The Legend of Luke

by Brian Jacques

  Good night, sleep tight!

  Stop that talkin’ in yore dreams,

  Good night, sleep tight!

  Don’t rip y’sheets to smithereens,

  If a nightmare starts t’show,

  An’ you wake me up, oho,

  Out the window you will go . . . good night!’

  Leaving the pondside they trooped slowly back to the Abbey, Bella in the lead carrying the sleeping Gonflet, Columbine linking paws with the ottermaids, Ferdy and Coggs pulling the trolley in which the Abbess slumbered, followed by all the other beasts. Skipper brought up the rear of the procession, singing as quietly as his big gruff voice would allow. Everybeast joined in, keeping their voices low, the catchy melody acting as a gentle march, echoing softly over moonlit Abbey lawns.

  As they entered the main Abbey door a vagrant breeze ruffled Bella’s fur. She shuddered lightly and whispered to Columbine, ‘Bit of a chill in the air just then.’

  Gonflet, who was supposed to be fast asleep, opened one eye and grinned cheekily.

  ‘Soon be’s h’autumn now, miz Bell!’

  * * *

  36

  THE HONEYSUCKLE SKIMMED southward like a playful swallow, Log a Log Furmo proudly showing off her prowess as a skiff to the four creatures from the Arfship. Martin sat in the prow, enjoying the sun, seaspray and breeze, with his faithful friend Gonff alongside him. Together they listened to Trimp attempting to chide Chugger for his lack of respect to the elders.

  ‘I’ll not tell you again, Chugg, please stop calling our friends old granpas, ’tis not very good manners!’

  ‘Tchah! You don’t know noffink, they good ole granpas for Chugg. We makin’ lorra skillyduffs for ’em!’

  Folgrim and Dinny had been appointed assistant cooks, helping Chugger to cook skilly and duff. They were on his side.

  ‘Maister Chugg bain’t doin’ no ’arm, missie, bain’t that so, zurr Fol?’

  ‘Aye, let the liddle tyke be, miss, he ain’t never ’ad a granpa. Haharr, now he’s got four of ’em!’

  Trimp appealed to Vurg and his friends. ‘Please forgive Chugger. I hope he hasn’t offended you.’

  ‘There there, don’t fret, young gel, wot! He can call us blather-faced bloaters as long as he keeps feedin’ us. Jolly little rip, ain’t he, Vurg?’

  ‘Aye, an’ seein’ as we’ve got no families of our own, ’tis nice t’be chosen as grandsires by him. Ahoy there, cap’n Chugg, is our skilly’n’duff ready yet?’

  The small squirrel gave his concoction a final stir and licked the ladle. Nodding brusquely he issued orders.

  ‘Skillyduff cookered now. Mista Fol, Mista Din, give ole granpas some first. Miz Trimp, you serve a rest o’ my crew!’

  Martin and Gonff had difficulty keeping straight faces as they accepted their bowls from Trimp. The hedgehog maid was quietly seething. ‘Bushtailed little villain, who does he think he is? Issuing orders to me as if I were some sort of lackey!’

  Martin blew upon his spoon as he tasted the food. ‘Mmm, he does make great skilly’n’duff, though. What d’you think, Gonff?’

  ‘Never tasted better, matey. D’you reckon Chugg’d adopt us as ole granpas?’

  ‘No, we’re a bit young for that. Why don’t we apply to be uncles, like Folgrim and Dinny.’

  Trimp stamped off to serve the Guosim shrews, muttering, ‘I don’t know, everybeast aboard this boat has got that cheeky-faced villain spoiled rotten!’

  Chugger’s latest order interrupted her rebellious musing.

  ‘Find more bowls for the sh’ews, miz Trimp!’

  Trimp turned on Chugger, paws akimbo, shouting shrilly, ‘Yes sir no sir, three bags full sir! Perhaps you’d like me to scrub the decks and polish the oars!’

  Chugger’s reply left her speechless. ‘No no, do that later, jus’ stop shoutin’ for now, my ole granpas’re gonna take naps. Hush y’noise now!’

  It was some days later, and the weather was getting noticeably warmer. Furmo steered the Honeysuckle closer inshore, hallooing the creatures standing paw deep in the shallows.

  ‘Dunespike, old mate, how are ye?’

  Splashing about joyfully, the fat old Dunehog Chieftain hailed the boat. ‘Sure an’ I’m all the better for yore askin’, Furmo. Come ashore now an’ rest yer ould fur!’

  Willing paws helped haul the Honeysuckle above the tideline. Murfo and a gang of young male hedgehogs fell over each other assisting Trimp ashore.

  ‘Faith an’ fortunes, missie, but yore lookin’ grand, grand. Prettier’n ever, though I says so meself!’

  Trimp grabbed an oar and vaulted over them on to the sand. ‘Aye, and still well able to take care of myself, thank ye!’

  Martin seized Dunespike’s paw and pumped it heartily. ‘Greetings, Chief, you’re looking very well!’

  ‘True, true, I’m gettin’ younger by the day, plump as a pear an’ brisk as a bumblebee. Well now, c’mon up t’the dwellin’ an’ loosen off yore belt. We’ve been watchin’ out each day for a glimpse of y’grand little boat. Sure an’ the cooks are roastin’ the paws off themselves to make ye a grand ould supper. I think we’ll even be able to fill Gonff’s belly tonight. How are ye doodlin’ there, Mousethief?’

  Gonff fell into the Dunehogs’ speech mode. ‘Sure an’ if’n I look half as grand as yerself, then I’m twice the mouse I used to be, sir!’

  Linking paws and chattering away happily, crew and Dunehogs made their way into the sandhills and entered the cunningly disguised dwelling house. Beau and his friends were quite impressed by it all, and the hare expressed his admiration to all the young hedgehogs, whilst shielding Trimp from them.

  ‘I say, what a super wheeze, a jolly great place like this inside a sand dune, wot! Well done, you chaps, top marks!’

  One of the young males was winking slyly at Trimp. ‘Sure an’ I’d forgotten how pretty ye are. A hog’d travel ten rough country leagues an’ not see the likes o’ ye. I’ll wager y’could charm the stars out o’ the skies with just a flutter of those eyelashes!’

  Beau pretended to think the Dunehog was talking to him. He tweaked the creature’s ear sharply.

  ‘Mind y’manners, sir, we haven’t even been introduced, wot. Though you seem jolly perceptive for a hedgehog. Mind you, I do strike quite a handsome impression on most creatures.’

  The Honeysuckle’s crew found that the Dunehog hospitality was not lacking. For supper they dined on a fine leek and potato soup, followed by mushroom, radish and seafood stew, with an enormous fruit trifle for dessert. After that they sat about drinking cordials and Seafoam Ale whilst they were entertained to a Spinetussling exhibition, some lively Dunehog reels and jigs, and various poems, recitations and ballads. Trimp sat with a group of hogmaids and they all flirted outrageously with the young males, who danced and Spinetussled to vie for their attention. Martin sat with Dunespike and Furmo, watching them with amusement.

  Furmo gestured towards them with his tankard. ‘Don’t you wish y’were their age again, Chief?’

  Dunespike shook his great head until the spikes rattled. ‘Away with ye, indeed I do not, they’re completely mad, all of ’em! I’d sooner have vittles’n’drink any day!’

  Martin gave Dunespike a friendly shove. ‘You old fogey, look at them, they’re young and happy, with not a care on earth. Good luck to them I say, eh, Furmo?’

  The Guosim Chieftain nodded his agreement. ‘They don’t have our problems, mate. We’ve got to figure how t’get a boat of the Honeysuckle’s size up a waterfall and past a pine wood full o’ painted savages. Aye, an’ even when we get by that lot we’ll still be battlin’ upstream, against the current. ’Tis goin’ t’be difficult t’say the least!’

  Dunespike poured himself some cordial. ‘Then why d’ye not find another route?’

  ‘Huh, easy said, Chief, but is there another route?’

  ‘Hmm, let me think. Ah now! What about Northfork!’

  Furmo stared over the rim of his tankard at Dunespike. ‘Northfork? Does it ru
n up this far?’

  ‘Sure it does an’ all, two days of a good pawslog from here.’

  Furmo called across to Folgrim. ‘Ahoy, mate, d’you know the Northfork stream?’

  The scarred otter left off contending for the remains of the trifle with Beau.

  ‘Aye, I know Northfork stream right enough, though I never travelled right up it. I was reared at the southern end of that stream, ’tis where my holt is at.’

  Furmo thumped the rush mat they were seated on. ‘Of course! It joins up to the stream we sailed here on, about three days down from my tribe’s summer camp. Just one thing, though. How’re we goin’ to get the Honeysuckle overland to the Northfork stream?’

  Dunespike shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘An’ how else but to carry it? Sure, me an’ the Dunehogs will lend a paw t’do the job. A fine lot we’d be if’n we couldn’t help out. That’s what friends are for!’

  Martin clasped paws with the good old Hogchief.’ And you surely are a great friend to us, sir!’

  Dunespike’s huge frame shook with merriment. ‘Sure an’ I wouldn’t risk bein’ anythin’ else to a warrior who can wield a sword like you, Martin of Redwall!’

  By first light next morning they were all down on the beach. Dunespike had slept on the idea and awakened with a brilliant solution. Martin and the crew stood on one side, watching as the hedgehog Chieftain put his scheme into action. Two sets of wheels on axles were trundled out from somewhere in the dunes. Dunespike called out orders.

  ‘Here now, Murfo, you an’ the lads attend to them wheels. Martin, get that grand ould crew o’ yores on the starboard side, an’ I’ll take the portside with my crowd.’

  Paddles and stout poles were thrust beneath the skiff’s flat bottom to emerge the other side. Everybeast took firm hold of them. Dunespike roared out; ‘Are y’fit now. Lift!’

  The Honeysuckle rose clear of the sand as they lifted. Murfo and the young ones rolled the wheels in for’ard and aft.

  ‘Ah that’s grand, let her down now, easy!’

  Two Dunehogs with big staples and mallets fixed the axles in position beneath the boat. Dinny whispered to Trimp, ‘Hurr hurr, ee boat wot doan’t sail on ee seas, oi loiks et. Yon Dunespiker be a gurtly h’intelligent ’og, burr aye!’

  There was some minor trouble getting the wheeled vessel through the dunes and off the soft sand. However, once they hauled her up through a low gap in the clifftop, the going was good. It was fairly flat scrubland, grass and hardpacked earth, and there was no call to use the pulling ropes. With her sail up, the Honeysuckle caught the wind and rolled along unaided. Beau and the other three elders were aboard her, with Dunespike, Trimp and Chugger. The rest trotted alongside, sometimes even having to tug on the towropes to slow the Honeysuckle’s progress.

  Gonff laughed. ‘Just think, if’n there was no woodlands ’twixt here an’ Redwall, we could’ve sailed home by land!’

  Later in the afternoon the land began a mild uphill slope and the breeze died completely. They split into two parties, one for’ard, pulling on the towropes, the rest at the stern, pushing. But the skiff still ran fairly smooth on its wheels, so it would have been no great effort were it not for Chugger. The little squirrel had attached a gull feather to a pole, and he dashed back and forth, tickling the pullers and pushers mercilessly and haranguing them.

  ‘Cummon! Cummon! Run, make ’er go plenny faster, or cap’n Chugg tickle you tails off!’

  Trimp decided she had put up with enough. Looping a line about the tormentor, she relieved him of the pole and tied him to the mast. Chugger set up an immediate clamour.

  ‘I a cap’n, lemme go! ‘Elp me, ole granpas, mista Din, mista Fol, ’elp Chugg!’

  But no help was forthcoming. Quite the opposite, in fact. Beau took hold of the feathered pole and began tickling his adopted grandsquirrel.

  ‘See how you like it, sah, wot! Silence now, or I’ll jolly well tickle the tip of y’nose an’ make you sneeze all season. Now, what d’ye say t’that, cap’n Chugg?’

  ‘Choppa you tail off, Beau, an’ Chugg not make you any no more skillyduff!’

  Beau slumped down beside Vurg, nodding sadly. ‘No skilly’n’duff eh wot. Ah well, such is the fate of a blinkin’ mutineer, old chap!’

  That night they set up camp in the lee of a wide stone outcrop at the base of a hill. Log a Log Furmo sat looking at the Honeysuckle speculatively.

  ‘Y’know, Gonff, I think I’ll leave those wheels on ’er. Won’t do no ’arm to a flat-bottomed craft like the Honeysuckle. Hah, wait’ll my missus sees our new boat, she’ll be proud as a toad with a top hat!’

  Folgrim had been to the top of the hill, to see what the going would be like next day. On his return, the otter called Martin and Dunespike to one side.

  ‘I think I just spotted trouble the other side o’ this hill.’

  The Warrior mouse became instantly alert. ‘What sort of trouble, Folgrim?’

  ‘Bunch o’ ragtag vermin, foxes, stoats an’ the like.’

  Martin was away uphill swiftly, sword in paw. ‘Let’s go and take a look!’

  Bellying down, the three friends crawled over the hilltop. Below them on the gorse-strewn plain, several small fires were burning. There was little need to investigate further, for by the light of a half-moon they could estimate the numbers of foebeast below. Dunespike had seen the same band before.

  ‘They were sniffin’ round in our dunes last winter, but we covered our tracks well an’ got the young ’uns safe inside the ould dwellin’. Sure, meself an’ some others put on our sheets and stilts an’ scared the blaggards off. What d’ye think we should do about ’em, Martin?’

  Without hesitation the Warrior answered, ‘We could defeat them in a fight, but there’s no sense in that. I want everybeast to reach their homes safe. Listen now, I think I’ve got a solution to the problem.’

  Skipper perched high up on the south gable, his footpaws firmly lodged in a roofbeam gap. From where he stood, the otter Chieftain could see out over the countless acres of Mossflower Wood to the east. He turned slowly, looking across the vast plain to the west.

  ‘Rap me rudder, wot a sight! Now I know why birds are singin’ happily. Everythin’ looks so different from up ’ere.’ He shut his eyes momentarily as he caught sight of Lady Amber walking along the topmost scaffold pole as if it were a broad roadway. ‘Marm, I beg ye, would y’mind not doin’ that ’til I’m back on the ground. Somethin’ inside me just did a somersault.’

  The Squirrelqueen leaped lightly down beside him. ‘Sorry, Skip, I forgot there was a land dweller up here. Is the weather vane ready yet?’

  ‘Nearly. Ole Ferdy’n’Coggs are doin’ as fine a job of smithyin’ as I ever saw, marm. Though miz Columbine says there won’t be a scrap o’ charcoal left in the kitchens t’cook with. They’re usin’ the open hearth fire to heat the iron an’ beatin’ it out on the stone floor. I came up ’ere ’cos I couldn’t abide the noise. Ding! Bang! Ding! Bang! Me pore ole head’s still ringin’ inside.’

  Lady Amber’s manner was more practical than sympathetic. ‘Don’t tell me, Skip, you can’t abide noise? Hah, ’tis usually you who creates most of the noise round here with your big foghorn voice. As for heights, if you haven’t got a head for them I don’t advise hanging round up here, you’ll only make yourself ill. Why not pop down to the orchard and help the carpenters, that’s far more peaceful.’

  Skipper tugged on the pulley rope of the hoist. ‘Good idea, marm, the orchard it is!’

  The hoist was merely a system of counterweights. Skipper stepped aboard a small platform and it descended slowly. On the way down he was passed by the other platform, on which stood a squirrel with two blocks of sandstone going up. They waved to each other as the platforms passed.

  ‘Where are ye bound, Skip?’

  ‘Down to the orchard, matey, t’lend a paw with the beams.’

  ‘Tell Gurdle to load mortar on that platform when y’get down. I’ll leave one o’ these blocks on a
s a counterweight.’

  A mole and four mice were waiting at the bottom, and they locked off the platform against a log protruding from the wall. The mole touched his snout in greeting. ‘They’m needin’ more blocks oop thurr, Skip?’

  The otter stepped from the platform. ‘Not at present, Gurdle, ’tis mortar they want.’

  Gurdle and the mice began shovelling a mixture of sand, crushed limestone and water on to the platform. It would enable the builders to cement the heavy sandstone blocks firmly into place.

  At the far corner of Redwall’s orchard the carpenters had set up shop. A pit had been dug so that they could cut planking with long double-pawed saws, and there was a bench with vice, chisels and mallets, as well as a fire with augers and pokers resting in it. These would be used to bore holes, so the wood could be jointed with pegs. Seasoned trunks of elm, oak, beech, pine and sycamore were stacked against the wall in piles. Skipper loved the fragrant smells of fresh wood and heaps of bark shavings. A fat whiskery old bankvole with a charcoal stick behind one ear and a long canvas apron glanced up from a pine log he was working on and nodded at the otter Chieftain.

  ‘Afternoon, Skip. D’ye fancy helpin’ me strip the bark off’n this timber? It’ll make good skirtin’ boards for the upper dormitories. I like pine, got a fragrance all of its own.’

  Skipper found a spokeshave and began working on the other side of the log. Long pine slivers ran curling from his sharp blade, and Skipper sniffed fondly.

  ‘Yore right, Migglo, ’tis a clean fresh smell. I can feel it clearin’ me head up nicely.’

  A dormouse popped her head up from the sawpit. ‘Hello, Skip. How’s it goin’ on the south gable? I spotted you up there earlier. Huh, y’wouldn’t get me anywhere that high, not for all the nuts in Mossflower, matey!’

  Skipper blew off a shaving that had stuck to his nose. ‘Aye, leave that to the squirrels an’ a gang of crazy mice’n’hedgehogs who likes that sort o’ thing. Well, I tell ye, marm, I was surprised ’ow far they’d gotten along. Lady Amber says another couple o’ days should bring it to a peak. Then they can set up the weather vane.’