The Little Grey Men

by BB

  y word!’ exclaimed Dodder, swinging his arms to and fro like a cabman to warm himself, ‘there’s ice on the water. If we get up full steam we may push our way through; it is not thick enough to worry about.’

  Though the weather was so cold it was divine on deck, as beautiful in its way as a most perfect summer morning. Dodder’s breath came in puffs like a kettle on the boil; the grass was crisp, white, flashing diamonds, and the air smelt of sliced apple. From the rimy hedges, spangled starlings whistled merrily, the sun winking on their burnished bodies. All along the edges of the Folly old Jack Frost had been busy during the night making a double fringe of sharp daggers and dragons’ teeth of ice. There was ice round the screw of the Jeanie Deans, her stern and decks were covered with ice crystals. Dodder breathed deeply and clapped his arms once more, his senses alert to the beauty of the scene. Not far away was a graceful group of birches growing in a little clearing in the hazel bushes. Quite a lot of leaves still remained upon them, round-shaped leaves like minute shields, of a beautiful clear amber yellow. They made a rare contrast to the slender black and silver stems.

  Dodder felt ‘good’. He blew out his cheeks, puffed on his nails, and shouted ‘Hullo, below there! show a leg! show a leg! a lovely day for the journey down! Show a leg!’

  Sneezewort and Baldmoney (the former now fully recovered and quite his old self despite his terrible ordeal) nipped up the funnel and began to wind the key vigorously. With long practice they had quite got the knack of starting her up.

  ‘One more turn,’ shouted Dodder to the straining gnomes. Sneezewort put one foot against the funnel and pulled until his naturally red face turned a deep purple. There was a loud click and a sudden horrid screech from the bowels of the ship. Dodder pushed the starting lever and nothing happened!

  ‘That’s done it,’ said Dodder in a bitter voice; ‘the engine’s broken now.’

  Sneezewort began to cry: ‘Oh dear, we are in a mess; we shall never get home, and now the wood dogs will get us. What are we to do?’

  ‘Shut up, you snivelling baby,’ growled Dodder, ‘don’t you see we shan’t need the engine any more if we keep in the current? It will take us right down to the Oak Pool. If you ask me, it is a very good thing this has happened; if we’d been tempted to go any higher we should have been frozen in.’

  They broke the thin film of ice round the ship with oars and after much hauling and pushing they got the nose of the Jeanie Deans round. A moment later the current took her and, free of ice, she began to drift as silently as a fallen leaf downstream. Dodder could not resist one last look at the hazel thickets which had been the scene of such exciting happenings the day before. I think Sneezewort had forgotten all about his narrow escape, for gnomes take everything as it comes.

  Baldmoney went down into the cabin with the map and wrote upon it (in gnome language) ‘Farthest North. Our last camp, Wood Dog Wood, Sneezewort nearly eaten here’. He could not suppress a sigh that the real object of all their efforts had not been attained . . . Cloudberry had not been found.

  •

  The gnomes went back down the Folly with a great company. Each tree as they passed it flung some dead leaves down to them, the stream was full; hawthorn, maple, chestnut, elm, oak, lime, willow, ash, and alder, poplar and wild apple, all were drifting with the current, smoothly and silently, in a coloured carpet.

  There was nothing to do all day but stand about the deck, smoke and gossip, admire the scenery, and lean over the side to watch the endless procession of coloured leaves sliding past, to watch the darting fish in the clear water, and wave to astonished watervoles.

  It is a strange thing that before the floods in late autumn rivers, streams, and ponds become crystal clear.

  It was possible for the gnomes to see every pebble and leaf on the stream bed, and the waving cresses, some like green hair, and neat pillows of tight, green weeds, seemed to belong to a fantastic submarine fairyland.

  •

  A friendly wind helped them across the lake and they could not suppress a shudder when they saw hated Poplar Island, barren and wild, on the starboard side, half hidden by mist. Were it not for the Jeanie Deans, perhaps their bones would be bleaching on its grim shore. And so they went on, past places hardly recognizable now that the trees were stripped almost bare.

  They dropped anchor in Crow Wood and paid Squirrel a visit. They felt they could not go past without looking him up. He was overjoyed to see them back again, and many a yarn they exchanged with him up in Tree Top House.

  There, in Crow Wood, were the marks of their old fires, recalling the night of the animal banquet, when Owl told them ghost stories, and, as for the gibbet, it had been torn down by the animals and the poor bones given a decent burial by the moles and sexton beetles. No other giant had been seen in Crow Wood since the gnomes had left, and everybody lived in peace and harmony.

  As Squirrel was a lonely soul they persuaded him to go back to the Oak Pool with them. I think he was a little regretful at saying goodbye to Tree Top House, but the picture the gnomes painted of the Oak Pool proved irresistible. And when he saw the Jeanie Deans anchored to a pine branch he was too excited to speak.

  Soon after leaving Crow Wood it began to snow, so that the conifers seemed like trees on a Christmas card and the gnomes like little snow men. Hundreds of fieldfares and redwings feasting on the scarlet berries in a hedgerow stopped their banquet to watch the Jeanie Deans drift by. The sky was a heavy ochre-grey, promising snow for days and days, but nobody minded.

  They managed the Folly Falls with ease because more water was coming down than in summer, and though the steamer was buffeted out of her usual stately dignity by the swift rush, she was soon serenely gliding on towards the Oak Pool.

  What a happy party it was on board, to be sure! It was good to see the familiar landmarks, and it wasn’t long before they fell in with many old acquaintances. Some, like the hedgepigs, dormice, and fernbears, missed the fun, for they were tucked up for the winter and would not appear again until the spring. But kingfishers, moorhens, Bub’ms, water voles, moles, Spink, and Bluebutton, all recognized them and gave them a warm welcome as they went past. As you can well imagine, they were speechless at the sight of the Jeanie Deans. Truly this homecoming was going to give the Stream People much to talk about for many a long winter’s night. Dodder, Sneezewort, Baldmoney, and Squirrel all waving frantically from the bridge of the ship, the snow falling thickly, all the animals running along the bank, trying to keep up with her, why, it was as good as a play!

  Sneezewort had found a little Union Jack in one of the cabin lockers, and this was run up to the forepeak. They didn’t care who saw them, even the miller’s brats, or the peppery old Colonel from Joppa!

  •

  Snow was still falling in big feathery flakes when they passed Moss Mill, and ice daggers a yard long were hanging from the now motionless buckets of the giant wheel. The mill pool was partly frozen over too, but in midstream the water was clear, which was a lucky thing for the Jeanie Deans. And just as dusk was falling they passed Lucking’s meadows. A cosy light was burning in the farmhouse window, where Farmer Lucking was just sitting down to discuss an enormous ham of his own curing, and presently they came to the rapids above the Oak Pool.

  How strange it seemed, this silent white landscape. Last time they were here all was dressed in summer finery. Now the trees were black and bare and hardly a rush blade was to be seen along the banks.

  ‘If only we had found Cloudberry,’ said Dodder sadly to Squirrel, his eyes greedily taking in each dear familiar landmark, ‘it would have made this trip just perfect. But we’ve at least found one thing, this lovely ship. Baldmoney will soon mend the engine—he’s as clever as anything at making and mending things. Perhaps one day we’ll go up the Folly again—who knows?’

  The Jeanie Deans glided on, ice tinkling along her sides. In another moment they had rounded the bend, and there was the oak and the Oak Pool. What a moment! What a picture! The snow-cover
ed branches hanging over the inky stream, each twig encrusted with frost, the dear old oak tree sturdily awaiting them, the excited cries of the crowds on either shore!

  All at once Dodder uttered an exclamation, his hands gripped the wheel of the Jeanie Deans convulsively. ‘Sneezewort! Baldmoney! Squirrel! Someone’s lit a fire in our house!’

  ‘Who can it be, in our house?’ exclaimed Baldmoney.

  ‘Perhaps the Stream People heard we were coming and lit a fire to welcome us home,’ suggested Sneezewort nervously.

  ‘Nobody’s any business in our house,’ shouted Dodder, getting very excited; ‘not even the Stream People.’

  Slowly they drew nearer, the Folly bearing them ever onward until they were close to the oak root.

  ‘Let go the anchor,’ called Dodder, and it went tumbling down into the icy water. The Jeanie Deans swung her nose round and Sneezewort lowered the gangway. The next instant they had the greatest thrill of the whole adventure.

  This is the last glimpse we have of the ‘Jeanie Deans’ drifting bravely onwards in the winter dusk, the Stream People escorting her

  The door opened and there, waving frantically, was Cloudberry, dear old Cloudberry, beaming all over his face. He looked just the same (though perhaps a trifle thinner) as when he left the Oak Pool two years before!

  •

  The door of Oak Pool House is shut fast and a merry fire is blazing within; never has the old oak re-echoed to such uproarious merriment. Outside, the snowflakes whirl, and the Folly is still hurrying on between jagged ice floes.

  The Jeanie Deans, safely anchored, lifts slightly to the ripples talking under her keel, small fragments of floating ice dwell lovingly along her sides and are then swept onwards on their cold and lonely journey. The snow lies thick on her decks, darkness is cloaking the wild winter fields.

  But within the oak root all is high revelry and fun. Most of the Stream People who can squeeze in are there—nobody has been left out in the cold. Truly the finest animal banquet ever! And with them round the blaze, full of supper and toasting their toes, sit Dodder, Sneezewort, Cloudberry, Baldmoney, and Squirrel. Cloudberry, with his mouth full of peppermint cream, is telling them of his adventures.

  ‘After scratching my name on the bridge,’ he is saying, ‘I went on up the side of the big lake, and who do you think I met? Why, the Heaven Hounds! They were resting there before their long journey back to Spitzbergen. They asked me to go with them—how could I refuse such an offer? Ever since Dodder and I met them up the Folly years before I had always longed to go. So I went, and came back on Hallowe’en!’

  ‘We heard the Heaven Hounds passing over,’ exclaimed Dodder, ‘when we were right up the Folly—then you must have been with them!’

  ‘Yes, I was with them; and now I come to think of it, I saw a little bright spark far below us which looked like a fire. I thought it was some lonely old tramp cooking his supper’ (here Dodder grunted indignantly) ‘or a Lantern Man. It was very cold up there, I can tell you, tucked up on the old leader’s back, with my arms round his neck. They put me down in Lucking’s water meadow. It gave me quite a turn when I found this house empty—I couldn’t think what had happened to you.’

  ‘So you never went up to the Folly Source after all!’ exclaimed Baldmoney.

  ‘Of course not. I knew I would never get such a chance again so I took it. But I’ve done with wandering now, I’ve seen Spitzbergen and the Land of Northern Lights, and it will take me the rest of the winter to tell you of all my adventures and the strange things I’ve seen.’

  ‘And to think we’ve been all those miles up the Folly for nothing,’ grunted Dodder in an aggrieved tone, half laughing in spite of himself; ‘it’s just the same old Cloudberry, he hasn’t changed a bit—has he, gnomes?’

  There was a slight movement above them and a piece of bark fell down. It was only Ben, staring down at them, his eyes like carriage-lamps in the firelight, listening with all his ears.

  •

  So here we will leave the Little Grey Men, for they have much to talk about. Baldmoney has spread out his waistcoat map and is tracing, with a grubby finger, the course of their adventurous journey. Dodder, with great ceremony, has produced a shell of his precious Elderberry 1905, with the result that already Squirrel and Cloudberry are a little too unreserved, having no ‘head’ for elderberry wine, and (though I hardly like to mention it) Sneezewort can be observed making ineffectual efforts to stifle a hiccup, as tipsy as a bumble bee in a foxglove finger.

  Our last glimpse of them is in the cosy flamelight, with their crooked shadows thrown on the interior of the old hollow oak. And the last sound we hear is of the Folly Brook, chuckling on past the Oak Tree Pool as it has done for a thousand, thousand cuckoo years, on its long journey to the distant sea.

  THE FOLLY BROOK SONG

  This is the song sung by the Folly Brook as it passes the Oak Tree House

  From woodland and fallow,

  With music, with laughter,

  Through deep and through shallow,

  Bright bubbles stream after,

  Through lilies and cresses

  With trailing green tresses,

  I journey unceasing

  By steep dell and dingle,

  My brown ripples creasing

  O’er shillet and shingle,

  Past flowery hedges

  And quivering sedges.

  White lambs, running races,

  Are puzzled to see

  Their black chubby faces

  Reflected in me,

  And the first swallow dips

  As he thankfully sips.

  I leap at the mill

  (You should hear the wheel’s thunder!),

  In the pool I am still,

  Silver fishes swim under,

  And dragonflies play

  Where arrow-heads sway.

  The spotted trout rise

  By the old mossy piles,

  They are ancient and wise

  To the angler’s wiles,

  And red cattle dream

  At the bend of the stream.

  And when summer’s glory

  Is over and done,

  It is still the same story,

  I rush, and I run;

  Though leaden the sky

  I go hurrying by.

  When trees begin weeping

  Their yellow leaves fall,

  And safe in my keeping

  I gather them all,

  Away to the sea

  They travel with me.

  When snow-flakes are twirling

  And reeds are a-shiver,

  With flood rubbish whirling

  I haste to the river,

  I plunge, and I roar,

  I bubble, and bore.

  No sleeping, no slowing,

  The sky in my face,

  Eternally flowing,

  I ripple, I race,

  Impatient to rest

  On the Grey Mother’s breast.

  I journey unceasing

  By green dell and dingle,

  My brown ripples creasing,

  O’er shillet and shingle,

  Past flowery hedges,

  Through quivering sedges.

  No sleeping, no slowing,

  The sky in my face,

  Eternally flowing,

  I ripple, I race,

  Impatient to rest,

  On the Grey Mother’s breast.

  This song in the book has nine verses

  B.B. was the pen name of D. J. Watkins-Pitchford (1905–1990), who was born and raised in Northamptonshire, England. He studied at the Royal College of Art and was the art master at Rugby School in Warwickshire for many years. He married in 1939 and had two children, a son and a daughter, and in 1974 his wife died of exposure to pesticides from a neighbor’s garden. A painter, illustrator, and outdoorsman as well as a writer, B.B. wrote nearly sixty books for both children and adults and illustrated dozens more, all of which reflect his naturalist’s knowledge an
d passion for the countryside. For more than fifty years he wrote a bi-weekly column for The Shooting Times (his pseudonym came from the size of lead shot he used to hunt geese). The Little Grey Men, which was awarded the Carnegie Medal in 1942, and its sequel, Down the Bright Stream, are two of his most well-known and best-loved books.