bells of the Cathedral were ringing high overhead, calling people to the Christmas Eve service. Then the Players washed their faces at the horse-trough, and brushed themselves down and stuck sprigs of rosemary into their caps or the breasts of their jerkins, because they were going to church.

‘You know,’ said Master Pennifeather, scrubbing his face dry, ‘it might be that the Egyptians have – er – acquired our Argos. He’s a handsome brute.’

Jonathan was taking great care with his sprig of rosemary. ‘Tomorrow I’ll go down to the Fighting Cocks Tavern,’ he said. ‘There’s generally an Egyptian fiddler among the folks there; if they’ve taken him we’ll get him back all right.’

‘It’s a trap I’m afraid of,’ said Jasper Nye, gazing mournfully at his worn-out scarlet stockings.

‘Be quiet, you idiot,’ whispered Jonathan; and Nicky deliberately strolled across and thumped him on the head, just to show that he agreed with Jonathan.

‘Yow!’ yelped Japser, rubbing the place. ‘No need t’do that. I’m sorry. I jus’ didn’t think.’

‘You can’t; you never do. You’re just a pair of lovely legs and nothing to think
with
. It’s not your fault,’ Nicky told him kindly.

But Master Pennifeather said, ‘Peace, my lords! It’s time we were away to church.’

And Hugh, who had been listening with his face half washed all this while, said wretchedly, ‘I’d rather stay behind. Argos might come back and find us all gone.’

‘The stable-men will hold on to him if he does,’ Master Pennifeather told him very firmly. ‘No member of my Company stays away from church on Christmas Eve, Dusty, nor does he take with him as much dirt on his – er – expressive countenance as you seem to have on yours. So you’d best finish washing it.’

So Hugh sighed, and finished washing his face; and then they all set out.

Once in the street, they joined the gay crowds all answering the call of the bells, and went with them, up Mercery Lane and past the Buttermarket to the lovely Christchurch Gate of the Cathedral. The smooth grass of the Close was still grey with hoarfrost in the shadows, but sparkling gold where the winter sunshine fell, and the tall grey Cathedral towers soared up and up into the blue sky; and the music of the bells was so glorious and so loud that the bell-tower and the naked elm trees in the Close and carved kings and saints above the west door all seemed to dance to it.

It did not seem as though anything unhappy could happen at such a lovely time, when it was Christmas Eve and all the bells of Canterbury were pealing and rocking for joy in their high towers, and the good people of the city were hurrying to church in their gayest clothes and their Christmas humours. And surely, Hugh thought as he scurried along, Argos would be all right – somehow – because of Christmas time.

The crowd was passing in through the great west door, like a procession in a fairy tale, all in their gayest doublets and farthingales of blue and rose and saffron, and carrying little tight nosegays of herbs;
merchants and craftsmen and gentlemen, all with their wives and sons and daughters; prentice lads with sprigs of bay in their bonnets, and gay girls holding up their pretty kirtles to keep them clear of the mud; here and there a great lady with jewels on her fingers, and small, fat children being towed along faster than they wanted to go, and old creeping folk from the almshouses. On they went, and the Players with them, out of the winter sunshine into the dimness of the Cathedral, where the columns soared up and up, spreading into foamy curves and traceries high overhead, and the candles made a golden blur a long way off, and the stained windows glowed daffodil and azure and vermilion through the shadows.

The Players slipped into a humble place near the door, and knelt down. There were no pews or chairs in churches in those days, only a few benches for the most important people, and for the humble folk just hard stone floor.

People turned their heads to look at the six kneeling there in a row, for they knew them for the Players from the Fountain; and some people looked surprised to see them there, and some people drew aside from them as though they were afraid they might be catching, and some people looked as though they were thinking ‘Rogues and vagabonds!’ and wondering why the official dog-whipper did not come and get rid of them. But there were others who smiled at them nicely, and they were the only ones worth bothering about, after all. And one lady, in a mantle worked all over with little flowers like a summer meadow, turned out of her way and stooped down to them saying, ‘You are the Players who have
lost a dog, aren’t you? I do hope you find him.’ Then she went on towards the golden candle-glow at the east end.

It was a glorious smell of rabbits that made Argos slip through the hedge while everybody was busy getting the tilt-cart unbogged. He knew that he ought to ignore it and stay where he was, but it was such a beautiful smell. It whispered and pleaded in his twitching nose, and would not be ignored, though he did try. So he gave up trying, and slipped away like a black-and-amber shadow, through the hedge and across the meadow beyond.

The smells lay thick and low along the wet grass, crossing and re-crossing each other; all kinds of most exciting smells, and Argos dashed joyously along, following his nose. He did once hear Hugh calling him, but he was thinking so hard with his nose that he did not really notice what went into his ears. All the evening he hunted, following first one smell and then another, until the rising wind thinned them out and blew them away, and he remembered suddenly that he was being wicked.

The best thing, he thought, would be to find Hugh and the others as quickly as possible, and be very patient. So he set off towards the road where he had left them.

Then it happened! One moment he was loping along very comfortably through the thick undergrowth of a little wood, and the next, something shifted in the dead fern, there was a clash and a jangle, and two rows of rusty iron teeth were fixed in his fore-paw, bringing him down with a crash. He let out a shrill yelp of pain, but it was all so sudden
that just for a moment he was more surprised than frightened. Then he found that he was held fast. He dragged at the cruel trap until the hot agony ran right up to his shoulder, but he could not get free. He began to gnaw and worry at the iron jaws, until he had broken a tooth and his mouth was bleeding almost as much as his wounded paw; but the thing remained as firm as ever. He never thought of barking for help; dogs in traps very seldom do; he just lay and bit and bit at the rusty iron, while the pain in his paw grew steadily worse.

All night he lay there, shivering in the bitter wind, and sometimes whimpering a little for Hugh to come and take him out of the dreadful thing that would not let go his paw. But the long night wore away, and nobody came; it was not very likely that anybody would, for that trap had been set way back in the autumn by a man who had afterwards forgotten about it.

Morning came, grey and bitter and windy; and once Argos thought he heard Hugh calling, a long way off, up-wind, and he sprang up, not caring for the pain of his trapped paw, and barked and barked, quivering with joyful hope. But the wind blew his barking away, and the calling voice did not come any more; and Argos lay down and despaired, and then tore frantically at the trap, and then despaired again.

Night came once more, and the wind dropped to a frosty quiet, and the stars looked down through the twigs and the frost-rhymed brambles; the still cold crept into Argos so that the only bit of him that was not chilled through and through was his wounded paw, and that seemed to be on fire. The
stars grew pale, and it was another morning – the morning of Christmas Eve. But Argos did not know that; he did not know anything very clearly any more. There was a queer cold drowsiness in him, and he had given up biting at his trapped paw. He was not even thinking about Hugh now; he just lay still, his beautiful eyes filmed with pain and hopelessness.

And then he heard the piping!

Not a tune, just single notes and little pauses, and sudden falls like running water; very faint at first, but drawing nearer through the trees. The cold drowsiness left Argos, and he pricked up his ears. He remembered that piping. It meant warm sun and running on soft turf, and things to eat, and Hugh’s hands rubbing behind his ears, and the smell of the south wind. Nearer it came, lilting through the woodland ways, and Argos waited, quivering as he lay, for now help was surely coming. Then the piping stopped, and there was only the silence of the woods left; no one coming, after all. He could not believe it; he wagged his tail in little, fluttering, apologetic wags. ‘This is me! Me in a trap! You
can’t
be going to pass me by!’ And then, as the empty moments dragged on, he suddenly flung up his head and gave one long, despairing howl.

The piping did not come again, but light footsteps rustled through the dead fern, the bushes parted, and a slight figure in green and grey and russet rags stepped out from the shadows. Argos looked up with frantic pleading whines into the brown face with strange green eyes – green as spring itself – that bent over him.

‘These men and their traps!’ said the Piper, in a
voice that was angry and sorry at the same time; and then, to Argos, ‘Bide still, little brother,’ and Argos did as the Piper told him, and stopped whining, for he knew that there was nothing now to be afraid of

The Piper’s hands were busy with the trap, doing strange and complicated things to it; and a moment later there was a jangling snap, and the iron jaws opened – and Argos was free!

He crouched shivering against the Piper’s knees, rubbing his bleeding muzzle into the kind hands, while the Piper talked to him softly, calling him by name, for he remembered him, too, and gave him crusts of bread out of the rags at his breast, and examined his wounded paw.

‘I shall not bind it up,’ said the Piper. ‘Lick it yourself, brother; it will heal better so.’ Argos ate the crusts and looked up hopefully for more, but there weren’t any. ‘Nay, brother, I am no rich traveller to carry a banquet with me!’ said the Piper, and he held Argos’s damaged head between his hands and looked deep into his eyes. ‘What am I to do with you? Where are your friends, small brother – the brown boy and the rest? Why have they left you in a trap?’

Argos wagged his tail and whimpered, explaining how wicked he had been, going off rabbiting so that his friends had not known where to look for him, but that he knew where to find them, and now, thank you very much, he must go and join them. He licked the Piper’s hands for thank you and good-bye, begging him to understand that he could not stay just now; and the Piper understood, and sighed. ‘Go then, brother, go to the brown boy.’ And Argos went.

He went straight back across country, limping
along on three legs, to the place where the tilt-cart had been stuck in a rut when he first smelled rabbits. Of course it was not there now, and after he had run round in questing circles two or three times, and sat down to think about it, he realized that his friends had gone on. He remembered which way they had been travelling, and when he came to think of it, he seemed to remember the road too. He had been this way before, and there had been a juicy ham-bone at the end of it, and a kind petticoat person who had given it to him. So he set off down the road towards Canterbury, as fast as he could go on three paws, which was not very fast, because as well as the pain in his wounded paw he felt queer and swimmy, and his legs did not seem to quite belong to him. On and on he went, feeling very queer indeed, but with his heart high within him, because he was going to find Hugh, until he saw houses ahead of him and came to the dark tunnel of the City gates. Here and there people turned to look at him as he passed – a huge black-and-tawny dog with his coat matted and his muzzle all cut and torn, limping by on three legs. A red-faced man said, ‘Get away, you mangy brute!’ and aimed a kick at him, because he was the sort of person who likes to hurt anything that is hurt already; and a nice little bunchy pink girl said, ‘Oh, your
poor
face!’ and tried to fling her arms round his neck. But Argos avoided the man’s kick and the little girl’s hug, and went limping on his way, until he came to the archway of the inn where he had stopped before. He was so weak that he could hardly crawl along, but when he saw the archway his tail went up tod his head went up, and he pattered in through it quite jauntily, because he had got to the
right place, and any moment now there would be friends all round him, and Hugh to love him and make his paw well again; and he would never hunt rabbits any more. He pattered across the courtyard, looking round for his friends, but they were not there, and though there was something there that looked like the stage, it was all hung round with evergreens, so that it smelled quite different from the stage he knew, and he could not be sure of it. He ran whining to the half-door of the stable where they had all slept last time and sniffed along the crack, but the smell inside was the smell of a strange horse, not his own dear Saffronilla. And the black certainty dawned upon Argos that they were not there! He had come all that way to look for them, and been so sure that they would be there, waiting to take him back and love him; but they had gone on and left him behind, and he was alone, quite alone, in the black, howling world!