by Mary Stewart
John looked at it doubtfully. "People always use the back door in the country."
"There's no smoke from the chimney, either."
"Well, on a day like this? Anyway," said John briskly, "we've got to try and return this gold thing. Even if this isn't his house, the people may know who he is, and we can leave it with them. Come on."
They picked their way through the long weeds and brambles. There was a knocker on the cottage door. It was rusty with neglect, and squeaked when John lifted it. But it worked. He rapped loudly at the door.
CHAPTER THREE
What answered him was silence; moreover, silence with an echo. I suppose there are few emptier sounds than that of knocking which goes on and on through a deserted house. And yet, somehow, there was the feeling that the place wasn't quite deserted; that someone–something–was still there, or had been until recently. The place itself, the cottage, the crowding trees, seemed to be listening.
"He's not there," said John at length, rather loudly.
"He must be." It was Margaret, now, who felt sure that the cottage was occupied.
"He might just be scared to answer."
"But that's silly. Why should he be?"
"I would be, if I lived here, in the middle of the wood, and someone came knocking just as the sun was going down."
"Well," retorted John, "but he's a grown man, and–'
"And I'm only a girl? Oh, sure! No, what I really meant was, he may not want to answer. He was crying, remember."
John hesitated. "Yes, I see what you mean. All right, we'll give him a minute to–well, to get hold of himself, then we'll try the back door. And if there's still no answer, we'll give up. Okay?"
"Okay."
There had once been a flagged pathway round the cottage, close to the wall, but this was now almost completely covered with flowering weeds, daisies, speedwells, tiny bellflowers, purple and blue and white. The creepers on the cottage walls–ivy mainly, and honeysuckle–were so thick and wild, and sagged so far from the wall in places, that the children had to leave the pathway and push through the thick tangle of bramble and fern that had overgrown the flower beds. Here and there tall spikes of foxgloves spired up into the sunshine. Butterflies moved sleepily over the blackberry flowers.
They trod carefully round to the back of the cottage. There had never been a garden here, only a little yard cleared from the forest growth, and floored with bricks beaten into the ground.
These were now slippery with moss, and you could go on them as quietly as on a carpet. In the middle of the yard was a well. It had a low parapet of mossy bricks with a frame over it from which hung a rope with a wooden bucket attached.
The children paused by the well to look about them.
The back of the cottage was in fairly heavy shadow, but sunshine still lighted the porch roof, and the two windows, one to either side of the doorway. The windows had no glass in them, but there were wooden shutters folded back against the wall outside. These were unpainted, but looked clean, and the children could see into a corner of the nearer room, which was furnished after a fashion. There was a heavy chest against the wall and beside it a wooden stool.
A crucifix hung on the wall above the chest. Reassured by this, they approached the door.
This was almost hidden under the weight of ivy sagging from the broken porch. John touched Margaret's arm, and pointed. It was just possible to see, behind the curtain of ivy, that the door stood open. And it gave straight into the back room of the cottage.
The porch was so small that both children could hardly crowd into it together. John knocked at the half-open door.
Again, there was no reply. They waited a little longer, then, very gently, John pushed at the door. It swung a little wider. They could see into the room.
It was obvious that this was the main living and sleeping room of the house. There was a bed, with a tumble of blankets on it, a table, a big black cupboard in one corner, a wooden bench, a chair with a faded blue cushion on the seat, a couple of stools. A jug stood on the table, with a mug made of some dark metal, like pewter, and a wooden spoon. The fireplace held nothing but a pile of cold ashes. From a hook above it hung a black pot on a chain, like a cauldron.
No one was there, nobody at all. Just the same silence, and the swiftly deepening shadows of the forest at sunset.
"Well," said John aloud, cheerfully, and with a kind of relief, "that settles it. If he does live here, he's been home and gone out again. And if it's not his house–"
"Oh, but it is," said Margaret, in a queer voice. "Look. There, on the bed."
She pointed. There, among the pile of blankets, they could see it all quite clearly. Faded velvet, that even in this dim light showed scarlet; gilt buttons; a cloak of blue-grey with a hood; blue-grey hose, and a studded belt. And on the floor beside the bed, a pair of soft brown shoes with pine needles still clinging to the leather.
Without quite realizing what they did, both children had entered the cottage and stood staring down at the things on the bed. "The clothes he was wearing," said Margaret. "He came back here, changed his things, and then went out again. I knew they were fancy dress!"
"Well, that's fine," said John. He dropped the medallion on top of the clothes. It went with a clink and a shimmer. "There. We can just leave the thing here for him to find, and go straight back. We've been far longer than we meant to. Daddy's probably fuming–or else he's on the way to meet us."
The thought was somehow rather cheering.
It was, indeed, suddenly quite dark. The sun had set with great rapidity, and the crowding trees did the rest. The air was still warm, but the silence of the forest was deeper than before.
The insect hum had faded. No bird called.
Except the owl. One hooted, whisperingly far away among the pines. Then suddenly, another answered, from quite near at hand. Not the whispering tuwhoo this time, but the dreadful screech that goes by in the night like murder, leaving the small creatures crouching, terrified, in their hiding places.
"Your watch must have stopped! Come on!" cried Margaret, and, seizing John's hand, she pulled him towards the cottage door.
Then she screamed. John did not scream, but he made a sound like a shrill gasp with no breath in it. The two children, still holding hands, shrank backwards till they came right up against the bed.
In the cottage doorway, yellow eyes fixed and gleaming, jaws open and long tongue lolling, stood an enormous wolf.
CHAPTER FOUR
The children stood quite still, rooted with terror.
The wolf lowered his head, and his upper lip lifted. The fangs were long and white, and showed glistening in the twilight. He made no sound, but his neck and back seemed to swell as the hair rose.
He was going to spring. His haunches gathered under him. His great muscles bunched.
The terrifying moment seemed to last for ever, but it can only have been a split second.
Just before the wolf moved, John yelled–something half savage and half scared–grabbed the nearest thing to hand, and threw it. It was the heavy gold medallion. Only afterwards did they realize that, at the very moment when John whirled the thing round his head like a chain shot, the wolf had already turned to bolt. One moment the door was blocked by his terrible crouching shadow; the next, the doorway was empty, and he was gone, like a ghost, into the dusk of the forest. The chain and medallion went whizzing after him. They heard the soft, swift gallop of the wolfs retreat, the clink and rustle as the medallion flew out of sight among the brambles, then the stillness of the forest came back, like someone shutting down a padded lid.
Margaret found that she could move. She ran to the cottage door and shut it. There was a thick wooden bar. She lifted this and slid it into place, locking the door.
"Quick, John, the window! Pull the shutters tight!"
"No good," said John. He sounded breathless, as well he might, and also just a little bit pleased with himself. Again, as well he might. "We can't stay here. We'll ha
ve to chance it and go."
"But the wolf may come back. Or Daddy will come for us. If we stay–"
"That's the point, don't you see? We can't let him start down through the forest if he doesn't know there really are wolves there. We didn't believe it ourselves, in spite of its being called Wolf Wood."
"The tracks," offered Margaret, without hope. "He'd see them."
"We only saw them because we were following the man, and it's dark now. Anyway, even if he did see them, that wouldn't make him turn back. He'd come to get us, wouldn't he? Look, we can take something, a weapon or something, and we'll run the whole way. Besides–"
He stopped and his glance slid away from hers.
"What?" asked Margaret.
John said reluctantly: "Well, did you notice anything about the wolf?"
She hesitated, then he said it himself. "I got the idea that it was scared."
Margaret nodded slowly. She knew that John would have liked to keep the credit for scaring the wolf away. That was only natural. But he had been brave, anyway, to stand up to it at all; and now, because he didn't like admitting that the wolf was scared, she could believe him. She said: "Well, I wouldn't have thought that if it had been starving, or terribly wild and savage, it would have run away just when a gold chain thing was chucked at it."
"No. But it was running already before I chucked it. You did see that? In fact, Meg, was it really a wolf? Maybe it was that man's dog?"
"Then it's a pretty rotten dog if it runs away from two children who've broken into its master's house. Tray wouldn't."
"Then it's a pretty rotten wolf, too," said John.
"Whatever it is, I don't think it's terribly dangerous, and we'd be far better getting back to the car as quickly as we can, instead of waiting here. Let's get something a bit bigger to scare it with again, if it comes back." While he was talking he had been looking round for a weapon of some sort. Now he came up with a heavy stick which had been standing in the corner by the door. "Look, this'll do fine. If there's another one for you–"
"This'll be better," said Margaret, picking something up from among the discarded clothes on the bed. It gleamed in her hand. It was the long knife that the weeping man had been carrying. "It's funny he went out without it, but lucky for us."
She could see from John's face that he was wishing he had found the knife for himself. Her hand tightened round it. "No, you keep the stick. I like this better."
"You've never used a knife in your life."
"Nor have you, except to eat peas with."
They giggled, more with nerves than because they thought it was much of a joke. John gave a grunt. "Well, fair enough. It takes strength to bash with a cudgel–"
"But even a girl can stab with a knife?"
"You said it. Well, now or never. Let's go."
"What about the gold thing? It's somewhere out there in the brambles, and we'd never find it now, even if we dared look for it."
"We'll just have to tell Daddy about it, and come back with him tomorrow. We'll have to bring the knife and the stick back, anyway. And if that really was a wolf, someone in St. Johann will know about it, and Daddy will know what to do. Now come on. Go carefully till we see if the track is clear at the front of the cottage, then run like smoke."
They crept out of the doorway, leaving the door open as they had found it, and tiptoed to the corner of the cottage wall. John peered round. Nothing moved in the deep dusk of the forest. There was no sound. He took a fierce grip on the heavy-headed stick, and jerked his head to his sister. Quickly, but still stealthily, the children stole through the waist-high mass of fern and bramble, making for the crumbled wall that marked the garden's boundary. If nettles brushed them, they did not notice. The herbs crushed by their feet breathed a dozen sweet and spicy scents out into the cooling air. Moths, waking for the night, floated up from the disturbed leaves like feathers from a shaken pillow. Even the moss underfoot seemed to make a soft, spongy sound as they trod on it, so quiet was the forest.
Then they were scrambling across the broken wall, and under their feet was the smooth, pine-carpeted floor of the forest.
They ran.
Up the first slope, where the path was still faintly visible in the dusk. Into the twisting track, careful now of the tree roots that reached like webs for their feet, and the occasional trap of a fallen branch. Round the bend and along the level, with the great trees enormous in the dusk and windless air. The twilight smelted of resin, and rotting twigs, and of the scuffed pine needles as they ran. Now and again a small sound would raise the hairs on their necks; some twig, snapping of its own accord, would send down a spatter of needles, or a fistful of dead cones. The owl hooted again, not far away.
The forest was empty. No shadows moved.
The track was empty, too. No Father came to meet them. They ran on.
Here at last was the fallen pine, and beyond it the track started its long slant uphill towards the road. It was fairly steep, but even if it had been pitched like a house roof I doubt if the children would have noticed, or slowed down for it. They had long ago stopped trying to run quietly; now, breathing hard, and no longer turning to look back, they pounded up the last long stretch. The trees retreated from the track's edge; there were open places, and foxgloves pale in the dusk, and the feathery shapes of fern. A wren, disturbed from sleep, flew up into a tree and scolded shrilly. The sound echoed through the forest like a fire alarm. It must be the same wren that had scolded them before. There, surely, just ahead, was the picnic place, and above it the main road where the car was parked.
They reached it and stopped, fighting for breath. They looked about them. Then looked again, bewildered. It was certainly the same place. There was the triangle of grass; there was the signpost; there was the tree stump where John had left the note, and the place where the rug had lain.
But no rug. No sign of Father. And, when they had run up to the road, no sign, either, of the car. Nothing.
They stood in the middle of the roadway and looked at one another. It was so dark now that hardly anything could be made out. The road itself showed only as a dim grey ribbon leading away over the brow of the hill. Down between the trees, in the valley bottom, where the castle stood, they thought they saw a light, dimly twinkling. But the place would be shut by now, and it was a very long way away. And they both knew how far it was back to their hotel. Against all belief, their parents had driven away and left them here alone, in the middle of this dark and deserted landscape.
Margaret was fighting off a strong desire to cry. All should have been well, now, but instead ... Now she had time to realize how tired she felt, and how hungry. John, though he tried not to show it, felt the same cold and stunned dismay. The thing about being brave and reacting bravely to a strong crisis, like the appearance of the wolf, is that when it is over your whole mind and body seem to suffer a letdown.
He felt hungry, too, and found that the hand that still gripped the knotted stick had begun to tremble just a little. When he spoke, he had to work hard to keep his voice cheerful, as an elder brother should.
"They must have thought we'd gone the other way. They've gone to look for us along the road. They'll be back soon."
"Perhaps this isn't the right place."
"Oh, it is. Wait a minute, look, isn't that my note still on the tree stump? Yes, well, that's what's happened; that's why they've gone off; he didn't see it. But I would have thought–oh, Meg, look–His tone changed completely. He bent to pick something up. Hidden under the ferns, where it must have spilled from the rug as Mr. Begbie lifted it, was a bar of chocolate; a big thick slab of milk chocolate packed solid with nuts and raisins. "That's where it was! I thought we'd dropped it on the way down from the car! Boy, oh, boy! Here, halvers?"
He broke the slab in two, and handed one half to Margaret. Both children ate eagerly. They could hardly have found any food which would so quickly restore their strength and spirits. By one consent they each ate half of the piece they had, put t
he other half away in a pocket, then climbed to the road again to take a drink from the spring that bubbled in the bank above.
Then, once more, they took stock. They stood still, listening for the sound of the returning car.
"Because," said John, "that's what'll happen.
Daddy can't have seen that note, or he'd have picked it up. Perhaps they thought we'd gone along the road–been nervous of the forest, maybe. They'll drive along for a bit, and when they don't see us, they'll come back. In any case, the only sensible thing to do is to stay right here. Like being lost on a mountain or something ... if you know people will come looking for you, stay where you are. They'll find us. And that was all rot about the wolves. I don't believe that creature was even a wolf at all. I think he was that chap's dog, a sort of Alsatian cross or something. Or else just a lost dog on the scrounge, and we scared him. There aren't wolves in the forest, how could there be? If we stay here, near the road, we'll be all right."
"And if they don't come back for us?"
"They're sure to, aren't they? For all we know, something's happened, like Mummy being taken ill, and Daddy having to drive her back to St. Johann without waiting for us. They'll come. And if they're not here by the time it's light, in the morning, we'll start walking back towards St. Johann. It's that way, and once we get to the main road, we'll get a lift or something."
"Couldn't we go now?" asked Margaret, with a half-glance behind her at the forest darkness.
"No," said John decidedly. "The best thing is to stay where you are. Besides, it isn't safe to stop cars at night and ask for lifts. We stay here. You'll see, they'll soon be back, and probably hopping mad with us, too."
"It wasn't our fault."
"I know, but they never stop to think of that. Well, they'll be here soon. I just wish they'd left the rug, but it's nice and warm, and there's no wind. Let's make a hollow in the ferns, and sit down."
The ferns were waist-high, and gave off a delicious scent when crushed. The children soon had a soft, draft-proof nest, with their backs against the tree stump. They settled there, talking a little at first, but in whispers, because the night was so still.
