The Borrowers Afield (13 page)

Chapter Eighteen

"Hidden troubles disquiet most."
Gun Powder Plot, 1605

[Extract from Arrietty's Diary and
Proverb Book, November 5th]

T
HEY CROUCHED
there listening; holding their breaths as Mild Eye unlatched the door, re-latched it, and clumped off down the steps.

There was a pause.

"We're alone now," remarked Homily at last in her ordinary speaking voice, "I mean, we could get out, I shouldn't wonder, if it weren't for that cat."

"Hush—" whispered Pod: he had heard the woman shoot some mocking question at Mild Eye and, at Mild Eye's mumbled reply, the woman had laughed her laugh. Arrietty, too, was listening.

"
He
knows we're here," she whispered, "but
she
won't believe him..."

"And that cat'll know we're here, too, soon enough," replied Pod.

Arrietty shivered: the cat, she realized, must have been asleep on the bed, while she, Arrietty, had been standing alone by the door.

Pod was silent awhile, thinking deeply. "Yes," he said at last, "it's a rum go: he must have come round at dusk last night, seeing after his snares ... and there he finds his lost boot in our hollow."

"We should have pulled down the screen," whispered Arrietty.

"We should that," agreed Pod.

"We didn't even lace up the boot," went on Arrietty.

"Yes," said Pod and sighed. "A bottle at night and you're out like light. That how it goes?" he asked.

"More or less," agreed Arrietty in a whisper.

They sat waist-high in dusty trails of fluff. "Disgusting," remarked Homily, suppressing a sneeze. "If I'd built this caravan," she grumbled, "I'd have set the bunk in flush with the floor."

"Then thank goodness you didn't build it," remarked Pod, as a whiskered shadow appeared between them and the light: the cat had seen them at last.

"Don't panic," he went on calmly as Homily gave a gasp. "This bunk's too low; we're all right here."

"Oh, my goodness," whispered Homily, as she saw a luminous eye. Pod squeezed her hand to silence her.

The cat, having sniffed its way along the length of the opening, lay down suddenly on its side and ogled them through the gap: quite friendly, it looked, and a little coy: as though coaxing them out to play.

"They don't
know
" whispered Homily then, referring to cats in general.

"You keep still," whispered Pod.

For a long time nothing much happened: the shaft of sunshine moved slowly across the worn carpet and the cat, motionless, seemed to doze.

"Well," whispered Homily, after a while, "in a way, it's kind of nice to be indoors."

Once the woman came in and fumbled in the dresser for a wooden spoon and took away the kettle; they heard her swearing as she tended the outdoor fire and once a gust of acrid smoke blew in through the doorway, making Arrietty cough. The cat woke up at that and cocked an eye at them.

Toward mid-day, they smelt a savory smell—the gamey smell of stew: it would drift toward them as the wind veered and then, tormentingly, would drift away.

Arrietty felt her mouth water.

"
Oh,
I'm hungry..." she sighed.

"I'm thirsty," said Homily.

"I'm both," said Pod. "Now be quiet, the two of you," he told them. "Shut your eyes and think of something else."

"Whenever I shut my eyes," protested Homily, "I see a nice hot thimbleful of tea, or I think of that teapot we had back home: that oak-apple teapot, with a quill spout."

"Well, think of it," said Pod, "no harm in that, if it does you good—"

The man came back at last. He unlatched the door and threw a couple of snared rabbits down on the carpet. He and the woman ate their meal on the steps of the caravan, using the floor as a table.

At this point the smell of food became unbearable: it drew the three borrowers out of the shadows to the very edge of their shelter: the tin plates, filled with savory stew, were at eye level; they had a splendid view of the floury potatoes, and the richly running gravy. "Oh, my..." muttered Homily unhappily, "pheasant—and what a way to eat it!"

Once Mild Eye threw a morsel on the carpet. Enviously they watched the cat pounce and leisurely fall to, crunching up the bones like the hunter it was. "Oh, my..." muttered Homily again, "those teeth!"

At length Mild Eye pushed aside his plate. The cat stared with interest at the pile of chewed bones to which here and there clung slivers of tender meat. Homily stared too: the plate was almost in range. "Dare you, Pod?" she whispered.

"No," said Pod—so loudly and firmly that the cat turned round and looked at him; gaze met gaze with curious mutual defiance; the cat's tail began slowly to swish from aide to side.

"Come on," gasped Pod, as the cat crouched, and all three dodged back into the shadows in the split half-second before the pounce.

Mild Eye turned quickly. Staring, he called to the woman, pointing toward the bunk, and both man and woman stooped their heads to floor-level, gazing across the carpet ... and gazing, it seemed to Arrietty, crouched with her parents against the back wall of the caravan, right into their faces. It seemed impossible that they could not be seen: but—"It's all right," Pod told them, speaking with still lips in the lightest of whispers, "don't panic—just you keep still."

There was silence: even the woman now seemed uneasy—the cat, padding and peering, back and forth along the length of the locker, had aroused her curiosity. "Don't you move," breathed Pod again.

A sudden shadow fell across the patch of sunlight on the carpet: a third figure, Arrietty noted with surprise, loomed up behind the crouching gypsies in the doorway: someone less tall than Mild Eye. Arrietty, rigid between her parents, saw three buttons of a stained corduroy waistcoat and, as its wearer stooped, she saw a young face, and a tow-colored head of hair. "What's up?" asked a voice which had a crack in it.

Arrietty saw Mild Eye's expression change: it became all at once, sulky and suspicious. He turned slowly and faced the speaker but before he did so, he slid his right hand inconspicuously across the floor of the caravan, pushing the two dead rabbits out of sight.

"What's up, Mild Eye?" asked the boy again. "Looks like you'm seeing ghosties."

Mild Eye shrugged his great shoulders. "Maybe I am," he said.

The boy stooped again, staring along the floor and Arrietty could see that, under one arm, he carried a gun. "Wouldn't be a ferret by any chance?" he asked slyly.

The woman laughed then. "A ferret!" she exclaimed and laughed again. "You're the one for ferrets...." Pulling her shawl more tightly about her, she moved away toward the fire. "You think the cat act
kind
like that for a ferret?"

The boy stared curiously past the cat across the floor, screwing his eyelids to see beyond the pacing cat and into the shadows. "The cat b'ain't acting so kind," he remarked thoughtfully.

"A couple of midgets he's got in there," the woman told him. "Dressed up to kill—or so he says," and she went off again into screams of jeering laughter.

The boy did not laugh; his expression did not change: calmly he stared at the crack below the bunk. "Dressed up to kill..." he repeated and, after a moment, he added, "Only two?"

"How many do you want?" asked the woman, "half a dozen? A couple's enough, ain't it?"

"What do you reckon to do with them?" asked the boy.

"Do with them?" repeated the woman, staring stupidly.

"I mean, when you catch them?"

The woman gave him a curious look, as though doubting his reason. "But there ain't nothing there," she told him.

"But you just said—"

The woman laughed, half angry, half bewildered. "Mild Eye sees 'em—not me. Or so he makes out! There ain't nothing there, I tell you..."

"I seen 'em all right," said Mild Eye; he stretched his fist finger and thumb, "this high, I'd say—a bit of a woman, it looked like, and a bit of a man."

"Mind if I look?" asked the boy, his foot on the steps. He laid down his gun and Arrietty, watching, saw him put his hand in his pocket; there was a stealthiness about his movement which drove the blood from her heart. "Oh," she gasped and grabbed her father's sleeve.

"What is it?" breathed Pod, leaning toward her.

"His pocket—" stammered Arrietty, "something alive in his pocket!"

"A ferret," cried Homily, forgetting to whisper. "We're finished."

"Hush—" implored Pod: the boy had heard something; he had seated himself on the top step and was now leaning forward gazing toward them across the strip of faded carpet. At Homily's exclamation, Pod had seen his eyes widen, his face become alert.

"What's the good of whispering?" complained Homily, lowering her voice all the same. "We're for it now. Wouldn't matter if we sang..."

"Hush—" said Pod again.

"How would you think to get 'em out?" the boy was asking, his eyes on the gap; his right hand, Arrietty saw, still feeling in his pocket.

"Easy," explained Mild Eye, "empty the locker and take up them boards underneath."

"You see?" whispered Homily, almost in triumph. "It doesn't matter what we do now!"

Pod gave up. "Then sing," he suggested wearily.

"Nailed down, them boards are, aren't they?" asked the boy.

"No," said Mild Eye. "I've had 'em out after rats; they comes out in a piece."

The boy, his head lowered, was staring into the gap: Arrietty from where she crouched was looking straight into his eyes: they were thoughtful eyes, bland and blue.

"Say you catch them," the boy went on, "what then?"

"What then?" repeated Mild Eye, puzzled.

"What do you want to do with 'em?"

"Do with 'em? Cage 'em up. What else?"

"Cage 'em up in what?"

"In that." Mild Eye touched the bird cage, which swung slightly. "What else?"

("And feed us on groundsel, I shouldn't wonder," muttered Homily below her breath.)

"You want to keep 'em?" asked the boy, his eyes on the shadowed gap.

"Keep 'em, naow! Sell 'em!" exclaimed Mild Eye. "Fetch a pretty penny, that lot would—cage and all complete."

("Oh, my goodness," whimpered Homily.

"Quiet," breathed Pod, "better the cage than the ferret."

"No," thought Arrietty, "better the ferret.")

"What would you feed 'em on?" the boy was asking; he seemed to be playing for time.

Mild Eye laughed indulgently. "Anything. Bits o' leftovers..."

("You hear that?" whispered Homily, very angry.

"Well, today it was pheasant," Pod reminded her; but he was glad she was angry: anger made her brave.)

Mild Eye had climbed right in, now—blotting out the sunshine. "Move over," he said to the boy, "we got to get at the locker."

The boy shifted, a token shift. "What about the cat?" he said.

"That's right," agreed Mild Eye, "better have the cat out. Come on, Tiger—"

But the cat, it seemed, was as stubborn as the boy and shared his interest in borrowers; evading Mild Eye's hand, it sprang away to the bed and (Arrietty gathered from a slight thud immediately above their heads) from the end of the bed to the locker. Mild Eye came after it: they could see his great feet close against the gap—their own dear boot was there just beside them, with the patch which Pod had sewn! It seemed incredible to see it worn, and by such a hostile foot.

"Better cart it out to the missus," suggested the boy, as Mild Eye grabbed the cat, "if it b'ain't held onto it'll only jump back in."

("Don't you dare—" moaned Homily, just below her breath.

Pod looked amazed. "Who are you talking to?" he asked in a whisper.

"Him—Mild Eye: the minute he leaves this caravan that boy'll be after us with the ferret."

"Now, see here—" began Pod.

"You mark my words," went on Homily in a panic-stricken whisper. "I know who he is, now. It's all come back to me: young Tom Goodenough. I heard speak of that one many a time back home under the kitchen. And I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't him we saw at the window—that day we made off, remember? Proper devil, he's reckoned to be with that ferret—"