by Mary Norton
“The sanitary inspector didn’t come. At least, not while my brother was there. And they didn’t have the rat-catcher from the town hall, but they had the local man. The policeman came—” Mrs. May laughed. “During those three days Mrs. Driver used to give my brother a running commentary on what was going on below. She loved to grumble, and my brother, rendered harmless and shut away upstairs, became a kind of neutral. She used to bring his meals up, and, on that first morning, she brought all the doll’s furniture up on the breakfast tray and made my brother climb the shelves and put it back in the doll’s house. It was then she told him about the policeman. Furious he said she was.”
“Why?” asked Kate.
“Because the policeman turned out to be Nellie Runacre’s son Ernie, a boy Mrs. Driver had chased many a time for stealing russet apples from the tree by the gate—‘A nasty, thieving, good-for-nothing dribbet of no-good,’ she told my brother. ‘Sitting down there he is now, in the kitchen, large as life with his notebook out, laughing fit to bust . . . twenty-one, he says he is now, and as cheeky as you make ’em. . . .”’
“And was he,” asked Kate, round-eyed, “a dribbet of no-good?”
“Of course not. Any more than my brother was. Ernie Runacre was a fine, upstanding young man and a credit to the police force. And he did not actually laugh at Mrs. Driver when she told him her story, but he gave her what Crampfurl spoke of afterwards as ‘an old-fashioned look’ when she described Homily in bed—‘Take more water with it,’ it seemed to say.”
“More water with what?” asked Kate.
“The Fine Old Pale Madeira, I suppose,” said Mrs. May. “And Great-Aunt Sophy had the same suspicion: she was furious when she heard that Mrs. Driver had seen several little people when she herself on a full decanter had only risen to one or, at most, two. Crampfurl had to bring all the Madeira up from the cellar and stack the cases against the wall in a corner of Aunt Sophy’s bedroom where, as she said, she could keep an eye on it.”
“Did they get a cat?” asked Kate.
“Yes, they did. But that wasn’t much of a success either. It was Crampfurl’s cat, a large yellow torn with white streaks in it. According to Mrs. Driver, it had only two ideas in its head—to get out of the house or into the larder. ‘Talk of borrowers,’ Mrs. Driver would say as she slammed down the fish pie for my brother’s luncheon, ‘that cat’s a borrower, if ever there was one; borrowed the fish, that cat did, and a good half-bowl of egg sauce!’ But the cat wasn’t there long. The first thing the rat-catcher’s terriers did was to chase it out of the house. There was a dreadful set-to, my brother said. They chased it everywhere—upstairs and downstairs, in and out all the rooms, barking their heads off. The last glimpse my brother had of the cat was streaking away through the spinney and across the fields with the terriers after it.”
“Did they catch it?”
“No.” Mrs. May laughed. “It was still there when I went, a year later. A little morose, but as fit as a fiddle.”
“Tell about when you went.”
“Oh, I wasn’t there long,” said Mrs. May rather hastily, “and after that the house was sold. My brother never went back.”
Kate stared at her suspiciously, pressing her needle against the center of her lower lip. “So they never caught the little people?” she said at last.
Mrs. May’s eyes flicked away. “No, they never actually caught them, but”—she hesitated—“as far as my poor brother was concerned, what they did do seemed even worse.”
“What did they do?”
Mrs. May laid down her work and stared for a moment, thoughtfully, at her idle hands. “I hated the rat-catcher,” she said suddenly.
“Why, did you know him?”
“Everybody knew him. He had a wall eye and his name was Rich William. He was also the pig-killer, and, well—he did other things as well—he had a gun, a hatchet, a spade, a pick-ax, and a contraption with bellows for smoking things out. I don’t know what the smoke was exactly—poison fumes of some kind which he made himself from herbs and chemicals. I only remember the smell of it; it clung round the barns or wherever he’d been. You can imagine what my brother felt on that third day, the day he was leaving, when suddenly he smelled that smell. . . .
“He was all dressed and ready to go. The bags were packed and down in the hall. Mrs. Driver came and unlocked the door and took him down the passage to Aunt Sophy. He stood there, stiff and pale, in gloves and overcoat beside the curtained bed. ‘Seasick already?’ Aunt Sophy mocked him, peering down at him over the edge of the great mattress.
“‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s that smell.’
“Aunt Sophy lifted her nose. She sniffed. ‘What smell is it, Driver?’
“‘It’s the rat-catcher, my lady,’ explained Mrs. Driver, reddening, ‘down in the kitchen.’
“‘What!’ exclaimed Aunt Sophy, ‘are you smoking them out?’ and she began to laugh. ‘Oh dear . . . oh dear!’ she gasped, ‘but if you don’t like them, Driver, the remedy’s simple.’
“‘What is that, my lady?’ asked Mrs. Driver coldly, but even her chins were red.
“Helpless with mirth Aunt Sophy waved a ringed hand toward her, her eyes were screwed up and her shoulders shaking: ‘Keep the bottle corked,’ she managed at last and motioned them weakly away. They heard her laughing still as they went on down the stairs.
“‘She don’t believe in them,’ muttered Mrs. Driver, and she tightened her grip on my brother’s arm. ‘More fool her! She’ll change her tune, like enough, when I take them up afterwards, laid out in sizes, on a clean piece of newspaper . . .’ and she dragged him roughly across the hall.
“The clock had been moved, exposing the wainscot, and, as my brother saw at once, the hole had been blocked and sealed. The front door was open as usual and the sunshine streamed in. The bags stood there beside the fiber mat, cooking a little in the golden warmth. The fruit trees beyond the bank had shed their petals and were lit with tender green, transparent in the sunlight. ‘Plenty of time,’ said Mrs. Driver, glancing up at the clock, ‘the cab’s not due ’til three-thirty—’
“‘The clock’s stopped,’ said my brother.
“Mrs. Driver turned. She was wearing her hat and her best black coat, ready to take him to the station. She looked strange and tight and chapel-going—not a bit like ‘Driver.’ ‘So it has,’ she said; her jaw dropped and her cheeks became heavy and pendulous. ‘It’s moving it,’ she decided after a moment. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she went on, ‘once we get it back. Mr. Frith comes on Monday,’ and she dragged again at his arm above the elbow.
“‘Where are we going?’ he asked, holding back.
“‘Along to the kitchen. We’ve got a good ten minutes. Don’t you want to see them caught?’
“‘No,’ he said, ‘no!’ and pulled away from her.
“Mrs. Driver stared at him, smiling a little. ‘I do,’ she said; ‘I’d like to see ’em close. He puffs this stuff in and they come running out. At least, that’s how it works with rats. But first, he says, you block up all the exits . . .’ and her eyes followed his to the hole below the wainscot.
“‘How did they find it?’ the boy asked (puttied it looked, and with a square of brown paper pasted on crooked).
“‘Rich William found it. That’s his job.’
“‘They could unstick that,’ said the boy after a moment.
“Mrs. Driver laughed. ‘Oh no they couldn’t! Cemented, that is. A great block of it, right inside, with a sheet of iron across from the front of that old stove in the outhouse. He and Crampfurl had to have the morning-room floor up to get at it. All Tuesday they was working, up till tea-time. We aren’t going to have no more capers of that kind. Not under the clock. Once you get that clock back, it can’t be moved again in a hurry. Not if you want it to keep time, it can’t. See where it’s stood—where the floor’s washed away like?’ It was then my brother saw for the first and last time, that raised platform of unscrubbed stone. ‘Come on now,’ said M
rs. Driver and took him by the arm. ‘We’ll hear the cab from the kitchen.’
“But the kitchen, as she dragged him past the baize door, seemed a babel of sound. No approaching cab could be heard here—what with yelps and barks and stampings and excited voices. ‘Steady, steady, steady, steady, steady . . .’ Crampfurl was saying, on one loud note, as he held back the rat-catcher’s terriers which shrilled and panted on the leash. The policeman was there, Nellie Runacre’s son Ernie. He had come out of interest and stood back from the others a little, in view of his calling, with a cup of tea in his hand and his helmet pushed off his forehead. But his face was pink with boyish excitement and he stirred the teaspoon round and round. ‘Seeing’s believing!’ he said cheerfully to Mrs. Driver when he saw her come in at the door. A boy from the village was there with a ferret. It kept sort of pouring out of his pocket, my brother said, and the boy kept pushing it back. Rich William himself was crouched on the floor by the hole. He had lighted something beneath a piece of sacking and the stench of its smoldering eddied about the room. He was working the bellows now, with infinite care, stooping over them—rapt and tense.
“My brother stood there as though in a dream (‘Perhaps it was a dream,’ he said to me later—much later, after we were all grown up). He gazed round the kitchen. He saw the sunlit fruit trees through the window and a bough of the cherry tree which stood upon the bank; he saw the empty tea cups on the table, with spoons stuck in them and one without a saucer; he saw, propped against the wall close beside the baize door, the rat-catcher’s belongings—a frayed coat, patched with leather; a bundle of rabbit snares; two sacks; a spade, a gun, and a pick-ax. . . .
“‘Stand by now,’ Rich William was saying; there was a rising note of excitement in his voice, but he did not turn his head. ‘Stand by. Ready now to slip the dogs.’
“Mrs. Driver let go my brother’s arm and moved toward the hole. ‘Keep back,’ said the rat-catcher, without turning. ‘Give us room—’ and Mrs. Driver backed nervously toward the table. She put a chair beside it and half raised one knee, but lowered it again when she caught Ernie Runacre’s mocking glance. ‘All right, ma,’ he said, cocking one eyebrow, ‘we’ll give you a leg up when the time comes,’ and Mrs. Driver threw him a furious look; she snatched up the three cups from the table and stumped away with them, angrily, into the scullery. ‘Seemingless smutch of something-or-other.’ my brother heard her mutter as she brushed past him. And at those words, suddenly, my brother came to life.
“He threw a quick glance about the kitchen: the men were absorbed; all eyes were on the rat-catcher—except those of the village boy who was getting out his ferret. Stealthily my brother drew off his gloves and began to move backwards . . . slowly . . . slowly . . . toward the green baize door; as he moved, gently stuffing his gloves into his pocket, he kept his eyes on the group around the hole. He paused a moment beside the rat-catcher’s tools, and stretched out a wary, groping hand; his fingers closed at last on a wooden handle—smooth it was and worn with wear; he glanced down quickly to make sure—yes, it was, as he hoped, the pick-ax. He leaned back a little and pushed—almost imperceptibly—against the door with his shoulders: it opened sweetly, in its silent way. Not one of the men had looked up. ‘Steady now,’ the rat-catcher was saying, stooping closely over the bellows, ‘it takes a moment like to go right through . . . there ain’t much ventilation, not under a floor. . . . ’
“My brother slid through the barely opened door and it sighed to behind him, closing out the noise. He took a few steps on tiptoe down the dark kitchen passage and then he ran.
“There was the hall again, steeped in sunshine, with his bags beside the door. He bumped against the clock and it struck a note, a trembling note—urgent and deep. He raised the pick-ax to the height of his shoulder and aimed a sideways blow at the hole below the wainscot. The paper tore, a few crumbs of plaster fell out, and the pick-ax rebounded sharply, jarring his hands. There was indeed iron behind the cement—something immovable. Again he struck. And again and again. The wainscot above the hole became split and scratched, and the paper hung down in strips, but still the pick-ax bounced. It was no good; his hands, wet with sweat, were sliding and slipping on the wood. He paused for breath and, looking out, he saw the cab. He saw it on the road, beyond the hedge on the far side of the orchard; soon it would reach the russet apple tree beside the gate; soon it would turn into the drive. He glanced up at the clock. It was ticking steadily—the result, perhaps, of his knock. The sound gave him comfort and steadied his thumping heart; time, that’s what he needed, a little more time. ‘It takes a moment like,’ the rat-catcher had said, ‘to go right through . . . there ain’t much ventilation, not under a floor. . . . ’
“‘Ventilation’—that was the word, the saving word. Pick-ax in hand my brother ran out of the door. He stumbled once on the gravel path and nearly fell; the pick-ax handle came up and struck him a sharp blow on the temple. Already, when he reached it, a thin filament of smoke was eddying out of the grating and he thought, as he ran toward it, that there was a flicker of movement against the darkness between the bars. And that was where they would be, of course, to get the air. But he did not stop to make sure. Already he heard behind him the crunch of wheels on the gravel and the sound of the horse’s hoofs. He was not, as I have told you, a very strong little boy, and he was only nine (not ten, as he had boasted to Arrietty) but, with two great blows on the brickwork, he dislodged one end of the grating. It fell down sideways, slightly on a slant, hanging—it seemed—by one nail. Then he clambered up the bank and threw the pick-ax with all his might into the long grass beyond the cherry tree. He remembered thinking as he stumbled back, sweaty and breathless, toward the cab, how that too—the loss of the pick-ax—would cause its own kind of trouble later.”
Chapter Twenty
“BUT,” exclaimed Kate, “didn’t he see them come out?”
“No. Mrs. Driver came along then, in a flurry of annoyance, because they were late for the train. She bustled him into the cab because she wanted to get back again, she said, as fast as she could to be ‘in at the death.’ Driver was like that.”
Kate was silent a moment, looking down. “So that is the end,” she said at last.
“Yes,” said Mrs. May, “it could be. Or the beginning.”
“But”—Kate raised a worried face—“perhaps they didn’t escape through the grating?”
“Oh, they escaped all right,” said Mrs. May lightly.
“But how do you know?”
“I just know,” said Mrs. May.
“But how did they get across those fields? With the cows and things? And the crows?”
“They walked, I suppose. The Hendrearys did it. People can do anything when they have a mind to.”
“But poor Homily! She’d be so upset.”
“Yes, she was upset,” said Mrs. May.
“And how would they know the way?”
“By the gas-pipe,” said Mrs. May. “There’s a kind of ridge all along, through the spinney and across the fields. You see, when men dig a trench and put a pipe in it all the earth they’ve dug out doesn’t quite fit when they’ve put it back. The ground looks different.”
“But poor Homily—she didn’t have her tea or her furniture or her carpets or anything. Do you suppose they took anything?”
“Oh, people always grab something,” said Mrs. May shortly, “the oddest things sometimes—if you’ve read about shipwrecks.” She spoke hurriedly, as though she were tired of the subject. “Do be careful, child—not gray next to pink. You’ll have to unpick it.”
“But,” went on Kate in a despairing voice as she picked up the scissors, “Homily would hate to arrive there all poor and dessitute in front of Lupy.”
“Destitute,” said Mrs. May patiently, “and Lupy wasn’t there remember. Lupy never came back. And you know what Homily would do? Can’t you see her—she’d be in her element. She would tie on her apron at once and cry ‘. . . these poor silly men,’ and she
’d bustle and fuss and cook and clean and make them wipe their feet when they came in.”
“On what?” asked Kate.
“On a piece of moss, of course, laid down at the door.”
“Were they all boys?” Kate asked, after a moment.
“Yes, Harpsichords and Clocks. And they’d spoil Arrietty dreadfully.”
“What did they eat? Did they eat caterpillars, do you think?”
“Oh, goodness, child, of course they didn’t. They had a wonderful life—all that Arrietty had ever dreamed of. They could live very well. Badgers’ sets are almost like villages—full of passages and chambers and storehouses. They could gather hazel nuts and beechnuts and chestnuts; they could gather corn—which they could store and grind into flour, just as humans do—it was all there for them: they didn’t even have to plant it. They had honey. They could make elderflower tea and lime tea. They had hips and haws and blackberries and sloes and wild strawberries. The boys could fish in the stream and a minnow to them would be as big as a mackerel is to you. They had birds’ eggs—any amount of them—for custards and cakes and omelettes. You see, they would know where to look for things. And they had greens and salads, of course. Think of a salad made of those tender shoots of young hawthorn—bread and cheese we used to call it—with sorrel and dandelion and a sprinkling of thyme and wild garlic. Homily was a good cook remember. It wasn’t for nothing that the Clocks had lived under the kitchen.”
“But the danger,” cried Kate; “the weasels and the crows and the stoats and all those things?”
“Yes,” agreed Mrs. May, “of course there was danger. There’s danger everywhere, but no more for them than for many human beings. At least, they didn’t have wars. And what about the early settlers in America? And those people who farm in the middle of the big game country in Africa and on the edge of the jungles in India? They get to know the habits of the animals. Few animals kill for the sake of killing. Even rabbits know when a fox isn’t hunting; they will run quite near him when he’s full fed and lazing in the sun. These were boys remember; they would learn to hunt for the pot and how to protect themselves. I don’t suppose Arrietty and Homily would wander far afield.”
