by Chris Mould
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” he sang to himself.
A frail and frightened-looking woman came quickly. But it was not the time of night to receive visitors, especially in such harsh weather. She partially opened the door, just enough to poke her face out into the light of Jarvis’s torch.
“Yes?” she answered.
“Mrs. Duvell?” enquired Jarvis, wearing his kindest grin.
“Yes.”
“And how are we this evening?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Mister Jarvis.” She stared at him, confused by his mild-mannered approach combined with the lateness of the hour.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked.
“Oh, I wouldn’t have thought so, Mrs. Duvell. It’s the children I’m seeking. The young ones. City rats, I call them. Everywhere, they are. One just needs to know where to look, I think.”
“Yes, quite. Well, if I see anything I’ll be sure to tell you,” she urged, and she attempted to shut the door. But Jarvis’s foot was wedged in the jamb.
“You sure you don’t have anything for me, Mrs. Duvell?”
“Quite sure,” she smiled, nodding her head, and again she tried to force his foot out from the door frame.
Jarvis came close to her frightened face and stared hard.
“I’m feeling generous, seeing as the weather has delivered a pleasant evening.”
He looked round over his shoulder, as if he was about to share a secret with the lady at the doorway. And then, in hushed tones, he continued.
“Mrs. Duvell, if you don’t bring that child out here in the next five minutes I’ll be delivering you to the authorities. If you do as I ask, I shall forget where I found the little urchin and I’ll expect you to thank me for it. Do I make myself clear?”
She stared at him for a good while longer, saying nothing. Then the door closed and the latch could be heard returning to its place. Jarvis stood and waited. There were noises. Muffled voices and movement. Up and down steps. Doors banging. A dog barked in the distance on the other side of town and then others came, as if calling to each other. Jarvis had not realized how long five minutes was. He was not known for his patience. He was about to bang at the door again when it opened fully. A small frightened boy appeared with a handful of belongings and a drip-white face. He was long-haired and scruffy and Jarvis took a step backward at the sight of him. Mrs. Duvell retreated into the parlor, staring out at Jarvis with tears streaming down her face.
“Please don’t hurt him, Mister Jarvis. He’s not mine. He’s the son of Mister Brice. He’s a good boy. Never did nobody no harm.”
“Why, thank you, Mrs. Duvell, how very obliging of you. I’m sure he’ll be just fine. Now that was easy, wasn’t it? May I remind you that children are banned in the hollow? Good day.” And he shut the door in her face.
Jarvis curled his hook into the shoulder of the boys’ tunic and yanked him out into the street, dragging him to the carriage. He forced him inward and locked the door soundly and the last thing Mrs. Duvell heard was Jarvis shouting at the horse to get back up the small climb to the city road.
The smile had stayed across Jarvis’s face. He was so delighted with his catch that he stopped to take another look. Pausing at the stone bridge, he climbed down and walked to the back of the carriage. He peered in through the window and he could just see the shape of the small boy, his watery eyes glistening under the torchlight.
“How sickly sweet,” he laughed, and then he climbed back into his seat.
“Where next?” he asked his friend Captain Dooley.
And then the spooky croaking voice came again, loud and clear.
“Born of the same hour and only a moment away. The Carraway twins are asleep in their beds.”
“My, oh my. Mister and Mrs. Carraway. How surprising. All that time she lay in bed with the fever. Such a deceiving plot. She bore no illness at all, it seems. Surprising what people will do to conceal children in the womb,” Jarvis said, chattering away to himself. And then he steered his carriage toward the riverside houses.
But then he was corrected.
“Not at the Carraway house. They fear the searches and sometimes at night, the children are in the care of the DeGale family, along the track where the watermill sits. Below the bridge.”
“Ahhh, I see. They’re so sly, but so am I,” laughed Jarvis, and he was having so much fun he had forgotten how freezing cold the air had become.
Within moments he was parked up again and rapping at the door with his hook. Thud, thud, thud.
But not every taking was going to be so simple. Mister Jarvis was about to meet with much younger and bigger opposition. Mister DeGale was not so much a pushover as the last one. His large frame almost filled out the space as he opened the door.
Jarvis was not perturbed. He informed Mister DeGale that he was about to get into hot water if he didn’t hand over the Carraway children.
“Who told you, Jarvis? You’d have to get past me to get to those children, anyway,” insisted DeGale.
Jarvis took one long look up at the man before him, square-jawed and broad in the shoulder. Hmmm, he would have to think for a moment. What would melt this man’s ice-cold bravery?
“It’s a battle of wits is it, Mister DeGale? Very well. Let me show you something.” He fiddled with the lock of his back door and pulled out the young boy.
“Have you met Mister Brice’s youngest son?” he asked. “I’m presuming Mister Brice would like to see him again, but if you don’t bring out those twins I’ll have you explain to him what happened to his beloved child.” As he said this he held the boy with his hooked hand over the side of the bridge, ready to let him drop. The boy screamed out loud and then his cry fell to a quiet, pleading blubber of help.
“He’s quite heavy. I can’t imagine I’ll hold on much longer. I don’t play games, Mister DeGale. You’d best hurry up.”
DeGale dropped his head in defeat. He had the might to crush Jarvis but he did not have his evil will. He returned quickly with the Carraway twins. “Don’t hurt them, Jarvis. They’ve done nothing wrong. Keep them safe or I’ll come looking for you.”
“Thank you, Mister DeGale,” Jarvis shouted as he left in high spirits. “Room for a few more, Captain Dooley.” He grinned. This was the best night he had had in a long while.
The next brought problems: a young girl with too much fight in her. A kicker and a screamer. Guards approached through the darkness. “Do you need help, Mister Jarvis?”
She was biting and pulling at Jarvis’s hair and tearing his cloak. “Let me go! Let me go!”
The guards jumped from their horses but the snow was making it hard underfoot and somehow the girl slipped through their hands, her parents shouting after her, “Run Shira, run!”
“You’ll hang for this!” called Jarvis to her parents. “After her!” he instructed the guards. But she was lost in the maze of alleyways.
Forced into a bad frame of mind, Jarvis decided he would take the children he had and return later. “Plenty of time,” he told himself. Three in one night was a good catch considering he hadn’t caught one in such a long time. He was determined to outdo Roach and return with much more than he had managed.
And that would have been the end of his night’s searching but for a small diversion.
“Where oh where are those children from the tavern?” he said to himself, scratching away at his chin and sneering all around him.
“Three little birds at Mister Floyd’s!” croaked the old wooden soldier.
“Oh, really!” said Jarvis as a surprised smile cut across his face. “Why didn’t you tell me, my wooden friend?”
“Captain Dooley should be seen and not heard. Only speak when spoken to. There’s a good boy.”
Jarvis looked down at him. He really was an odd little fellow, even for someone from a place as strange as Hangman’s hollow. He diverted the steer of the carriage in the opposite direction.
“Then we shall call there
on the way home. It would be nice to catch up with our friend Percival Floyd after so long,” he said as his evil grin gave way to his crooked teeth.
It was the very sound of those carriage wheels that woke Pip, Toad and Frankie. All three of them had come to know that noise only too well. Its distinct, rumbling, rattling, loose-in-its-frame trundle had made them sit upright in their resting places. Pip had to rub his eyes. What on earth had brought Jarvis to the door?
“Is it him?” said Frankie. “You don’t even have to tell me,” said Toad. “I know that sound too well.”
“Floyd must be in league with him,” said Pip. “He must have said something. Somehow sent him a message.” He was rubbing at the window to clear the frost and take a clearer view.
“No, definitely not,” said Toad. “Floyd is a true friend to my father. He has been for a lifetime. Something else brings him here.”
“Look,” said Pip, “in the back of the carriage. There are children.” And they craned their necks to get a view of what stood beneath the cottage window.
“You’re right. But I can see something far worse than that,” said Toad. “I hope I’m wrong.”
“What is it?” gasped the others.
“It’s Captain Dooley,” announced Toad. “Jarvis is wearing him at his waist.”
And for the first time, they saw a brief glimpse of Captain Dooley and discovered that he was in the possession of Jarvis. Nothing could be more dangerous. Nothing could put them at more risk and harm than this. How on earth had he discovered the old wooden soldier?
A huge crash came from below as Jarvis made his entry. The door buckled open, taking Floyd by complete surprise as he lay snoozing in his chair.
“Bring them to me,” snarled Jarvis. “Bring them all.” He was still gasping from the effort of his dramatic entry.
“But, I … I …” stuttered Floyd, unable to find the words.
From upstairs, only muffled shouts were heard. The children panicked, picking up their things.
“There’s no one here. Only me,” insisted Floyd, but then Jarvis’s eyes fell upon the four empty bowls in the hearth and without saying anything more he stormed upstairs, flinging back the doors to the rooms and stabbing his hook into the bedcovers in case the children hid beneath. He turned out the cupboards and drawers, swearing that when the captain told him something, it was true, and that was all the proof he needed.
And then he flung open another door and saw a scene to make his blood boil: an open window, and beyond it, small footsteps disappearing into the alleyways. They were gone. They had escaped him yet again.
Jarvis let out a scream and returned to the front door. “Remember my promise, Percival Floyd,” he said. “You will swing at the gallows for this.” And then he was off into the night.
Some things make you run until you are so tired you have to stop. But some make you feel so frightened that you run and run and run and you keep on running until it hurts. Your heart is pounding so hard that it feels like it might burst right out of your chest. And all the time you are tripping and falling, slipping and sliding, like in some strange dream. You are completely out of breath, but still you carry on.
In their desperate panic to escape Captain Dooley, the children did just that. They scattered through the streets like wild dogs, scrambling through the pinched footpaths between the houses, so frantic were they to escape the searching mind of Captain Dooley and the sharpened grip of the hook-handed man. If they kept moving they would keep the captain thinking and make it harder for him, they were sure. They pulled at the drain covers as they went but not a single one would release its grip of ice. They had little time to spend forcing one open and so their escape found them perched beneath a crumbling bridge that spanned a narrow stretch of the river. Their hot breath billowed upward like smoke from a chimney. The water was frozen solid but to cross it was to expose themselves to open space. They sat a while and huddled together in the cold until they were brave enough to move again.
Pip stared out across the ice. His eyes opened a little wider. “I have an idea,” he said, and he began to explain his thoughts to Toad and Frankie.
There is a part of the hollow known as the Devil’s Tongue. It’s an old dilapidated bridge that crumbles away before the foot timbers collapse into the now-frozen water. Beyond the river, on the other side, is a tall structure that is home to the authorities. And in the basement below is the home of our very own Mister Jarvis. A small hovel. Mean and meager to suit the host.
If you had been stood right there at the Devil’s Tongue as the light was dropping away that night, you might just have seen three children sneaking their way under the broken bridge timbers to get a good look. Quite something to see children in the hollow, braving the open air and taking their chances. Who knew who might see them and spread the word?
So it was with great care that they moved silently along their way. They needed to be sure that the low basement was the home of the man they knew as Jarvis. They were perched in the wooden frame now, sitting upon their perches like preying birds.
It seemed somehow absurd that though they had spent the night escaping from Jarvis and his wooden assistant, they were now, through the early hours, doing exactly the opposite and getting as close to him as possible.
They had seen the black pumpkin parked outside. With its lantern still burning at the corner, a smudge of dank yellow light kept the doorway illuminated, reflecting its glow upon the icy river. Everything was still. An owl hooted softly in the distance and the gentle creak of trees in the breeze was the only other noise to be heard.
The three of them shook off their anxieties, looked at each other and nodded again.
It was now or never. With heavy hearts they crossed the river on the thick ice that rested like a pie crust on the water. It was cold, so very, very cold. Every now and then the surface heaved a great sigh and cracked beneath their feet. But they knew it would not break through. It was far too thick.
Pip’s plan to break into Jarvis’s home and take Captain Dooley was more than ambitious to say the least, but they were desperate. Jarvis would be sleeping—after all, he had had the busiest day in a long while. With the captain at large the children could not run and hide. He was always around the corner, keeping them running, endlessly chasing until he had them in his grasp. If they captured him they could turn the whole situation around and find the lost children of the hollow, and they could move in secrecy again.
They approached gingerly.
The door was locked but it sat so loose in its frame that they were able to push the bottom half inward and squeeze through the gap. It felt almost as cold inside as out but a small fire lay dying in the hearth and lit the room softly.
A wingbacked chair sat close to the fireplace, but the room was sparsely furnished and there was little else to speak of apart from piles of papers and books, candlesticks, and grog bottles.
They searched the room carefully in the half-light, their hearts drumming together nervously as they quickly became familiar with their surroundings. What looked like a small room adjoined but it was nothing more than a narrow passageway leading to a staircase. It no doubt led to Jarvis, who would be snoring in his bed. Did he have Captain Dooley at his side?
Pip stopped short in the hearth. He was sure that from the mantelpiece two eyes shone back at him through the darkness, staring intently.
There was no mistaking those mystical moons. Even to those who had never seen them, they announced their importance immediately. Yellow-white, unblinking in the orange glow from the fire. It was Captain Dooley. Perched right there on the mantel. Offered to them like a gift.
But as they stood entranced by the sight of Captain Dooley someone had been woken from his dreams of escaping city rats. He rose from his bed and tiptoed across the floor. And only moments later, a hooked hand lifted the latch on the crooked staircase door.
Floyd had pulled on a long coat and stepped into his boots at the doorway. A woolly skullcap was tugged
tightly over his graying hair, covering his ears and the nape of his neck. He stepped out into the night, tucking his gloveless hands into his pockets as he felt the first crunch of snow beneath his feet. A chill wind sent swirls of white circling around him. With his head down he made the familiar walk to the Deadman’s Hand. The streets were noisier than usual. The forest was alive with excitement. Children were on the move, desperate to escape the wisdom of the little wooden soldier. It was not a good night to be out, but Floyd had information for Sam. He knew that up above, silhouettes of witchy shapes circled the city streets. He kept to the shadowed corners and stepped out into the night.
When he entered the inn Floyd found that it was busy. But it was without the revelry that the place was accustomed to. There was no music or singing, no raised cheers and forced laughter to forget the dark secrets of the hollow. Instead, all that were there were standing together, as if in council, huddled at the bar and speaking in hushed tones. They had fallen silent on hearing the door open, but on seeing that it was Floyd they stirred again and he was handed a tankard of ale. The discussion was without doubt about the concerns of the hollow.
“I need to explain something to you,” said Floyd, his hand resting on Sam’s shoulder as he checked around him to make sure their conversation was in secret.
“Don’t worry,” said Sam. “We’re all friends here. No secrecy needed.”
“Very well. Your boy was safe with me but they left. All three of them. I could not stop them. I had a visit from Jarvis. He must have had a tip-off. He is less than happy.”
“Really? You’ve seen my boy. And the others. They’re OK?”
The group listened in and showed their concern.
“Well, I hope so,” replied Floyd. “They had no choice but to disappear into the night. I’m sorry I don’t have more to tell you.”
“It’s a relief, at least, to know they are still out there and not in the clutches of the forest,” said Sam. “It was Jarvis who started the fire, I’m sure. And he wouldn’t have done it for no reason. He knew something, somehow. Do you know where they went?”
