Matty Doolin (14 page)

In every direction he looked, except backward, the land seemed to rise higher, and yet higher. He had half expected to look down into some kind of valley similar to that which he had seen when he had gone over the mountain with Mr Walsh on the other side of the farm. He couldn’t imagine how all this terrifying rough cragland managed to hide behind the hump. He viewed the comparatively small hill now as a kind of ordinary dream leading into a nightmare. Where would he start looking from here?

‘Jessica! Jessica!’ He was calling again loudly, his fear giving strength to his voice. He began to move forward slowly. He mustn’t get lost up here, and he must get back down to the farm the way he came. If he lost his way that would make three of them.

‘Jessica! Jessica! Oo! Oo! Jessica!’

It was as if the giant that controlled the curtains had heard his call and become angry at the disturbance, for as quickly as if created by a magician’s wand there came rolling towards him a great bank of mist, and he stood stiff, almost petrified, as it enfolded him. This was different mist from that which had enveloped him and the farm earlier; it was heavy, and clinging, and cold, and it brought him hunched down onto the rock.

Eeh! He’d have to get out of this, he’d have to. He couldn’t just sit there, he’d go crackers. He knew which way he had come; it wasn’t very far to the path that led down the hump. Once on that, he would be all right. He turned in what he imagined was the right direction, and, making things doubly safe, went on his hands and knees.

A few minutes later he stopped. His whole body was trembling, his knees, his teeth, even his hands. He had missed it. It wasn’t this far away; he was sure it wasn’t. Now fear urged him on until quite suddenly he felt the ground slope away, and under his hands and knees was the path. He knew it was the path; he could feel it was the path. Going backwards now he crawled slowly and carefully along its winding trail. Down and down he went, his heart much lighter now. He should be near the bottom. It didn’t seem half as steep going down as it did coming up.

The mist, playing its pranks again, lifted and revealed in one frightening moment why the path didn’t appear so steep; he just wasn’t on a path at all!

Quickly he rose to his feet and the mist as quickly rolled away from him as if to show him his new surroundings. He was on the side of a rock and all round rose other rocks. He bit on his lip to stop its trembling; and his legs became so weak he went to sit down but checked himself. He must keep moving; as long as he could see where he was going, he must keep moving.

And he kept moving, but with each step the panic seemed to rise in him. He rounded a bend in the rocks and came to a dead stop, for there only a few feet away the rock dropped almost vertically.

With his back pressed tight against the wall of rock he put his hand up and wiped his face. The moisture on it was not only from the mist but from the sweat of fear that was oozing from him.

More to comfort himself with the sound of his voice than for any other reason, he put his hands to his trembling lips and called Jessica’s name again. And this time he received an answer. It came in an echo from the rocks that formed an amphitheatre below him. It was a dim, faraway echo, and had that eerie sound. Then he gulped in his throat and checked his breathing to listen to another sound on the tail of the echo, a sound that was not a reproduction of any he had made. It came as a whimper; then as a faint bark; then a whimper again.

Betsy! Betsy was somewhere near. He almost jumped forward in his excitement, only in time did he remember the big drop in front of him.

Hands to mouth again, he called, ‘Jessica! Jessica!’ And when the echo died away, there it was again: two barks this time and no whimper, and it came from straight on ahead, not down below in the swirling mist, or behind him, but straight on.

He could see only a few yards ahead now, and, cautiously feeling his way with both feet and hands, he moved along the rock wall, stopping at intervals to call, and hearing clearer and clearer Betsy’s answering bark.

He was shivering now with relief when from just beyond the curtain of mist Betsy barked again.

He never knew what it was that forced him to his knees and prompted caution at this point. Whether it was some message he picked up from the tone of the dog’s bark, or a natural protective instinct, but he had crawled no more than a couple of yards when he saw he was on the edge of another drop. Yet it was from seeming space that Betsy’s whine now came to him.

Lying flat on his stomach he wriggled forward, and when he put his head over the edge of the cliff he could have laughed with relief if the circumstances hadn’t been so terrifying, and the plight of Betsy so pitiful, for there, not a foot below him, she lay, her eyes looking up into his.

He remained perfectly still staring down at the dog, and she remained still while looking up at him, for she was fully aware that one false move and she would topple from the narrow ledge on which she lay into the void below.

Quickly Matty’s eyes passed over her. He had been puzzled at first why she hadn’t jumped the short distance from the ledge onto the rock again. And then he saw the reason for her stillness. Betsy was lying on the narrowest edge of the ledge. To the right of her it widened out to a distance of about four feet, but the whole ledge, he saw immediately, was pitted with small crevices and loose boulders. These were the reasons for Betsy’s stillness, for one of her back paws was in a small crevice, and pinning it there was the edge of a boulder. Matty saw that her leg was torn and bleeding where she had bitten at it, trying to free it.

‘Quiet! Quiet!’ His own voice demonstrated the word, and as he put his hands down to her he repeated, ‘Quiet, Betsy. Quiet.’

One hand firmly on her neck, he held her still while he eased up the boulder from her leg, and when he pushed it backwards it rolled and went hurtling over the edge into the mist, and the sound of it bouncing from rock to rock brought a sickness to his stomach.

His voice now firmer still, he warned her, ‘Quiet! Quiet!’ Then simultaneously gripping her collar and the back of her haunches, he levered her onto her three feet; then with a final pull she was beside him.

‘Aw, Betsy. Betsy. You’re all right. You’re all right.’ He was almost crying with his relief, and the dog, after licking his face twice, dropped slowly down by his side and, turning her head to her damaged paw, began to lick that.

Matty now wiped the mist and sweat from his eyes and looked more closely at the dog’s foot. And as he did so he groaned for besides the rent in the flesh it was plain, even to his inexperienced eye, that the ankle bone was broken.

‘Aw, Betsy, Betsy.’ He fondled her head. ‘Now we’re in a worse state than ever.’ He pressed her close to his side and she seemed content to lie there for a few minutes. Then painfully she struggled to her feet and, after limping on her three paws, she stopped and turned her head towards him, the look in her eyes saying plainly, ‘Come on.’ And obediently he followed her.

The dog’s progress was excruciatingly slow and painful, and every step hurt Matty. That the dog obviously knew where she was going was evident, because, the mist clearing again, he saw before him the clear imprint of two paths, one branching off to the right round the side of the mountain, the other going steeply downwards. It was this latter path that Betsy took, and caused Matty to protest, ‘Stay, girl. Stay.’ Betsy stopped, but only long enough to look up at him before moving painfully and cautiously on again.

The mist was being aided now by a wind, a wet wind, that bore on it a drizzle that was even colder than the mist itself, and Matty shivered as he stood watching Betsy sniffing at a point on a grassy slope to the side of the rough path where flowers were growing in the rocks. Dropping on to his hunkers, he said, ‘Where is she? Where’s Jessica? Find Jessica.’ At this, Betsy sniffed wildly about her. It was evident Jessica had been here. This was where the dog thought she would find her, among these flowers.

It was with little hope of an answer that Matty once again put his hands to his mouth and called, ‘Jessica! Jessica! Oo! Oo! Jessica!’ And when now faintly there came back to him a reply of ‘Oo! Oo!’ he patted the dog’s head excitedly and cried, ‘That’s her. That’s her, Betsy. Find her!’

Obediently, Betsy went on, but her walk was even slower for she was obviously in great pain. At intervals Matty would stop and call, and each time Jessica’s answer came nearer. And then he saw her. Through the drizzling rain he caught a glimpse of her figure. She seemed to be standing in the air above his head. The next minute she came slithering and calling down the rocks towards him.

‘Oh, Matty. Matty.’ She grabbed at his arm with one hand while patting the dog with the other. Then, her wild movements stopping abruptly, she cried, ‘What’s the matter with her? What happened to her foot?’

‘Don’t touch it.’ Matty looked down on her where she was kneeling by the dog. ‘She’s broken her paw.’

‘Oh, no. No. Oh, Betsy, I’m sorry. I am, I am.’

‘Well, it wasn’t your fault.’ He drew his hand over the top of his head, pressing the water off his hair. He was actually smiling, so great was his relief. The fact that they had to get home didn’t bother him at this point – he had found her, and the dog.

‘I’m sorry, Matty.’ She was standing gazing up at him, as she apologised. And he said airily, ‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. You couldn’t help it; anybody would get lost in this.’

‘I could help it, I could.’ As she pushed the wet hair out of her eyes he said briskly, ‘Well, we won’t go into that now; we’ll have to get back. Do you know the road?’

She peered up at him, then said slowly and flatly, ‘If I knew the road, I wouldn’t be here, would I?’

He felt as if he had received a slap, and he told himself she was quite right; if she knew the road she wouldn’t be here. ‘But I thought you knew every inch of the hump,’ he said quietly.

‘But this isn’t the hump; we’re miles off the hump.’

‘Miles!’ His lips left his teeth bare.

‘Yes, and it’s my fault.’ Her voice was trembling and he said again, ‘Well, we won’t go into it now. We’d better follow Betsy, and she’ll take us home.’

They both turned their attention to the dog now and were equally surprised to see that she had moved a few yards from them and was lying down under the shelter of an overhanging jut of rock.

‘She’s bad.’ Jessica was kneeling beside her again. ‘She wouldn’t be like this unless she was really bad.’

Betsy lay still, her head on the ground, only her eyes moving as she looked up at them.

‘She can’t go on, that’s plain.’ Matty, also kneeling beside the dog, lifted her head onto his knee. Then he looked at Jessica and asked, ‘Have you no idea of the way back?’

‘Not unless it clears up. If I got on a high enough rock and could see the hump . . . Oh, I’m sorry.’ She dropped her chin onto her breast. ‘It’s my fault. It’s all my fault we’re in this mess.’

‘Don’t keep on sayin’ that. You got lost and that’s that.’

‘I wasn’t lost, not at first, not when you first started to call.’

He raised his eyes from the dog, and his voice was gruff as he asked her, ‘You heard me call?’

He watched her nod her head. ‘You mean to say you heard me call and you wouldn’t come, or answer? Why?’

It was some seconds before she said, ‘I wanted you to come up the hump, and then I was going to jump out on you and give you a fright.’

‘Oh.’ He sounded as if he understood, but he didn’t, not until she added, ‘You wouldn’t talk and . . . and it gets so lonely in the holidays.’ Her head sunk lower, and Matty hardly knew where to look when he heard her crying.

‘Aw now, now. Give over. Come on, there’s nothing to cry about.’ His finger tentatively touched her shoulder. ‘I’m always grumpy, that’s me.’ He gave a shaky laugh. ‘The lads told you, didn’t they? That’s me, I don’t mean anything.’ He became aware as he talked that her dress was wet and he exclaimed quickly, ‘Why, you’re soaked to the skin. I didn’t realise you’d got no coat on . . . Here.’

As he pulled off his mack she protested, ‘No, no. You keep dry; I’m wet already, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Do what you’re told for once.’ He thrust the coat roughly around her, then said, ‘Look. Let’s do what Betsy’s doing, keep close to the rock. We’ll escape a little wet that way. Come on.’ He pulled her towards the dog, and they sat, one on each side of her, with their backs to the rock, and as they stared into the driving rain a silence fell upon them, until Matty said, in a small voice, ‘How long do these storms last?’

‘You never can tell.’

‘No?’

‘If it doesn’t clear before dark, it could go on all night.’ Her voice was so low he barely caught her words, and he didn’t repeat, ‘All night?’ but the words galloped through his mind and brought the fear galloping back into his body. All night! Up here like this. He was wet to the skin now, and cold, and it wasn’t as cold as it would be in the night . . . But they wouldn’t be here all night. Folk would come searching for them, Mr Walsh and the other farmers. Yet would they, unless Mrs Walsh came back?

As he heard a shuddering sob coming from Jessica, he forgot his own fear for a moment, and said, ‘Now, now. It’ll be all right. You’ll see. This can’t keep up for very long anyway, it’s too heavy, and then we’ll make our way down, careful like.’

‘Father will be mad at me. He’s always told me not to go beyond . . . beyond the shelf.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s the level piece on top of the hump.’

‘Well.’ He tried to make his voice light. ‘Why didn’t you wait for me there to give me a fright?’

‘I . . . I don’t know.’ She was stammering now. ‘I . . . I just thought, I would run a little way over the fells, and get on some higher place and watch you when you reached the top of the hump. I thought when you didn’t keep calling you were up here coming. And then the mist came down – it had been clear up here – and when I tried to find the path again I couldn’t. And then I realised I wasn’t where I thought I was and I got frightened and began to scramble about. I knew I was lost and when the mist cleared I kept running and running. I . . . I’ve never been this way. Father says it’s the worst part of the fells; it’s like a maze. They call it the Bowl; the Devil’s Bowl. Oh, he’ll be mad at me and Mother’ll be so worried.’

‘Now, now. You won’t make it any better cryin’, will you?’ He felt her shivering and asked, ‘Are you still cold?’

‘Y-e-s, but not so bad. You must be frozen. I feel awful having your coat. Look; take half of it. We’ll put it in front of us.’

‘You leave it alone.’ Reaching out, he stopped her hand unbuttoning the coat. ‘Curl your legs underneath you. Better still, I’ll change places and sit yon side of you, and you move up gently into Betsy’s back. She’ll like that. It’ll sort of comfort her, and you’ll keep each other warm.’