The Happy Mariners Page 10

  ‘This ‘ere ’ammering, ‘said the lanky one, ‘is a matter that needs a deal of careful thought. It don’t do to rush at it, Nautical, not by no manner of means. Should one ‘it the nail ’ard or sorft, that’s the ticklish question. On the one ‘and, if you ’its it ’ard—which I mean to say if you hits hit hard—it goes in quicker. But on the other ‘and, if you ’its it too ’ard, if you ’its it unkind, you likely as not damage the ’ammer. Now my old dad always useter say…’

  And so it went on, a never-ending flow. The consequence was that a great deal of valuable time was wasted, and if it hadn’t been for Guy and Elizabeth, who worked eagerly and loved to see their work growing, the log-cabin would have been not nearly finished by nightfall. Indeed, when dusk came there was still a lot to be done; but at least the larger gaps were filled in, and a proper door provided. The door was fastened to its post with rope instead of hinges, but it was a great deal better than no door at all.

  They were all gathered outside surveying their handiwork. It was too dark to work any more. ‘And to-morrow,’ said Rex, ‘we’ll have to start looking for that treasure.’ He gripped his musket tightly, for out of the corner of his eye he could see the pirates edging towards the forest. ‘I say, Guy!’ he said, in as ordinary a tone as he could muster. ‘Want to speak to you a minute.’ Guy was at his side in a flash. ‘Get the others inside—quickly! And stay inside with them. See?’ Then he wheeled round suddenly and called out: ‘Where are you off to, Mr Murder?’ There was no reply. The pirates broke into a run. They were but shadowy figures now, and they soon disappeared among the trees.

  Rex ran into the log-cabin and shut the door behind him. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘They’ve escaped. And jolly good riddance to them.’

  Chapter 14

  The Forest of Fairy Tales

  Martin, being very tired after that strenuous day, fell asleep at once on the sandy floor, with Guy’s jacket rolled up under his head for a pillow. But long before morning he woke up, all his weariness gone, and try as he might he couldn’t get to sleep again, so troubled was he by the loss of poor Fandy. It was strange to be in bed yet not in bed, and rather frightening to be lying awake in the dark, so far from home. Perhaps if the log-cabin had been quite dark it would have been better, but through the chinks in the walls slanted long rays of moonlight that stretched across the floor like pointing fingers. Inside there was no sound but that of the three sleepers gently breathing, with an occasional small grunt from one of the boys; but from outside there came all kinds of queer slight noises, sighings and mutterings and little swishing sounds, as though the forest itself was turning over in its sleep.

  At last, after tossing from side to side, and listening to the forest, and looking at the moon-streaked floor, he decided to go in search of Fandy at once. So, very quietly, careful not to disturb the others, he got up and stole out into the full light of the moon.

  He turned in the direction, as he thought, of Gunpowder Creek, thinking that perhaps Fandy had gone back to the longboat after foraging for food; but the moon must have played a trick on him, for very soon he found himself walking through the forest along a moss-green moonlit path that curled like an apple-paring, and he knew that he had never been in this place before, unless … Yes, that was the odd part of it, that somehow, sometime—he couldn’t remember how or when—he had been here before. This new forest, so different from the one he had been in yesterday, was both surprising and familiar to Martin, so that he did not feel at all frightened, but only wonderfully at home. His path was flanked on each side by straight fir trees that were like the woods in a picture-book, dark, mysterious, full of rich gloom, yet friendly. He was delighted to find everything so fresh and so familiar. And when he caught sight of a little glowing orange tree, a tree of blossoming lanterns in the black forest, he ran up to it and stretched out his hands towards the oranges; but, seeing them so beautiful, he did not dare to touch them. The next moment he was on his way again, and he was not greatly surprised to hear someone calling him by name—’Martin! Martin Robinson!’—in a voice as small as rustling leaves. He turned round quickly, and there at his feet was a white-bearded dwarf in a green coat and a conical hat sitting cross-legged among the roots of a tree. Martin stared at him.

  ‘Well!’ said the dwarf sharply. ‘Don’t you know me, Martin?’

  It seemed an absurd question. ‘Of course I know you. You’re the dwarf that…’

  ‘Exactly!’ replied the dwarf. ‘And I’ve got three wishes for you, Martin Robinson. What do you want?’

  ‘I want,’ said Martin eagerly, ‘that little orange tree I saw just now.’

  ‘Pooh!’ said the dwarf. ‘That’s easily done.’ And then Martin saw that the orange tree was growing not two yards away.

  ‘And I want to have it all for my very own, just as it is, growing.’

  ‘Will you take it with you or shall we send it?’ asked the dwarf briskly. He whipped a flower-pot from one part of nowhere, and a trowel from another part.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Martin. ‘But it won’t be the same in a pot!’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like the forest as well?’ inquired the dwarf, with a sly grin.

  ‘Oh, thank you! That would be lovely.’

  ‘Very good, sir!’ said the dwarf, becoming more like a grocer every minute. ‘It’s always here when you want it. Now you’ve one more wish, and that’s all.’

  ‘I want the oranges to eat,’ said Martin slowly, ‘and I want not to spoil the tree.’ He was really talking to himself, trying to think things out, but the dwarf had taken him at his word and was already plucking the fruit.

  ‘You want the oranges to eat,’ the dwarf remarked. ‘That’s your third wish, and I’ve no concern with any other. Here you are, child. Take your oranges and be off.’ The tree was bare; the oranges lay scattered on the ground.

  ‘But …’ cried Martin, on the verge of tears. ‘I want…’

  ‘You’ve had your three wishes,’ snapped the dwarf. ‘But I’ll give you one more for luck. Forgetfulness. Most of ’em ask for that in the end,’ he chuckled. And nothing but that chuckle remained of him.

  Instantly Martin forgot all about the orange tree and the oranges and even the dwarf himself; so he continued on his way, going nowhere in particular with a light heart, and it was not long before he found himself emerging from the forest into a wide road bounded by hedges and fields in which, at a little distance, a few trees stood here and there. Beyond the fields, all round the horizon, stretched the dark forest itself. The world within this great circle of forest was white and sparkling with snow—snow in the road, snow on the hedgerows, snow on the boughs of the nearer trees and long glittering icicles hanging from them; but not a scrap of snow in the dark forest. The sky was like a film of blue satin; the golden bubble of a moon hung low; the black fir trees, standing stiffly against the horizon, looked as though they had been cut out of paper; and everything was very still. The snow crunched softly under Martin’s feet, the crisp air pleasantly stung him, and he broke into a run. He was so full of joy and expectation that when he met an old peasant woman carrying a bundle of sticks under her arm, what could he do but stop and call out ‘Hullo!’

  ‘Ah,’ said the old woman, ‘you’re the very spit of my youngest, and he married the Princess. But that don’t help my chilblains, do it? I had three, and the eldest was a bad one, a lazy good-for-nothing slugabed. Toil and moil as I might there was never a thank-you from him, nor likely to be. And the second, he was a proud one, too proud be half, too hoity-toity to do the bidding of one as knew, and that was the little red robin that hopped into my cottage and said to my three, and them listening all ears: I’ve that in my beak, says the little red robin, shall make a prince of one of you. And so saying, with a tweet-tweet-tweet, and his lil head cocked a one side, out of his beak he lets fall a seed; a pink seed it was, pink and shining, and no bigger than a grain of rice. Take that seed, one of you, says Redbreast, and put it in the ground; and from that seed, in
three days, there will grow a great tall blackthorn bush, taller than a house, as it might be an oak tree a thousand years old; and from that bush him as planted it, and no other, shall cut a staff; and with that staff, says Redbreast, he shall kill the dragon and rip open the dragon’s belly, and by the same token he shall take to wife the Princess that the dragon swallowed in the year when King Zaäd was turned into a frog for being rude to his washerwoman. That’s what the little red robin said, Martin Robinson, but it boots nowt to my poor chilblains, do it!’

  The old woman began hobbling away, but Martin ran after her crying: ‘What’s the end of the story, please?’

  ‘The end of the story?’ grumbled the old woman. ‘The end of the story is that my eldest was too lazy to plant the seed, and my second too haughty to take counsel of a bird. So ’twas my youngest that planted the seed, and cut the staff, and killed the dragon, and married the Princess; for it all fell out as the robin said, the cheeky twittering creature I And the end of the story is that it don’t mend an old woman’s chilblains, nor wouldn’t were there fifty princesses in the family, which there couldn’t be, so what use be worrying and flurrying and making a to-do?’

  ‘If you take off your stockings and dance in the snow, you’ll never have chilblains more,’ murmured Martin. He hardly knew what he was saying; the jingle had suddenly come into his head, and he was as surprised as the old woman herself to hear it. More surprised indeed; for there and then, without a word, she jumped out of her stockings and danced, laughing a wheezy frosty laugh and calling down blessings on Martin’s head.

  So he left her and went his way, and it wasn’t until she was out of sight that he remembered that he ought to have asked her if she had seen his yellow cat; until this moment he had forgotten all about Fandy. ‘Perhaps I shall find him in the town,’ he said to himself; for he could see ahead of him a town, bare of snow but silvered by moonlight, which very soon he entered, to find himself in a narrow cobbled street. The houses in this street were all provided with black front doors that reminded Martin (though he had seen it only in imagination) of the ancient sea-chest in which the treasure was hidden; and each door had a bright brass knocker; and each knocker was cast in a strange shape of its own, a fish, a monkey, an acorn, a bird’s claw, an old ship; and above each knocker was a name-plate telling you who lived in the house. The door he came to first had a knocker which he recognized at once as the Resmiranda, and the name-plate said: Aunt Cuckoo. That had for Martin a curiously comforting sound, though he did not know why; and he lifted the knocker and knocked boldly, confidently, thinking that Aunt Cuckoo, whoever she was, would surely have news for him of Fandy.

  ‘Don’t stand knocking, Martin!’ The door flew open at once. ‘You’ve been long enough finding me, I must say.’ Martin ran in at once, blinking with surprise at what he saw, and wondering where the voice came from. The room he stood in was narrow and dim, and so lofty that it appeared to have no ceiling at all, for when Martin looked up he could see nothing but a huge revolving cog-wheel and a series of chains; and now, the voice having ceased, he could hear nothing but a loud slow tick-tack, tick-tack. As he stood staring and blinking up at the machinery a heavy buffet on the shoulder sent him sprawling on his back. ‘Silly child!’ remarked the voice. ‘Don’t lie gaping there. Sit up and have a chat. And mind the pendulum, my dear, or you’ll get another smack. And, what’s more, you’ll maybe stop the clock.’ The clock! Why, of course, thought Martin, I’m in the cuckoo-clock; and he lay for a while dazed by the discovery, listening to the ticking, and watching the great pendulum swing to and fro. Then, raising himself on one elbow, and his eyes becoming accustomed to the dim light, he made out, a few feet away from him, the figure of a painted wooden bird twice as big as himself.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said aloud, though talking to himself, ‘there’s the old cuckoo.’

  To his surprise the bird’s beak moved, and its eyes unmistakably flashed. ‘That’s not the way to speak to your auntie,’ said the Cuckoo severely.

  Martin blushed with shame. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ insisted the Cuckoo, ‘you were rude. Children were different in my young days.’

  ‘You see,’ explained Martin contritely. ‘I didn’t know you were alive and able to talk.’

  ‘Alive!’ retorted Aunt Cuckoo. ‘Well, there’s imperance for you! I’m as alive as you are, young man, alive and well, with all my faculties. I can talk and I can see, and I can hear when I’m spoken to, and I can eat a good dinner, what’s more. They all say I’m wonderful for me age, and it’s not for me to contradict ’em. Never a day’s illness in my life.’

  ‘Touch wood,’ said Martin quickly.

  ‘As for touching wood,’ replied Aunt Cuckoo, ‘there’s no need for that, since I am wood, through and through. And fancy you, Martin Robinson, not recognizing your dear old Aunt Cuckoo, her that dandled you on her knee, in a manner of speaking, when you were so high!’ She indicated with her beak a distance of two inches from the floor. ‘When I say dandled I mean,’ she added, ‘dandled you in spirit, so to speak, popping out of my clock every half-hour to see your dear mother bath you or nurse you or give you your bottle. Now, child, answer me this: Have I lived on your nursery mantelpiece for fourteen years, or have I not?’

  ‘Fourteen years!’ echoed Martin. ‘Why, that’s older than Rex. He’s not fourteen yet. And you know, Aunt Cuckoo, the clock hasn’t been going for a long time. Ever since I can remember, it hasn’t been going. I’ve had it to play with for years and years. It generally lives in my play-box, and when I brought it on this cruise of ours it slipped out of my hand into the sea. I was dreadfully sorry about it, but one of us had to go. I was hanging on to the rope, you see, and I had no hand to spare for the clock. I thought it would be better for the clock to be drowned than me, since it wasn’t after all a going concern, as Father says.’

  Anxious though he was to make his peace with Aunt Cuckoo, and put her into a good humour, Martin could think of nothing further to say in defence of what he now felt to be the terrible crime of letting the clock slip from his grasp. He sat silent, from time to time glancing timidly at Aunt Cuckoo, who, with beak held at a haughty angle and a glazed expression in her eyes, was pretending to have forgotten his presence. Not knowing what to do, he began idly counting the ticks of the clock, and had reached ninety-nine when an unexpected sound drew his attention back to the offended bird. A door in front of him, not the one he had entered by, was opening, letting in light from outside, and Aunt Cuckoo, all in a flutter, suddenly hopped out on to the step and called importantly: ‘Cuckoo! Cuckoo!’ Then she hopped back, and the door closed again. ‘Duty first, pleasure after,’ she said, blinking more kindly at Martin. ‘And now, my dear, since you didn’t come to see me, tell me what you did come for.’

  ‘I came to find Fandy, my cat. I used to call him Fandy when I was small, because his fur is sandy coloured.’

  ‘Ho!’ remarked Aunt Cuckoo grimly. ‘You came looking for your cat, did you? And you expect me of all people to help you find him? Where’s your tact, child?’

  Martin didn’t know what his tact was, let alone where it was; but remembering that cats and birds don’t always agree, he hastened to say: ‘Oh, Fandy’s very nice to birds. And he couldn’t eat you, even if he wanted to.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Aunt Cuckoo complacently. ‘I’d like to meet the cat that could eat me.’

  ‘Would you really?’ asked Martin, greatly surprised.

  ‘Ah, now you’re laughing at me,’ said the old bird. ‘Well, I can stand a joke with the best of them. And if you want your cat, my little man, don’t let me detain you another minute. And listen to this,’ she added, blinking at him rapidly with her head cocked on one side. ‘There’s a time coming when you’ll remember your dear old auntie, you and your brothers; yes, and sister Elizabeth too. And then, if you call to me, I’ll come and get you out of your troubles.’

  ‘It’s
very kind of you,’ Martin politely answered. ‘You do sometimes go out of the clock, then?’

  ‘Only between the half-hours, my dear. I never neglect my duty.’

  ‘But,’ said Martin, ‘supposing I were to shout for you just when you had to call the hours?’

  ‘Duty first,’ answered Aunt Cuckoo. ‘You mustn’t call on me except between times, or you’ll call in vain.’

  ‘But we haven’t got a clock, not any of us,’ objected Martin.

  Aunt Cuckoo ignored his remark. ‘Now don’t talk any more, Martin. Just remember what I’ve told you. In a little while I must go out and call half-past two, and so much depends on me, my dear, that it makes me quite nervous. For if I were to stop, or do it wrong, don’t you see, there’d be no more time in the whole world. No time for anything—just think of that. So keep quiet,’ she implored him, though Martin hadn’t made a sound, ‘and let me calm myself with a few minutes’ meditation. And when the doors open you can slip out.’

  That time of waiting passed so slowly that when at last the doors opened Martin ran out into the street without even saying good-bye. He had not yet lost hope of finding Fandy, and something told him, as he approached the next house, that he was on the right scent this time. In his hurry he didn’t even stop to look at the name on the door; he tapped on the door, a girl’s voice answered ‘Come in!’, and the next moment he was inside, in a shabby little room that contained two rush-bottomed chairs, a rickety table, a sofa out of which the stuffing was falling in handfuls, a yellow cat, and the most beautiful girl in the world, a slim dark one with a voice that made you want her to talk for ever. Not that Martin cared for girls (except Elizabeth, who, being his sister, could hardly be called a girl), but she certainly was pretty, there was no denying it. She was so pretty that Martin could hardly take his eyes off her, and didn’t until the yellow cat, who was Fandy of course, jumped on to his shoulder and began purring the house down with pleasure.