The Animals of Farthing Wood

by Colin Dann

  The little velvet-coated animal went forward purposefully, using his instinct to find the darkest corner of a thoroughly dark building. He turned a few corners, and threaded the line of animals between pews, and eventually stopped in the narrow space behind the organ. Here it really was pitch-dark, but in its musty seclusion it was as dry as dust and completely sheltered from any unwelcome draughts.

  ‘Where have you brought us, Mole?’ asked Badger.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mole replied, ‘but it . . . um . . . seems all right.’

  Fox, in the meantime, had, brought Toad into the church, and was sniffing and groping about for a sign of his friends.

  ‘Do you see anything?’ Toad asked him.

  ‘No,’ he replied, ‘but I can smell their damp bodies.’

  An unexpected flapping of wings above them made them both jump, but Tawny Owl had appeared to guide them to the hiding-place.

  ‘Good old Owl,’ said Fox, trying to mask his momentary fright. ‘Well, we should all get a good rest tonight.’

  ‘I’m not so sure I approve of sheltering in a place that seems to have such a magnetic influence over humans,’ Tawny Owl remarked. ‘But I suppose there is no choice.’

  ‘It’s certainly better than being out in the rain,’ Fox laughed.

  ‘Personally, I don’t like these very dry spots,’ Toad said, shaking his head. ‘I always wonder if my skin might crack.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Fox told him. ‘Anyway, it’s only for a day. I should have thought you were tired.’

  ‘I am,’ admitted Toad, as Tawny Owl alighted on the back of a pew and then fluttered to the ground.

  When all the animals were together, they began to ask Toad in sleepy voices how far away they now were from their destination.

  ‘About a day’s travelling, I should think,’ he answered. ‘However,’ he added, as assorted squeals of delight and excitement were heard, ‘I can’t be absolutely sure, because we’ve gone a little bit out of the way in our search for shelter. I didn’t ever come past this church before, but I do know that, having come through that town, the Park is now very, very close.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll have any difficulty in getting back on the correct route?’ asked Hedgehog.

  ‘Of course not,’ Toad said cheerfully. ‘It only needs Kestrel to do a little flying some time tomorrow, provided this rain has stopped. Why, I’m sure he could see the Park from here.’

  ‘As soon as it’s light enough . . .’ murmured Kestrel, as he tucked his head under his wing.

  When he emerged from the building early the next morning, leaving his friends sleeping, Kestrel was pleased to see the countryside looking so clear and fresh. The air was cool and crisp, and the sky blue again, as if washed clean of clouds. The wet grass gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight.

  Kestrel flew lazily aloft and stretched his wing muscles. After enjoying a series of swoops and dives, he began to look around him, at the landscape. Sure enough, in one direction, an area of parkland was easily discernible. Kestrel could see stretches of fencing and rolling grassy country, with dark patches that he recognized as bracken, and clusters of trees that were copses or woods. The Edible Frogs’ pond was not visible from Kestrel’s position, but he decided to fly and have a closer look. There was no longer any doubt as to the park’s identity when, as he approached he saw several white blobs moving over the grass, which gradually took form and shape as the very white deer that gave the park its name. As he drew near this place that the party of animals and birds had been struggling to reach for so long, Kestrel felt that their arrival, which now seemed inevitable, should be suitably memorable, and a plan began to form in his mind.

  Back in the church, his friends were not feeling so confident of finally reaching their new home or even of getting safely away from the building, for daylight had brought workmen along to continue their repair work on the broken wall. The sound of human tools banging and chipping at the very place they had expected to use as their exit and, worse still, raucous human voices, awoke and seriously alarmed the animals. In reply to a barrage of questions all more or less encompassing the one demand of what was to be done next, Fox replied grimly that for the present they should sit tight.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Rabbit. ‘But what if those men wall us in?’

  ‘There are such things as doors in churches, you know,’ Tawny Owl remarked testily.

  Rabbit felt foolish, although he tried not to show it. In this he failed dismally. ‘Anyway,’ he said sullenly, ‘there’s no knowing when the doors will be opened.’

  ‘Oh, it won’t be long.’ Fox tried to sound unconcerned. ‘Somebody’s bound to come sooner or later, with these workmen here.’

  ‘Actually, Rabbit has got a point,’ said Hare, surprising his distant cousin by siding with him for once. ‘If a human does come to open one of the doors, we might well be too slow to get out before it’s closed again, and in any case he’s hardly likely to hold it open for us while we file through.’

  Fox started to think and, as he had begun to do more and more, consulted Vixen.

  ‘It’s safer to stay here at the moment,’ the animals heard her say to him in a low voice.

  Fox looked round at his companions, studying every face. ‘Does anyone want to make a dash for it now?’ he asked.

  No one replied, but there were sounds of shifting feet and one or two coughs.

  ‘Vixen and I are quite ready to accompany any of you who wish to chance it now, rather than finding we might have left it too late,’ Fox said.

  ‘We’ll probably have a better opportunity later,’ said Badger in his soothing voice. ‘I think an attempt to leave now might prove to be rather foolhardy.’

  The concerted murmurs of the party seemed to express approval of Badger’s opinion.

  ‘Then it’s decided,’ said Fox. ‘We wait.’

  The noise of the workmen continued unabated, and the animals remained in their hiding-place, listening with sinking hearts to the ceaseless hammering and shouts, and wondering what Kestrel was doing. After some hours, during which time none of them spoke very much, the noise came to an end. Fox looked at each of his companions significantly, as if mentally warning them to be ready.

  They waited for the voices of the workmen, who were obviously preparing to leave, to diminish. The light inside the church, filtering through the coloured panes, and striking straight through the clear glass, had moved gradually round the building. A shaft of sunlight, illuminating a thousand dancing motes of dust, now shone obliquely on to the organ pipes, in front of which the crouching animals were all geared for flight.

  The rough voices were retreating; there seemed to be only a matter of seconds longer to wait, when a swooping form suddenly alighted in front of them. Kestrel had returned.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said immediately. ‘Stay where you are. There’s a throng of people on the way here, and two of them are just about to open the main door.’

  Even as he finished speaking the noises of a handle being turned, followed by creaking hinges, reached their ears. Instinctively they all cowered closer to the floor. New, quieter human voices could be heard.

  ‘What about the wall?’ whispered Fox. ‘Surely we could still make a dash for it before any more arrive?’

  ‘No, it’s hopeless.’ Kestrel shook his head. ‘They’ve bricked up the lower part of the hole completely. There’s only a small gap left now, about four feet from the ground.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Fox groaned. ‘We’re stuck fast.’

  ‘But we can’t remain here,’ protested Hedgehog, in an agitated voice. ‘It’s not dark any more. We’ll be discovered in no time.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Fox told him. ‘We’re as safe as we can be under the circumstances. We’re screened all round pretty well, and there is no room for any humans to come close to us. And don’t forget, they don’t know we’re here. They won’t come looking for us.’

  I’m sorry I didn’t leave with you now, Kestr
el,’ said Whistler, who always slept well and had not woken as early as the hawk.

  ‘You needn’t have come back,’ Fox remarked. ‘Now you’re stuck with us.’

  ‘Kestrel’s a good friend,’ said Mole.

  ‘Well, I didn’t want you to move from here,’ the hawk said, smiling in a pleased way. ‘I thought I might have been too late to stop you.’

  More voices came through the open door, and more steps echoed on the stone floor. There was a scraping of chairs, and one set of footsteps came nearer and nearer to the animals and then stopped just the other side of the organ which sheltered them. A sound of rustling papers and the varied noises of someone settling himself into a seat were then audible, so that they knew one of the humans was very close.

  ‘Just when we’re so close to home,’ muttered Toad.

  His unconscious use of the word ‘home’ to describe somewhere none of his companions, except Kestrel, had ever seen, acted as a tonic on the whole party. It reminded them all with a peculiar force that not only was their long journey nearly over, but that in a matter of hours their lives would no longer be governed by the factors of how far they could walk in one day, or how to negotiate some difficult obstacle. They all realized that their escape from the church represented the very last of the obstacles which they had to surmount, before they could begin to enjoy a normal and peaceful life again – something they had almost forgotten how to do. So the thought of that home, and all it meant to each weary creature in his own particular way, produced a resolve, stronger than at any time on their journey, that they would not be stopped now from reaching it by any power, human or otherwise. Each animal sensed this fresh upsurge of moral strength in his companions, and felt his confidence rise.

  ‘ We can wait a little longer,’ said Weasel philosophically.

  ‘It’s only a matter of time,’ remarked Mole, who was already feeling pleased at Fox’s indirect compliment on the hiding-place he had found them.

  ‘As far as I can see it’s a waste of time,’ whispered Adder. But the party settled down silently, while the echoing footsteps and the low-pitched human voices increased in number.

  Finally the shuffling of feet, and the creaking and scraping of pews and chairs, and even the whispering voices subsided, and it seemed as if the church and its people had entered a period of quiet, of expectancy.

  The animals had all begun to think that their ordeal might, after all, not be so grim when, with a deafening, blaring shock, the organ pipes behind them suddenly pealed forth.

  The noise was so terrifying and sudden that the whole party of animals leapt up, panic-stricken, and scattered all over the church in a sort of zoological eruption.

  The birds flew up to the rafters where the terrible sounds of the organ reverberated tremendously, causing them to fly in every direction in their efforts to escape the noise.

  Fox and Vixen dashed straight down the nave in blind terror, and more by luck than judgement found themselves at the open door. The voles and fieldmice, the rabbits and hares and the squirrels scurried to every corner, some of them getting under chairs, producing shrieks and screams of alarm from the female congregation. The men, no less astounded, uttered gruff shouts and exclamations, while the Vicar, who was about to perform a wedding ceremony, dropped his book as Badger lumbered against his legs. Weasel, Mole, Toad and the hedgehogs made for the opposite end of the church, each taking a different and completely motiveless route, their only thought being to get away from that horrifying machine. Only Adder, fortunately for him, was not noticed as he slid his slender body along every hidden crevice and crack he could find to reach the door.

  For a few moments pandemonium held sway, but with the ceasing of the wedding music by the astonished organist, the animals’ panic was calmed sufficiently, to turn their flight towards the one safe direction.

  With the gradual disappearance of the swifter-running animals, the congregation’s initial amazement changed to excitement, and soon a general buzz of chatter filled the church.

  As Fox and Vixen hurtled forth from the doorway, the bride, with her escorting father, and bridesmaids, were just approaching it. They stopped dead, speechless, only to see, after a short interval, a badger, an assortment of rabbits, squirrels and hares and a weasel gallop out of the door and race off in the direction the two foxes had taken.

  The bride looked towards her father, as if silently asking him if this were some sort of omen for her imminent marriage, but his amazement prevented him from forming any words and he merely stammered incoherently. Eventually he seemed to recall their reasbn for being there, and he began to lead his daughter forward again.

  As they were about to enter the church, two birds shot past like bullets, and a third one, of huge proportions, flew directly at their faces, flapping its wings frantically in the confined space, and only veered upward at the last minute, making a rhythmical whistling as it soared higher and higher.

  The poor bride shrieked with fright, and four sympathetic echoes came from the bridesmaids. The father’s alarm now turned to anger. Telling them to wait on the threshold, he entered the church to discover who was behind the production of what he deemed a very bad effort at a wedding prank. No sooner was he inside than his legs were assailed by a group of scuttling hedgehogs who managed to scramble past him into the open. He began to call out furiously for the member of the congregation whom he thought was responsible for perpetrating such an outrage on his daughter’s wedding day. Of course nobody replied, and the Vicar came forward, wringing his hands, and with a soothing voice tried to calm the irate gentleman.

  After a minute or two the bride and bridesmaids could no longer bear being kept in ignorance of the matter, and they entered the church in their turn, unaccompanied by the expected strains of the organ.

  While the humans stood around and debated, some heatedly and others more calmly, the cause of such an extraordinary occurrence, the smaller animals still inside the building were able, one by one, to make their escape unnoticed. Mole was the last to reach the door, but just outside he found Toad and Adder, trying to look inconspicuous by the wall.

  ‘They went that way,’ Toad said, indicating the direction the swifter animals had taken. ‘They’ll probably wait for us somewhere.’

  ‘I can’t see anyone,’ said Mole, peering ahead.

  ‘Of course you can’t,’ said Adder impatiently. ‘I’m surprised you could even see your way to the door.’

  ‘Oh, Adder, don’t be unkind,’ said Mole, badly hurt at the reference to his purblindness. ‘Let’s . . . let’s go on together, shall we?’

  ‘Not much else we can do,’ muttered the snake, who felt Mole was to blame for their present position by choosing their hiding-place by the organ pipes.

  ‘I’m sure when they’ve recovered themselves, Fox will send someone back to help us,’ said Toad confidently. ‘It’ll probably be Kestrel.’

  A little further on they caught up with some of the mice, who had been constantly looking back over their shoulders in dire fear of being pursued.

  The humans, however, were far too busy arguing and talking inside the church for any of them to think of looking for the cause of the disturbance outside, and pretty soon all the animals had put enough distance behind them for the renewed sounds of the organ not to reach their ears.

  31

  The final lap

  ‘It’s not like Fox to forget about us,’ remarked one of the fieldmice, after they had been walking together for some time through the soaked, glistening grass.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Toad. ‘They’ll all be waiting for us in a safe spot somewhere. We’ll keep going.’

  ‘I’m almost as wet as I was in the storm,’ grumbled Vole, who had been one of the last animals to get out of the church. ‘This long grass is drenching me.’

  ‘Well, our troubles will be over soon,’ said Mole happily. ‘I can scarcely believe it, you know,’ he added to Toad.

  ‘I shouldn’t get carried away just yet,�
� warned Adder. ‘Anything can happen.’

  ‘Pooh, nonsense!’ said Toad. ‘We’re as good as there. There’s no doubt in my mind, at any rate.’

  ‘Will you live in the pond with the Edible Frogs?’ Mole asked him.

  ‘Certainly not,’ Toad replied. ‘I shall visit the pond, of course. But, after the places I’ve seen, my horizons are wider than the narrow world of mud and weed they cling to.’

  Adder’s face took on a subtle expression. ‘You must introduce me to these friends of yours,’ he lisped. ‘They sound most interesting.’

  Toad looked a little embarrassed, and feigned deafness. But the snake persisted. ‘You will, won’t you?’ he urged. ‘I want to meet them.’

  Toad coughed awkwardly. ‘H’m, well . . . er . . . the trouble is, you see, Adder, it’s really a question of . . . er . . . whether they want to meet you.’

  Adder was not offended. He chuckled drily, and leered at Mole.

  Soon after this, Toad’s faith in Fox was found to be justified. They heard the unmistakable sound of Whistler’s wings, and they called out together to him: ‘Here! Here!’

  The heron landed and, having greeted them, stepped along with them on his stilt-like legs. As he made no reference to Fox, Toad was forced to prompt him.

  ‘Is it good news or bad news?’ he asked unobtrusively.

  ‘Oh, good news,’ replied Whistler brightly. ‘Very good news.’

  He said no more and lapsed into a pensive mood. His companions were puzzled.

  ‘Is . . . is everyone all right?’ Mole enquired.

  ‘Yes. They’re fine. I’m sorry,’ said the heron, rousing himself, ‘the nearer we get to our destination the more I find my thoughts turning to . . . er . . . well, to put it delicately, the chance of . . . er . . . perhaps meeting someone of interest in the Park.’

  Only Adder divined the meaning behind these words, but as such matters did not interest him in the least, he remained silent. Mole and Toad were completely nonplussed.

  ‘Well, have we far to go?’ Vole asked the huge bird irritably.