Every rat voted for this proposal except old Chair Squeaker. He was a rat of many winters, renowned for extracting cheese from every known make of rat-trap without setting off the spring. “Why don’t you vote? What’s your objection, old Chair Squeaker?” inquired Ratson Nailer, pertly. “No objection,” replied old Chair Squeaker, “none whatever! But tell me – who is going to bell the cat?” No one answered.
Cheesebox reached up, standing on her hind legs in the hay-rack; she applied her green eyes to a crack between the boards of the loft floor.Instantly there was a rush, a scurry, and the assembly of rats dispersed.
Cheesebox jumped down into the stall; her tail was thick, her fur stood on end. Mary Ellen very unwisely was still shaking with laughter. Cheesebox walked up to Mary Ellen. She boxed Mary Ellen’s ears with her claws out. Mary Ellen, with a howl, jumped into the hay-rack; Cheesebox followed her. They sat in the hay, making horrible cat noises and cuffing each other, to the intense annoyance of the mare in the stall below.
As for Paddy Pig – who had really been enjoying a good sleep at last – Paddy Pig screamed with rage and yelled for Sandy.
While the uproar was at its height, the stable door opened, and Sandy came in carrying a lantern, and followed by the veterinary retriever and Pony Billy. The retriever was a large, important dog with a hurrying, professional manner, copied from his master. He came rapidly into the stall, wearing a long blue overcoat, and examined the patient through a pair of large horn spectacles. The cats glared down at him from the hayrack.
POOR PADDY PIG!
“Put your tongue out and say R.” “What, what, what? It’s bad manners?” objected Paddy Pig. “Put your tongue out, or I’ll bite you!” “What, what, what?”
“The patient does not appear to be amenable to treatment; but I can perceive no rash; nothing which would justify me in diagnosing measles”(dognosing, he pronounced it). “I am inclined to dog-nose iracundia, arising from tormenta ventris, complicated by feline incompatibility. But, in order to make certain, I will proceed to feel the patient’s pulse. Where is the likeliest spot to find the pulse of a pig, I wonder?” “Try feeling his tail,” suggested Pony William. “I have no watch,” said the retriever, “but the thermometer will do just as well. Hold it to the lantern, Sandy, while I count.” “It does not seem to go up,” said Sandy, much mystified. “That settles it,” said the retriever,“I felt sure I was not justified in dog-nosing measles. We will now proceed to administer an emetic – I mean to say an aperient. Has anybody got a medicine glass?” “There is a drenching horn in that little wall cupboard behind the door,” said Maggret, who was watching the proceedings with much interest over the side of her stall. “Capital!”said the retriever, “hold the bottle please, Sandy, while I dust the horn. It’s chock-full of cobwebs.” Sandy shook the bottle; “I partly seem to know the smell,” said he. He held it beside the lantern and spelled out the label – “Appodyldock. What may that be?”
The retriever displayed some anxiety to get the bottle away from him. “Be careful; the remedy is extremely powerful.”
“Excuse me,” purred a cat’s voice from the hay-rack overhead, “excuse me – appodyldock is not for insides. My poor dear Granny-ma, Puss Cat Mew, had appodyldock rubbed on her back where she got burnt by a hot cinder while she was sitting in the fender. Appodyldock is poison.” “In spite of our differing I agree with you,” said another cat’s voice in the hay-rack, “appodyldock is for outward application only.” “Stuff and nonsense!” said the veterinary retriever, drawing the cork out of the bottle with his teeth. “Stuff and nonsense! Here goes—” “What! what! what! if you poison me again, I’ll scream!” remonstrated the patient. “I seem to remember the smell,” said Sandy. “Quite likely,” said the retriever; “since there is going to be all this fuss I may as well tell you it’s castor oil that I have in the bottle.” “What, what? Castor – ugh! ugh! ugh!” choked Paddy Pig, as they poked the drenching horn into the corner of his mouth and dosed him.
“A good, safe, old-fashioned remedy, Paddy Pig,” said Pony William. “Now go to sleep, and you will wake up quite well in the morning. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there is much wrong with you now.” “I think one dose will cure me. But, Pony Billy, come here, I want to whisper. For goodness sake – send away those cats!” Pony Billy took the hint, and acted with tact; “Mary Ellen, we are extremely obliged to you for your invaluable attention to the invalid. I shall be pleased to trot you home to Stott Farm, provided you can go at once, before the moon sets. Cheesebox, we are equally indebted to you for your self-sacrificing devotion. I may tell you there are four rats quarreling in the granary, and one of them sounds like Ratson Nailer.” Cheesebox jumped out of the stable window without another word.
Mary Ellen – after making sure that the veterinary retriever had left – Mary Ellen climbed down into the stall and tucked up the patient for the last time. “Was it a poor leetle sick piggy then—” “What, what, what! Here, I say! Sandy, Sandy!” “Lie still then. I’m only seeking my fur-lined boots, they are somewhere in poor piggy’s beddee beddee.” “Come, Mary Ellen; the moon is setting. Good-night, Paddy Pig, and pleasant dreams.”
“Now we shall have some peace! Those two are worse than the rats,” said Maggret, lying down heavily in her stall. Paddy Pig was already snoring.
The sun rose next day upon a glorious May morning. Paddy Pig, a little thinner than usual, sat by the camp fire, displaying a hearty appetite for breakfast.
“No more toadstool tartlets for me! Give me another plateful of porridge, Jenny Ferret!”
CHAPTER XXII
Cuckoo Brow Lane
It is never quite dark during spring nights in the north. All through the twilight night Charles kept crowing. He was calling the circus company to breakfast, strike camp, and away, before the sun came up. Jenny Ferret’s fire still smouldered; she heaped on sticks to boil the kettle. There was hustling, and packing up, and clucking of hens, and barking of dogs. “Is all taken back that we borrowed?” asked Sandy, “I am answerable to honest old Bobs. What about that meal-bagful of mice, Xarifa?” “Please, Sandy, the Codlin Croft mice are tied up ready.” “Why only the mice of Codlin Croft? where are the other nine?” “Please, please, Sandy, might they ride to the top of Cuckoo Brow? Then they could run home all the way inside the fence. They were afraid of owls. And besides, I did so want them to meet Belinda Woodmouse, we are sure to see her.” “In short, they have remained; and they must be pulled,”said Pony Billy, good-humouredly. “Here’s a worse difficulty! Who is going to pull the tilt-cart? Paddy Pig is not fit for it,” said Jenny Ferret, hurrying up with an armful of circus trappings. “That’s all arranged,” said Pony Billy, “come along, Cuddy Simpson!”
The gypsies’ donkey walked into the orchard, on Mettle’s four new shoes. “Here come I, fit and ready to pull a dozen pigs! Good friends, I’ll go with you to the hills for a summer’s run on the grass. Fetch me a straw rope, Sandy; I’m too big for Paddy Pig’s breast-straps.”
“Sandy! Sandy!” cried Jenny Ferret, “the tent-pole has been forgotten, and our little bucket at the well. Bother that crowing cock! Where is Iky Shepster?” The starling laughed and whistled; but he refused to leave the chimney stack.
PADDY PIG WAS INSTALLED IN THE CART.
Paddy Pig was installed in the cart, to ride in state; he was wrapped in a shawl and treated like an invalid; but he was in the highest possible spirits. He played the fiddle, and squealed and joked. Sandy marched in front of the procession with his tail tightly curled. The cavalcade set off up the lane amidst the acclamations of the poultry and dogs.
Cuckoo Brow Lane is a bonny spot in spring, garlanded with hawthorn and wild cherry blossom. It skirts the lower slopes of the hill that rises behind Codlin Croft. The meadows on their left were bathed in pearly dew; the lane still lay in the shadow of dawn; the sun had not yet topped the Brow. As it rose, its beams touched the golden tops of the oak trees in Pringle Wood; and a faint smell of bluebells floated over the wall. Paddy Pig fiddled furiously, “I’ll play them ‘Scotch Cap’! I’ll pop the weasel at them! Never again will I cross plank bridges into that abominable wood. Gee up, gee up! get along, Cuddy Simpson!” The gypsies’ donkey trundled the cart through the dead leaves in the lane; steadily pulling in the wake of the caravan.
Tuppenny, Xarifa, and the visitor mice were all peeping through the muslin curtains. “Is the wood full of fairies, Xarifa?” “Hush, till we get across the water; then I will tell you!” “Here, you mice, let me brush up the crumbs. I want to open all the windows.” (Jenny Ferret was so accustomed to travel that no amount of jolts upset her housekeeping.)“I might as well take down the curtains, as we are going up to Goosey Foot.” “Where is that, Jenny Ferret?” “Spring cleaning,” replied Jenny Ferret briefly.
Xarifa commenced to explain about the washerwomen up at the tarn; but Jenny Ferret bundled everybody out on to the caravan steps.
Tuppenny rolled off, under the surprised nose of Cuddy Simpson, who was brought to a sudden standstill, whilst Tuppenny was picked up amidst squeaks of laughter. He was put to ride in a basket, one of several that were slung at the back of the caravan. Xarifa sat in the doorway; and the visitor mice hung on anywhere, like Cinderella’s footmen behind the pumpkin coach. They set up an opposition fiddling, and joked with Paddy Pig and the donkey. Indeed, Pippin fiddled so sweetly that presently they all joined in concert together, and the little birds in the trees sang to them also as they passed along. First a robin sang—
“Little lad, little lad, where was’t thou born?
Far off in Lancashire under a thorn,
Where they sup sour milk, in a ram’s horn!”
Pippin did not know that tune, so he began another—
“I ploughed it with a ram’s horn,
Sing ivy, sing ivy!
I sowed it all over with one peppercorn,
Sing holly go whistle and ivy!
I got the mice to carry it to the mill
Sing ivy, sing ivy!”
Then he changed his tune, and the chaffinches sang with him—
“I saw a little bird, coming hop, hop, hop!”
Then he played another; and Xarifa pelted him with hempseeds—
“Madam will you walk, madam will you talk—
Madam will you walk and talk with me?”
And then he heard a cuckoo and he played,
“Summer is icumen in!”
The music did sound pretty all the way up Cuckoo Brow Lane.
Where they crossed the beck there was a row of stepping stones, with the water tinkling merrily between them. On a stone, bobbing and curtseying, stood a fat, browny-black little bird with a broad white breast. “Bessie Dooker! Bessie Dooker! Tell all the other little birds and beasties that there will be a circus show this evening. Bid them come to the big hawthorn tree, near the whin bushes by High Green Gate.” Bessie Dooker bobbed her head; she sped swiftly up the beck, whistling as she flew.
The lane was steep after crossing the stream; as they climbed they met the early sunbeams. The bank on their right was full of wild flowers; wood sorrel, spotted orchis, dog violets, germander speedwell, and little blue milkwort. “See!” cried Xarifa, “the milkwort! the milk is coming with the grass in spring; the grass is coming with the soft south wind. Listen to the lambs! they are before us in the other lane.”
Sandy had been in advance of the procession; he turned back. “Wait a little while, Pony Billy; wait with a stone behind the wheel. The sheep are going up to the intake pastures [23] in charge of Bobs and Matt. Let them gain a start before us at the meeting of the lanes; it is slow work driving lambs. How they bleat and run back and forward! Their own mothers’ call, but they run to each other’s mothers, and bawl and push!”
“Here under this sunny hedge I could pleasantly eat a bite and rest,”said Cuddy Simpson; “put stones behind the wheels, and unharness the cart.”
“May we get down and play? we have been shut up so long, me and Tuppenny?” “Yes, yes! go and play; but do not get left behind.”
Xarifa clapped her little hands, “Oh, look at the flowers.” “What is that peeping at us, Xarifa? with bright black eyes?” said Tuppenny, pointing to something that rustled amongst the hedge. “It is my dearest Belinda Woodmouse! Oh, what a happy meeting!”
Belinda was a sleek brown mouse; she was larger than the house mice; and more active than Xarifa. Tuppenny turned shy, and stared at her very solemnly; but her sprightliness soon reassured him. Xarifa introduced her to Tuppenny, Pippin, Cobweb, Dusty, and Smut – “Rufty Tufty I am unable to introduce, because she has stayed at home to rock the cradle. But here are enough of us to dance a set tonight on the short-cropped turf by the hawthorn bush.” “More mice to pull!” laughed Pony Billy. “Oh, oh! Mr. Pony William, you have swallowed three violets!” “Well?”said Pony Billy, “what then? I must eat!” “I do not think they liked it,” said Xarifa, doubtfully, “could you not eat young nettles, like Cuddy Simpson?”
Pony Billy rubbed his nose against his foreleg, and gave it up! He moved a little further up the lane, and went on nibbling.
XARIFA’S FAIRY TALE
“Can the flowers feel, Xarifa?” whispered Tuppenny. “I do not know how much or how little; but surely they enjoy the sunshine. See how they are smiling, and holding up their little heads. They cannot dart about, like yonder buzzing fly, nor move along the bank, like that big yellow striped queen wasp. But I think they take pleasure in the gentle rain and sun and wind; children of spring, returning from year to year; and longer-lived than us – especially the trees. Tuppenny, you asked me about fairies. Here on this pleasant sunny bank, I can tell you better than in the shadowed woods.” “Are they good fairies, Xarifa?” “Yes; but all fairies are peppery. The fairy of the oak tree was spiteful for a while. Sit you round on the moss, Belinda, and Tuppenny, and visitor mice; and I will try to tell you prettily a tale that should be pretty – the tale of the Fairy in the Oak.”
CHAPTER XXIII
The Fairy in the Oak
There is something glorious and majestic about a fine English oak. The ancient Britons held them sacred; and the Saxons who came after revered the Druids’ trees. William the Norman Conqueror ordered a record of all the land. Because there were no maps they wrote down landmarks; I remember an oak in Hertfordshire, that had been a landmark for Doomsday Book.
This north country oak of my story was less old than the Doomsday Oak. It had been a fine upstanding tree in Queen Elizabeth’s reign. For centuries it grew tall and stately, deep-rooted amongst the rocks, by a corner above an old highway that led to a market town.
How many travellers had passed the tree, since that road was a forest track! Hunters, robbers, bowmen; knights on horseback riding along; pikemen, jackmen marching; country folk and drovers; merchants, pedlars with laden pack-horses.
At each change the road was mended and widened. There began to be two-wheeled carts. Then farmers’ wives left off riding on pillions; the gentry drove gigs and coaches; and alas! there came the wood wagons.