The Little White Horse (27 page)

But she was wrong, it wasn’t one of the Men from the Dark Woods who was moving out from the shadows
beside the silver shield of the lily pond, it was a shaggy four-footed creature who stalked slowly across the garden and came beneath the window and stood there under the cedar-tree and looked up at her . . . It was Wrolf.

She leaned out of the window and spoke to him. ‘Yes, I’ll do it, Wrolf,’ she said, ‘and I’ll do it now. Wait for me there.’

She dressed as quickly as she could, trying to make no sound, because she did not want to wake Wiggins. Dearly though she loved him, she felt that she would probably get along faster tonight if she had no companion except Wrolf. Wonderful Wrolf! She saw now why he and Periwinkle had left her and Robin to escape from the castle unaided. If they hadn’t, Monsieur Cocq de Noir would never have seen Black William’s hermitage.

Maria put on her riding-habit and then twisted her pearls once more round her neck. And then she stood and considered for a moment. She did not want to wake Miss Heliotrope as she went down the stairs, nor did she want Sir Benjamin to see her. He went to bed very late sometimes, and she did not know what the time was . . . It might be still not far past midnight . . . Could she climb down the cedar-tree? Surely she could. She had noticed her very first evening how easy it was to climb; much easier than the pine-tree. And Marmaduke climbed it.

Without giving herself time to feel afraid, she climbed out of her window and on to the great friendly branch beneath it, and so steadily down from branch to branch, until at last her groping right foot felt beneath it not hard wood but the soft strength of Wrolf’s back. With a sigh of content she settled herself there and took firm hold of his furry ruff.

‘I’m ready, Wrolf,’ she said.

He was off at once at a steady pace through the black-and-white magic of the moonlit formal garden. With his paw he lifted the latch of the gate that was never locked, and they were out in the park going in the direction of the pine-wood. Maria gazed in delight at the beauty of
the moonlit world. It was utterly quiet and still. Not a bird cried, not a leaf stirred.

Yet in spite of the peace of the night, when they had left the park behind them and passed into the pine-wood she suddenly felt desperately afraid, not of the Men from the Dark Woods but of the darkness. The moonlight could not penetrate the thick canopy of the pine branches overhead, and the inky blackness was like a pall muffling not only movement and sight but breath too. Wrolf was going very slowly now, and she could not imagine how he was to find the way. And she was afraid, too, that the unseen trees would strike at her. And not only the trees, but hobgoblins and sprites who perhaps lived in these woods and had the hours of darkness for their own.

She found herself riding with one arm raised to protect her face and her mouth suddenly dry with fear. Once, when an unseen twig plucked at her hair, she thought it was a hand that plucked, and when a bramble caught at her skirt she felt that hands were trying to pull her off Wrolf’s back, and she had hard work not to cry out. And then she had a feeling, just because she could not see him, that Wrolf had left her. It was not Wrolf she was riding, but some horrible nightmare beast who was carrying her deeper and deeper into fear. ‘If there’s never any light, I don’t think I can bear it,’ she thought. And then she said to herself that she
must
bear it. All things come to an end, even the night. Resolutely she lowered the arm she had raised to protect herself, straightened her shoulders and smiled into the darkness.

And then, almost as though her smile had been a flame that set a lantern shining, she found that she could see a little. She could distinguish the shaggy head of her mount, and he was her own dear Wrolf. And she could dimly see the shapes of the trees. And then the silvery light grew even stronger, and was in itself so lovely that she knew no evil thing could live within it. ‘It must be moonlight,’ she thought, but yet she knew that no moonlight could get through the canopy of darkness overhead, and that
not even the moon had quite so wonderful a radiance.

And then she saw him. A little white horse was cantering ahead of them, leading the way, and from his perfect milk-white body, as from a lamp, there shone the light. He was some way ahead of them, but for one flashing moment she saw him perfectly, clear-cut as a cameo against the darkness, and the proud curve of the neck, the flowing white mane and tail, the flash of the silver hoofs, were utterly strange and yet utterly familiar to her, as though eyes that had seen him often before looked through her eyes that had not until now looked steadily upon his beauty; she was not even surprised when he turned his lovely head a little and looked back at her and she saw a strange little silver horn sticking out of his forehead . . . Her little white horse was a unicorn.

After that they travelled with speed, Wrolf managing to keep the little white horse in sight. But they never caught up with him, and Maria didn’t again see him so clearly as she had in that first moment of vision; for the rest of the way he was just a steady shining, a moving shape of light whose outline was not again clear-cut against the darkness. Yet she was content with what she saw, content even when the trees thinned out and the darkness faded, and against the growing splendour of moonlight beyond the radiance of the little white horse slowly dimmed; content even when it vanished . . . For now she had seen him twice over, and the fact of him was a thing that she would not doubt again. And perhaps she would see him once more. She had a strong feeling that she was going to see him just once more.

And now she and Wrolf were out in the clearing looking up at the castle, and over the top of it the moon hung in the sky like a great shield and emblazoned upon it was the outline of a man bent nearly double by the burden that he carried on his back.

‘Poor man!’ said Maria. ‘It’s Monsieur Cocq de Noir up there in the moon, Wrolf, and he’s carrying his wickedness on his back like Christian in the
Pilgrim’s Progress
. He’ll be glad when he’s thrown it away.’

But this remark was only answered by Wrolf with a contemptuous snort as he crossed the clearing to the foot of the steps that had been cut in the rock. Here he stopped as a hint to Maria that they would find it easier to climb them if she were to get off his back. So she got off, and they began to climb, Maria going first and Wrolf following.

Up and up they went, and the way was so long and so steep that Maria felt as though they were climbing up to the man-in-the-moon himself, on an errand of mercy to relieve him of his burden. But they got to the top at last, and she stood breathless before the great doorway of the castle, with Wrolf beside her leaning his great shaggy head against her shoulder to give her courage. An iron bell hung above them, with a long rusty chain hanging from it, and she took hold of the chain and pulled with all her strength, and the bell tolled out once in the silence of the night as though it were one o’clock, and the beginning of a new day.

Almost at once the window over the great door swung open and a dark eagle face looked out. Monsieur Cocq de Noir regarded Maria and Wrolf in silence, but the lift of his eyebrows and the scornful twist of his lips were not encouraging. Maria did not say anything either, but she unwound the pearls from her neck and held them up in the moonlight for him to see, and then Monsieur Cocq de Noir’s eye flashed with sudden brilliance, and he shut the window and disappeared from sight. After a great grinding and creaking of bolts the heavy door swung open, and he stood there confronting them, a lantern held high over his head and his great black cock sitting on his shoulder.

‘You may come inside, Moon Maiden,’ he said. ‘But the tawny dog can stay outside.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Maria firmly. ‘Where I go my
dog goes too.’ And before Monsieur Cocq de Noir could say anything more she stepped inside, Wrolf keeping close beside her, and the door had clanged shut behind them. They were in a small square stone room with stone seats on each side of it, and a second door that Maria guessed led into the great hall. The room had no window and felt cold and clammy like a vault, and was lit only dimly by the lantern that Monsieur Cocq de Noir now set upon one of the seats. The black cock kept flapping his great wings in a frightening sort of way, and Maria would have felt very scared had it not been for Wrolf’s warm strong body pressed close to her. She flung her left arm round his neck, while with her right hand she held the pearls against her chest. Monsieur Cocq de Noir stretched out a strong lean brown hand, with curved fingers like an eagle’s claws, and would have snatched at the pearls, but Wrolf growled savagely and he withdrew his hand.

‘Monsieur,’ said Maria, ‘I have fulfilled both your conditions. When you followed me into the hollow beneath the pine-tree you saw that it was Black William’s hermitage, to which he withdrew when he was tired of the world. And when you went down the passage to the cave below, you saw the boat in which he sailed away into the sunset . . . So now you know that Sir Wrolf did not murder Black William . . . And, as you see, I have the pearls. I found them by accident inside the well at home. The Moon Maiden must have hidden them there the night she went away. I know that you are a man of your word, Monsieur. I know that now that I have kept my side of the bargain, you will keep yours.’

‘I do not consider that you have fulfilled my conditions,’ retorted Monsieur Cocq de Noir. ‘You have the pearls, certainly, but the knife and the drinking cup are merely evidence that the hollow beneath the pine-trees was at one time used by Black William, not that he withdrew there to live at the time when Sir Wrolf was suspected of causing his death. And as for your fairy-tale about his sailing away into the sunset in that boat in the lower cave
— well, Moon Maiden, how did the boat get back from the sunset into the cave again?’

It was the same question that Robin had asked, and Maria gave it the same answer. ‘The white horses who live in the sea brought it back to land,’ she said. ‘And one of them pulled it into the cave.’

The black cock crowed long and loud in derision, and Monsieur Cocq de Noir roared with laughter. ‘A fine story!’ he mocked. ‘Do you expect an intelligent man to believe that tale? Moon Maiden, you cannot throw moon dust in the eyes of a Cocq de Noir. Give me these pearls, that are my rightful property, and be off. I’ll not harm you this time, but if you ever come near my castle again, you’ll be clapped in that dungeon I spoke of.’

But Maria held her ground. ‘What I told you was no fairy-tale but the truth,’ she said steadily.

And once again the cock crowed and his master laughed. ‘Show me the white horse that pulled the boat into the cave after its journey back from the sunset and I’ll believe you,’ he said.

‘Very well,’ said Maria steadily. ‘Come with me into the pine-woods and I will show him to you.’

The moment she had spoken she was struck dumb with astonishment and fear. Astonishment because until the words were actually out of her mouth she had not known that she was saying them, and fear because she was afraid that what she had said might not prove true. She might take Monsieur Cocq de Noir out into the pine-woods and they would see nothing at all . . . Then Wrolf pressed himself reassuringly against her, and she knew that it was all right.

‘Shall we go now?’ she said to Monsieur Cocq de Noir, and letting go of Wrolf for a minute she wound the pearls round her neck again.

For answer he laughed once more, picked up his lantern and opened the door. ‘But mind you,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to spend the entire night wandering round and round in the woods chasing this fantasy of your
imagination. If I don’t clap my eyes on this white horse of yours by the time we reach the pine-tree I’ve won and you’ve lost — and you hand me over those pearls and I go on with my poaching and stealing exactly as before.’

‘And if we
do
see the horse,’ said Maria, ‘I’ve won and
you’ve
lost. I give you the pearls, and you and your men stop being wicked from this day on.’

‘Done,’ said Monsieur Cocq de Noir, and he held out his hand, and Maria took it, and as they shook hands and she looked up into his face and met his steady glance she knew that he would keep his word. Though it was evident that he did not expect for a moment that he would have to keep it. He was laughing, and the cock was crowing derisively, all the time he was opening the door.

The four of them went down the steps in the cliff together in the bright moonlight, and when they got to the bottom Maria mounted once more upon Wrolf and they crossed the clearing and came again into the pine-wood. Monsieur Cocq de Noir held his lantern high to light their way, but it shed only a fitful gleam upon the great darkness all about them. But Maria was not frightened of the darkness now, and not frightened any more of the tall man striding along beside her . . . Somehow she was coming rather to like Monsieur Cocq de Noir . . . He might be a wicked man, but he knew how to laugh and how to strike a bargain.

Then her feeling of pleasure in this dawn of friendly feeling began to be swallowed up in anxiety, for they must be coming near to the pine-tree now and there was no lightening of the darkness all about them, no sign at all of what they had come to seek. She had, she thought now, taken leave of her boasted common sense when she had told that story about the white sea-horses which had brought Black William’s boat back from the sunset, and the one white horse which had pulled it up into the cave. It was, of course, just a fairy-tale that she had made up . . .
Yet the funny part was that when she had told it to Robin and to Monsieur Cocq de Noir, she had believed it . . .

Well, she didn’t believe it any more, and as they went on and on through the darkness her heart sank lower and lower, and if she had not been so strong-minded she would have cried because for the second time it was all going to end in failure. She did not know when she had felt so unhappy. And the darkness now was dense and so was the silence, and Monsieur Cocq de Noir’s lantern was flickering as though it meant to go out.