Kneeknock Rise (4 page)

Uncle Anson yawned. “Not tonight, Gertrude. Too tired. Have to get to bed early. After all, tomorrow is the Fair. Lots to do at the shop.”

Out on the road in front of the house someone in heavy boots came clumping along. Annabelle sat up, listened with lifted ears, and hurried to the door, her tail thrashing expectantly.

“No, Annabelle,” said Uncle Anson gently. “That isn’t Ott.” The footsteps faded away down the road. Annabelle’s tail drooped. She turned away from the door and lay down again heavily, her brown eyes empty. “Poor old dog,” murmured Uncle Anson.

“Why did Uncle Ott go away, anyhow?” asked Egan.

“Ott is never happy in one place for long,” said Uncle Anson. “He’s a funny fellow in some ways, and then in some ways he’s remarkable. Only thing he likes is reading and verses. And travel. He’ll be away for weeks and then he’ll get one of those wheezing spells of his. Trouble with his breathing. So he comes back here and rests till he’s better and then he wanders off again. He always took the dog along before, though. Don’t know why he left her this time. It isn’t like him, and that’s what worries us.”

“The Megrimum ate him,” crooned Ada.

“Hush, Ada!” said her father roughly. “That’s nonsense. Ott wouldn’t have climbed the Rise. He has too much sense for that. No, he’ll come back one of these days with all sorts of stories about where he’s been. I just hope he doesn’t stay away too long. Annabelle’s getting on. She won’t be able to travel about much longer.”

“How old is she?” asked Egan.

“Annabelle? Oh, well, I guess she must be eleven or thereabouts. Twelve, maybe. That’s a lot of years for a dog.” Uncle Anson stood up and stretched. “Bedtime, everyone,” he rumbled, and then he paused and turned shyly to Egan. “By the way, Nephew, would you like to see some of Ott’s verses? They’re not too bad, as a matter of fact.” He took a small sheaf of papers from the mantelpiece and held them out. “They’re really—well, that is, they’re not too bad, even if he
is
my brother. Look them over.”

“I’d like to,” said Egan truthfully.

“Certainly. That’s all right. Go right ahead,” said Uncle Anson, as if the whole idea had been Egan’s. He beamed at his nephew suddenly, gave him the papers, and marched off to bed.

Egan opened his bedroom window and leaned out. The dark bulk of Kneeknock Rise hunched against a sky rich in stars. There would be no storm tonight to disturb the sleep of the Megrimum. Egan leaned out farther, sniffing the chilly air, and craned his neck to see the top of the cliff. As always, it was hidden in its cuff of mist, mist made luminous now by the frosty stare of a newly risen moon. What would it be like, he wondered, if he himself were to climb to the top and slay the thing that dreamed there? He would come down again with its head on a stick and they would be so proud of him. He would be famous… A gust of wind fled by and from the clifftop came a restless sighing sound, faint and sad. Egan sighed himself, and drew in his head, closing the window softly. “The poor old thing seems harmless enough tonight,” he said to Annabelle, who was stretched once again across the foot of the cot. He scratched behind her ears and she licked his fingers. Then he settled himself on the cot, his back against the wall, and lifted the first sheet from the little pile of verses. The writing was round and graceful and clear in the candlelight and Egan began to read:

“Hmmmm,” said Egan. He wasn’t sure what the poem meant, but he liked the sound of it. He picked up the next sheet:

This was better. Egan smiled and smoothed Annabelle’s flank with his toes. “Uncle Ott loves you and so do I,” he told her. She opened one bleary eye, hiccupped, and went back to sleep. “Oh well,” he said indulgently, and picked up another verse:

Egan laid aside the verses. He blew out his candle and climbed in under the quilts, doubling his knees under his chin so as not to disturb Annabelle, who still occupied the foot of the cot. He wound his arms around the pillow and lay thinking about Uncle Ott. “I wish,” he said to himself, “that I could have seen him. He must be very wise, like the king in the poem. Or rather, like the fool. Except that I think he must be gay and wise both at the same time. Unless perhaps that’s impossible.” He tried to decide about the king and the fool but it was too immense a problem for so late at night. And, anyway, he was very sleepy. All at once he longed to stretch out his legs. His knees twitched. It was intolerable to keep them doubled up a moment longer. He tried Annabelle’s bulk with an anxious toe. Nothing happened. He pressed both feet against her back through the covers and she woke, growled once, and made herself heavy as a boulder. “Get down, Annabelle, for goodness’ sake,” he said, pushing hard. At last the old dog sighed dramatically. She heaved up, reproached him with a hard look in the dimness, and gave up her soft hollow for the cold floor, where, for perhaps a minute, she lay awash with self-pity. Then a snore. Sleep had claimed her again.

Egan turned over onto his stomach and eased his toes into the warmth the dog had left behind. Outside, the wind carried the faintest hint of a lullaby, crooned wearily from the top of Kneeknock Rise. The problem of the king and the fool dissolved into muted patterns of velvet which rippled, wavered, and lifted him away into sleep.

Egan had a most peculiar dream that night. He imagined that he was a king wrapped in a cloak made of velvet that strongly resembled Annabelle’s ears. There was a fool with him who looked at him and laughed and said, “You’re all dog-eared, Your Majesty,” and Egan was angry at the fool for making fun of him; but when he looked closer, he saw that the fool was himself.

Then Aunt Gertrude was beside him, wielding a needle with thread like rope. “Don’t worry, Your Majesty,” she shrieked in his ear. “I’ll sew the feathers on again if you’ll just give me the time. Give me the time! Give me the time!”

He discovered that he was carrying a clock in his arms. He held it out to his aunt but it slipped out of his fingers and smashed, and dozens of little red birds fluttered out of the wreckage.

“Don’t you know
anything?
” scolded the fool who was also himself.

“He went to school for forty years but he can’t even write his name,” jeered Aunt Gertrude.

The rope she carried suddenly became a long red pigtail. Aunt Gertrude had turned into Ada. “Don’t go! Don’t go!” cried Ada, dragging at his cloak.

But he was climbing now, climbing in the dark, up and up an endless hillside. Someone was with him and he knew without looking that it was his Uncle Ott.

“Do you think we ought to go?” he heard himself asking.

“Oh, yes! Indeed we ought. Ott. Ott!” said his uncle, and they both laughed.

Then they were at the top of the hill. It was sunny and the ground was covered with wishbones. “Now we can slay the Megrimum,” he said, but his uncle pointed down.

“No, no, forget the Megrimum and look. See what’s on the other side.”

There was another hilltop almost at their feet and Sweetheart was sitting on it, waving his tail. He was wearing a set of Aunt Gertrude’s Mar-no-mores over his paws.

“That’s all right,” said Egan. “Now he can’t scratch.”

All at once he was aware of a noise, a kind of roar-whistle roar-whistle, and he found himself waving a huge bouquet of poppies. The poppies were heavy as iron and he could only wave them very, very slowly. The roar-whistle noise grew louder and suddenly the person at his side turned into Ada.

“The Megrimum is coming,” she cried. “You were a fool to climb the Rise.”

Then he was running, but his feet were so heavy that he could hardly lift them and the noise was louder than ever.

“But it’s only a bell,” he heard himself say, and discovered at once that he could now run very swiftly. “Don’t be afraid,” he called as he skimmed down the hillside. “It’s a bell and a bell an’ a bell an’ a bell…”

Suddenly he was wide awake and sitting up in his cot. On the floor beside him, Annabelle was snoring. Whistle-roar whistle-roar. He leaned over the edge of the cot and prodded her gently. The snoring stopped. He stretched out under his quilts and went back to sleep and did not dream again.

“You look tired,” said his aunt at breakfast. “Didn’t you sleep well?”