by Mary Norton
“Oh, Sid—” (The borrowers, listening intently, caught the note of dismay.)
“We’ll get them back, Mabel, if we die for it. Or”—here Mr. Platter’s tone became less certain—“somebody else does . . .”
“Somebody else . . . ? Oh, no, Sidney. I mean, vigils and felonies—those I can get used to. But what you’re suggesting now . . . well, that wouldn’t be very nice, not murder, dear. Might involve the police—” As he did not reply at once, she added lamely, “If you see what I mean . . .”
“It may not be necessary,” said Mr. Platter loftily.
There were more creakings, faint scrapes of wood on wood, an occasional watery plop, “Careful, Sidney, you nearly had me out!” and other small, half-frightened exclamations.
“They’re tying up,” whispered Pod. “Now’s our moment!” He was speaking to Spiller, who, silent as a shadow, had joined them in the stern, punt pole in hand. “Get hold of the rushes—you, too, Homily. Come on, Arrietty . . . that’s right, that’s right. Pull—gently now, gently . . .”
Slowly, slowly, they slid out—stern foremost—into more open water, but suddenly it became dark, as dark as it had been among the rushes. “I can’t see,” whimpered Homily, “I can’t see nothing, Pod.” She stood up, cold hands dripping water. She sounded very frightened.
“No more can they,” Pod whispered back—very confident, he sounded. “Stay where you are, Homily. Now, Spiller—”
As the boat shot forwards, Arrietty looked up. The stars were bright, but a cloud had come over the moon. Turning, she looked back but could see very little: all was dimness down by the fence. She felt the boat turn, sharply, against the stream. Oh, blessed cloud! Oh, blessed Spiller! Oh, blessed, silent knitting needle, driving them swiftly forwards, in Spiller’s nimble hands! Upstream, stern foremost—it didn’t matter: they were getting away!
Gauzily, magically, the last traces of cloud drifted away across the moon, and the gentle radiance shone down again. She could see her parents’ faces, and looking back, she could see the wire fence, silver in the moonlight, and the moving shadows beside it. If I can see them, she thought, they could see us. Her father, too, she noticed, was staring at the fence. “Oh, Papa,” she faltered, “suppose they see us?”
Pod did not reply for a moment, his eyes on the moving figures. “They won’t look,” he said at last. Smiling, he laid a hand on her shoulder, and all fear suddenly left her. After a moment, he went on—in the same low, confident voice, “The stream curves about here, and then we’ll be out of sight.”
And so it was. In a few minutes, Arrietty, looking back, saw only the peaceful water: the fence had disappeared from view. They all relaxed, except for Spiller steadily poling ahead.
“There’s a butter knife somewhere,” said Pod. “I left it handy . . .” He turned, as though to climb back over the gaiter, and then he hesitated. “You and your mother better go to bed. You’ll need all the sleep you can get. It’ll be a busy day tomorrow . . .”
“Oh, Papa, not yet,” pleaded Arrietty.
“Do as I say, girl. And you, too, Homily. You look all in.”
“What on earth do you want with the butter knife, Pod?” Her voice did sound very tired.
“What it was meant for,” said Pod, “a rudder. Now, creep along under, the two of you, and get tucked in.” He turned away. They watched him as he made his careful way over the gaiter. “A born climber,” said Homily proudly. “Come along, Arrietty, we’d better do as he says. It’s getting chilly, and there’s nothing we can do to help.”
Still Arrietty hesitated. To her, it seemed, the fun was just beginning. There would be things to see on the banks—new things—and the joy of the great out-of-doors. Ah, there was a bat! And another one. There must be midges about. No, not midges so early in the year. And it was chilly. But spring was just around the corner. Lovely spring! And a new life . . . But it was chilly. Homily had disappeared from view.
Reluctantly, Arrietty felt her way under the gaiter. Very stealthily, she extracted the small pillow and drew it to the end of their bed. At least she would sleep with her head out of doors!
Creeping between Miss Menzies’s homemade bedclothes, she soon began to feel warmer. Lying flat on her back, she could see only the sky. And there was the moon again, sometimes obscured by a sudden tangle of overhanging branches, sometimes by filmy cloud. Now and again, there were strange night noises. Once, she heard a fox bark.
To what kind of new life were they going? she wondered. How long would it take them to reach this unknown house? A large human house, this much she knew. Larger than Firbank—this she had gathered from Pod—and Firbank had been large enough. There was a lawn, it seemed, which sloped down towards a pond—a pond with its own spring, which fed this very stream up which they were so silently traveling. Oh, how she loved ponds! She remembered the one at the bottom of the field, that time they had been living in the boot. What fun she had had with that pond. Fishing for minnows, paddling about in Spiller’s old tin soap dish, learning to swim . . . How long ago it all seemed now! She thought of Mild Eye and his caravan; of the succulent smell of his pheasant stew as she and her parents, terrified and hungry, crouched under the dubious shelter of Mild Eye’s tousled bunk; and of that fierce-faced woman, who was Mild Eye’s wife. Where were they now? Not too near, she hoped.
She thought again of Firbank, and of her childhood under the floor; the darkness, the dusty passages between the joists. And, yet, how clean and bright Homily had kept the tiny rooms in which they actually lived! What work it must have been! She should have helped more, she now realized uncomfortably . . .
And then that glorious day when Pod had taken her upstairs and she had had her first delirious glimpse of the great outdoors and her meeting with the boy (her first real sight of a living human bean!) and what trouble it had caused . . .
But how much she had gleaned from reading aloud to him; how strange were some of the books he had brought down into the garden from the great house above. How much she had learned about the mysterious world on which they all existed—herself, the boy, the old woman upstairs—strange animals, strange customs, peculiar ways of thought. Perhaps the strangest of all creatures were the human beings themselves (“beings,” not “beans,” as her father and mother still called them). Was she a “being”? She must be. But not a human one, thank goodness! No, she would not like to be one of those: no borrower ever robbed another borrower; possessions did slide about between them—that was true—small things left behind or discarded by previous owners (or things just “found”): what one borrower did not make use of, another one could. That made sense: nothing should be wasted. But no borrower would deliberately take from another borrower: that, in their small precarious world, would be unthinkable!
This was what she had tried to explain to the boy. She would always remember his scornful voice when he had cried out in sudden irritation: “‘Borrowing,’ you call it! I call it stealing’!”
At the time, this had made her laugh. She had laughed and laughed at his ignorance. How silly he was (this great clumsy creature) not to know that human beans were made for borrowers, as bread is for butter, cows for milking, hens for eggs: you might say (thinking of cows) that borrowers grazed on human beans. What else (she had asked him) were human beings for? And he had not quite known, now she came to think of it . . .
“For us, of course,” Arrietty told him firmly. And he had begun to see her point.
All the same, as she lay there, gazing up at the moon, she found all this very puzzling. Looking back, she saw how long it had taken her to realize how many millions of human beings there were in the world, and how few borrowers. Until those long days of reading aloud to the boy, she had thought it the other way round. How could she think otherwise, brought up, as she had been, under the floor at Firbank—seeing so little and hearing less? Until she met the boy, she had never laid eyes on a human bean. Of course, she had known they existed, or how else could borrowers exist? And sh
e had known they were dangerous—the most dangerous animals on earth—but she had thought they must be rare . . .
Now she began to know better.
Somewhere, far in the distance, she seemed to hear the sound of a church clock. Drowsily, she counted the notes: they seemed to add up to seven.
Chapter Seven
Looking back to that morning of their first arrival, Arrietty remembered most clearly the long, long walk: an impossible walk it had seemed at times.
They had all slept well—even Pod and Spiller had slipped in an hour or two of rest. The journey, it seemed, had taken less time than any of them had expected. She had not woken, nor had Homily, when Spiller eventually ran them aground on what turned out to be a small pebbly beach under a cliff-like overhang of roots and mud. This was where the vast rectory lawn joined the curve of the outflowing stream. She had not seen the lawn at first, only the dim tangled branches of a juniper bush, which cut out all view of the sky and shed its darkness over this hidden anchorage. Could this be it? Had they really arrived? Or was this cavernous place just a resting place on what might turn out to be a much longer journey?
No, this was it! They had arrived: she heard the church clock, much nearer now, striking the hour of nine. She could see her father and Spiller splashing about in the shallows among the pebbles, and between them was Spiller’s soapbox lid, bobbing emptily as Pod made it fast to a root.
He turned and saw her as she stood, shivering slightly, wrapped in her eiderdown quilt. Homily, looking dazed and disheveled, was emerging from under the gaiter. “So you’ve stirred yourselves at last!” said Pod cheerfully. “Well, here we are! What do you think of it?”
Arrietty did not quite know what she thought of it: except, perhaps, that it was secret, dark, and felt somehow safe. Homily, now standing uncertainly beside her, also wrapped in a quilt, nodded her head towards the soap dish. “Where are we supposed to be going in that?” she asked suspiciously. Spiller, Arrietty noticed, had begun climbing up the bluff: the tangled roots gave a wide choice of handholds.
“We’re not going anywhere in that,” Pod told her. “We’re going to pack it up with a few things for the night. Where we’re going we’re going on our own two feet.”
“Where are we going?” asked Homily.
“Up to the house,” said Pod. “You’ll see in a minute . . . And we’d better get going—while there’s no one about: Spiller says they’re out for the day.”
“Who are?”
“Witless and Mrs. Witless, of course: he does part-time gardening, and she’s gone to town on the bus. Now then, Homily,” he went on, coming up just below them, “pass me down them eiderdowns and any other bedclothes. And, Arrietty, you’ll find a bit of twine up for’ard . . .”
Reluctantly, they divested themselves of their warm covering, and Arrietty went forward to find the twine.
“What about some cooking pots?” asked Homily as, halfheartedly, she began to fold up the quilts.
“There won’t be no cooking tonight,” said Pod briskly.
“We got to eat—”
“Spiller’s seen to all that. Now come on—”
Arrietty came back with the twine, and they began to work more quickly, passing the folded bedclothes down to Pod, who splashed back and forth loading up the soap dish. “Stream’s risen a bit,” he remarked. “It rained in the night . . .”
“Not here,” said Homily, laying a hand on the gaiter. “This thing’s as dry as a bone.”
“Stands to reason.” He glanced up at the thick leafage above them. “We’re good and sheltered here. Better take your boots and stockings off, and I’ll help you over the side.”
As Arrietty, still shivering a little, sat down to undo her boots, she thought of the Platters and almost pitied them, crouched by the fence all night in their small, leaky boat under their dripping umbrellas. Spiller, she noticed, had disappeared over the bluff.
“Did you get any sleep, Pod?” asked Homily, one leg over the edge of the boat. “You and Spiller?”
“Enough,” said Pod, reaching up as she leaned forward, and catching her under the arms. “We got in here just before midnight—didn’t you hear the clock? That’s the way . . . let yourself go. That’s right!”
“Oh,” squealed Homily as she splashed down on to the pebbles, “this water’s cold!”
“Well, what do you expect at this time of year?”
Arrietty had slid down by herself, boots and socks in her hand; she was longing for a climb up the roots. Homily seemed less enthusiastic.
“Now up you go, you two!” said Pod (he was untying the soap dish). “There’s nothing to it, Homily: you can do it easy . . . No need to fuss—”
“I haven’t said a word,” remarked Homily coldly. She eyed the small cliff with distaste. “Will you take my boots, Pod?” she asked after a moment.
“Yes, give them here,” said Pod. He took them rather roughly, and pushed them under the lashing that secured the bedclothes in the soap box. “Now, up you go!”
Arrietty, already climbing, held out a welcoming hand. “It’s lovely! It’s easy! Come on . . . I’ll help you.”
Stolidly, Homily began to climb. If it is possible to climb up a mass of overhanging, tangled roots with dignity, Homily managed it that morning—steadily, calmly, and unhesitatingly. Pod, following her up—one end of the mooring string in his hand—smiled to himself with an amused, grim kind of pride. There was no one like her—not once she had set her mind to a thing!
Reaching the top, Arrietty looked round for Spiller, but she could not see him. This was nothing new: he could melt into any background provided (this she remembered) that background was out of doors. Instead, she gazed at a vast expanse of lawn, not mown to a velvet smoothness (as once it must have been) but roughly cut with a scythe. She knew about scythes: her father’s was made from a razor blade. And she knew about mowing machines: there had been one at Firbank. But what caught her sharp attention and made her heart beat faster was the sight she saw in the distance—a long, low, gabled house, whose roofs caught the morning sunshine but whose front seemed vague and windowless. It must (as her father had told them) be covered with vines—vines gone wild. The Old Rectory—oh, what climbings there would be, what hidings, what freedom! And then she noticed that between the place on which she stood and the distant-seeming house, there was a pond—a rush-bound pond with an island in the middle. She could see the flat round leaves of still unopened water lilies . . .
Then she was aware of some sort of commotion behind her: Spiller, Pod, and Homily, on the edge of the bank, seemed locked in some sort of struggle. Panting and heaving, they were pulling on the mooring string of the soap dish. She ran to help them, and Spiller slipped over the edge to disentangle some part that had been caught up among the roots. He managed to get it free and, guiding it with one hand, followed its progress upwards as the others pulled and steered it from above. At last it was beside them, and they could all sit down. Pod rubbed his face on his sleeve, and Homily flapped at hers with her apron; Spiller lay flat on his back. Anybody who had felt chilly down below now felt chilly no longer.
Arrietty sat up on her elbow and looked at Spiller as he lay spread-eagled on the ground. Odd that she had never thought of Spiller as one who could be tired, or even as one who slept. And yet somehow, during the night, he and Pod (on that packed, uncomfortable boat) had found a place in which to close their eyes while she and her mother had lain so cozily tucked up in Miss Menzies’s bedclothes. How kind Spiller had always been to them! And yet, in a way, so distant: one could never talk to Spiller except about the barest essentials. Oh, well, she supposed one could not have everything . . .
She rose to her feet to have another look at the distant house. After a moment, the others got up too. They all stared, each with a different thought.
“The tower of that church,” said Homily wonderingly, “is the spitting image of the one down in the model village.”
“Or vice versa,” said Pod,
laughing. Arrietty was pleased to hear her father laugh: it seemed like a good omen. Homily tossed her head: Pod sometimes used words she failed to understand, and this always seemed to annoy her. “Well, I’m going to put my boots on,” she announced, and sat down among the dry leaves under the juniper bush. “And you’d better do the same, Arrietty. That grass will be wet after the rain . . .”
But Arrietty, always admiring of Spiller’s horny feet, preferred to go barefoot.
And then began the long, long walk.
Chapter Eight
They had to keep close to the pond (more like a lake, it seemed to them) where the sedges and water plants provided cover. On the end of its towline, the soap dish slid easily over the wet grass. Spiller went first, then Pod, Arrietty next, and Homily brought up the rear; the cord passing from shoulder to shoulder. At first they barely felt the pull of it.
A more direct route would have been straight across the lawn, but in spite of Pod’s assurances that the great house would be empty, they could never quite lose the inborn fear of prying human eyes.
The tiredness came on slowly at first. Some of the grasses were coarse and tiresome, and sometimes they came across some of last year’s thistles, beaten down by weather, but prickly just the same. The little new ones, pushing up among the grass stems, were soft and silvery and furry to the touch. All the same, Arrietty began to miss her boots. But as Spiller showed no sign of stopping, pride kept her silent.
On and on they plodded. Sometimes a shrewmouse would dart away at their approach, woken at last from its long winter sleep. There were frogs in plenty, plopping here and there, and aconites among the grasses. Yes, spring was nearly here . . .
At last (after hours, it seemed), Pod called, “We’ll take a break, Spiller.”
And they all sat down, back to back, on the tightly packed soapbox.
“That’s better,” Homily breathed, stretching out her aching feet. Arrietty put on the rough warm stockings Homily had knitted so skillfully on a pair of blunted darning needles, and then her boots.
