Everyone, as he predicted, made a speech. Beezle’s was by far the most astonishing, being supplemented by charts and such, and ending with his suggestion that, in view of chicanery along the river, the town be fortified according to a sixteen-point plan over the following ten years. The plan itself was phenomenal and was such an engineering marvel that no one but Professor Wurzle understood even the first of the sixteen points. The Professor, after very patiently listening to Beezle’s plan, whispered to Jonathan that the whole idea was tripe. Everyone clapped, to Beezle’s joy, and then, as usual, forgot entirely about any mention of a sixteen-point plan.
The kegs, finally, were unloaded and hauled on a cart to the Guildhall where the cakes and elfin gifts were to be passed out among the townspeople. Many of the gifts were wrapped, and many were not. Children piled around and shouted when the lid was pried off one of the gift kegs. Inside were all the sorts of things they’d hoped for: brass kaleidoscopes with real jewels inside and yo-yos that threw rainbows of colored sparks when twirled and collapsible sleds that avoided rocks and trees and cliffs without being made to and jack-in-the-boxes that sprang open and released a shower of lavender butterflies and bags and bags and bags of tin soldiers and marbles and other toys less magical, but every bit as wonderful.
Mayor Bastable, overwhelmed, was perhaps as interested in the elfin gifts as were the children. Finally the Professor insisted that the lid of the keg be hammered down, since the mayor seemed intent upon digging down into its depths just to see what else might be there. Mrs Bastable and little baby Gilroy rolled in at about then with a wagon on which sat a monumental tub of mulled cider and enough chocolate chip cookies so that no one had to worry about taking a third or fourth.
The townspeople clambered, finally, for a speech from Jonathan. He gave it a good bit of thought and said, finally, that he was happy to be home. Then he gave Mayor Bastable his hat back. For a moment the mayor didn’t recognize the thing, battered and weedy as it was, but after turning it over and examining the hatband, he said, ‘By gum!’ in a thoroughly pleased sort of way, handed his fur cap to Mrs Bastable, and put the old river cap atop his head. ‘How in the world?’ he began, then paused, took off the cap, and shook his head over it.
‘I haven’t any idea,’ said Jonathan. ‘All I can say is that your hat has had a few owners over the past weeks – trees and rivers and oceans and linkmen and goblins – and here it is back home.’
‘Amazing!’ said Gilroy. Everyone else agreed that it was pretty amazing, and then insisted on riding the rafters up and down in front of the Guildhall, hip-hip-hooraying the whole time. That was just the sort of thing elves approve of, so they joined in and hoorayed right along until everyone had hoorayed as much as they cared to.
Twickenham and Thrimp, after all the speeches and cavorting were done, climbed into the airship and climbed back out again toting a great long clock, taller than both of them, and stout as a tree.
Twickenham presented it to Mayor Bastable, who made another speech involving wonderful elves who give away wonderful clocks. The mayor started the thing up and moved the hands around to the top of the hour. The clock chimed in a deep, resonant way, as if it were a clock the size of a mountain, chiming from the far end of the valley. On the face of the clock was a grinning moon wearing a pair of immense, fishbowl spectacles and looking down over a twilit countryside of cottages, all made, oddly enough, of cheese. When the clock chimed, a caped, pipe-smoking mechanical dwarf issued from the recesses of the clock, pursued close on by a pitching raft. On the deck of the raft sat three men and a dog.
It was an astonishing clock altogether, and the mayor decided that it should sit in the Guildhall until a gazebo could be built for it in the center of the square. The townspeople cheered at the thought of it.
Jonathan made a final brief speech, insisting that the depiction on the clock was rather a glorification of the whole adventure, since he and Dooly and the Professor and Ahab had set out after cakes and gifts and not evil dwarfs. He told the story of how Theophile Escargot had been the ‘ace in the hole’ and of how Squire Myrkle had appeared at the window to poleaxe the Beddlington Ape and save the day. He ended the speech by reciting Bufo’s poem, ‘When Squire Myrkle Came’, and the saga so enlivened the crowd that they insisted on riding the rafters up and down on their shoulders again, all of them cheering mightily.
It was the fall of night and the cold north wind, finally, that sent everyone home. The next day but one would be Christmas Day, and it was a good season to be indoors. Jonathan was feeling that way himself. As far as he was concerned, he could pretty much do without all the backslapping and the riding up and down. He invited Twickenham and his company as well as Miles the Magician to spend a few days at his home, but they all politely refused – understanding, likely, that they would put rather a strain on the accommodations. Miles said that he was on his way upriver to the City of the Five Monoliths, that Selznak and his ape were quite possibly headed that way, since they clearly had bypassed Twombly Town. It was in the City of the Five Monoliths that Selznak had operated his sideshow. Even though the watch had been recovered and given to Twickenham, the Dwarf would bear close observation. Or at least that’s what Miles told Jonathan.
So the elves departed and Miles departed and Dooly went off to his sister’s house. The Professor shook Jonathan’s hand and he too took off, saying that he had a few score pages of notes he wanted to scribble down yet.
In the end, Mayor Bastable went along with Jonathan to make sure, as he put it, that everything was shipshape. They hauled a cartload of Jonathan’s things, Ahab riding along asleep on top. Jonathan lit the lantern he kept on the porch, wiggled the key in the lock, and swung the door open. Inside, smack in the center of the room, was a great, fresh Christmas tree, glittering with glass baubles and tinsel and smelling like a pine forest after an autumn rain. ‘Why –’ said Jonathan. ‘How in the world?’
‘We all knew you’d be back,’ said Gilroy Bastable, smiling and winking and happy as a cherub over his surprise. ‘There was never any doubt. Not for a moment. And tomorrow, being Christmas Eve day, we’re all coming round as usual, I suppose, for cakes and cheese and port. And how in the world could you be expected to set up such a feast as that if you had to worry at the same time about decorating a tree?’
Jonathan nodded. How indeed? The mayor stuck around long enough to empty the cart. In the crates of books were a few Christmas gifts that Jonathan had carried along from Seaside. There were gifts for Mr and Mrs Bastable that the mayor insisted upon shaking and listening to and gifts for Dooly and the Professor and for Jonathan himself. And there were even a few gifts with no name at all on them so that droppers-in might not feel left out. As each gift was added to the growing pile under the tree, the tree itself seemed to grow a bit brighter and gayer. Jonathan hauled out two old oak bookcases from his attic and he and Gilroy Bastable loaded them full of the books he’d found at the mouse bookstore in Seaside. The mayor nodded in appreciation and carried armfuls over so that Jonathan could arrange them just so.
Finally, the cart empty, Jonathan started a good fire in the hearth. It would have been a fine thing, he thought, to have swept up and brought along some of the green skeleton dust, just to see if he could conjure a skeleton from the flames and give the mayor an odd thrill. But likely he’d have to burn bones instead of oak logs to pull it off, and that seemed like an altogether bad idea, so it was just as well that he didn’t save any of the dust. Best not to mess around with that sort of thing anyway, he supposed.
When the fire was popping, he dug around until he found a likely bottle of brandy and a can of Bledsoes Red Mixture, the mayor’s favorite tobacco, and he and Gilroy Bastable filled a pipe, dribbled a spot of brandy into a glass, and slid into easy chairs where they sat puffing contentedly. Everything looked good – just as Jonathan was sure it should look. The books, the tree glowing in the firelight, the pipe and the drink and the fire in the fireplace and Ahab stretched out on the rug
before the hearth – all of it couldn’t be better.
‘It’s good to be home,’ Jonathan said, nodding in general agreement with himself. Mayor Bastable gave Jonathan a profound look. Then he mussed about in his hair with his fingers and said, ‘Indeed it is,’ giving the brandy bottle a profound look. Jonathan asked him what he’d think of another dash of brandy and a bit of cheese. Gilroy Bastable, putting his feet onto a stool and tamping away at the bowl of his pipe, said that as far as he could tell at the moment, all things considered, a ball of cheese and another spot of brandy would suit him down to the ground.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
World Fantasy Award winning author James Blaylock, one of the pioneers of the steampunk genre, has written eighteen novels as well as scores of short stories, essays, and articles. His steampunk novel Homunculus won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, and his short story "The Ape-box Affair," published in Unearth magazine, was the first contemporary steampunk story published in the U.S. Recent publications include Knights of the Cornerstone, The Ebb Tide, and The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs. He has recently finished a new steampunk novel titled The Aylesford Skull, to be published by Titan Books.
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