Lud-in-the-Mist (29 page)

It was black currant tea, for the brewing of which Hempie was famous. And it had always been one of her grievances against Dame Marigold and Prunella that they detested the stuff, and refused to drink it, even when they had a bad cold. For it had always been loved by all true Chanticleers, from old Master Josiah downwards.

“Now, miss, you just drink that down, every drop of it,” she said severely.

Prunella was too exhausted that night to tell them her adventures. But the next morning she gave a confused account of wanderings at the bottom of the sea, and how they had lost their way in a terrible marine jungle, out of which they had been guided by Master Nathaniel. It was evident that she had no very clear recollection of what had happened to her since her flight from Lud; or, rather, since “Professor Wisp” had given his first dancing lesson.

The other Crabapple Blossoms returned to their respective homes the same night as Prunella; and each gave a different account of their adventures. Moonlove Honeysuckle said they had danced wildly down the waste places of the sky, and then had been imprisoned in a castle in the moon; Viola Vigil said they had been chased by angry trees into the Dapple, where they had got entangled in the weeds, and could not extricate themselves — and so on. But on one point all the accounts agreed, namely, that it had been Master Nathaniel Chanticleer who had delivered them.

A
t first the Crabapple Blossoms felt as if they had awakened from an evil dream, but they soon found that it was a dream that had profoundly influenced their souls. Though they showed no further desire to run away and roam the hills, they were moody, silent, prone to attacks of violent weeping, and haunted by some nameless fear — strange melancholy denizens, in fact, of the comfortable, placid homes of their parents.

One would not have imagined that a daughter in this condition would have met with much sympathy from Master Ambrose Honeysuckle. Nevertheless, his tenderness and patience with Moonlove proved boundless. Night after night he sat by her holding her hand till she fell asleep, and by day he soothed her ravings, and in her quieter moments they would have long intimate talks together, such as they had never had before she ran away. And the result of these talks was that his stiff but fundamentally honest mind was beginning to creak on its hinges. And he would actually listen without protest when Moonlove expressed her conviction that although fairy fruit had robbed her of her peace of mind, nevertheless nothing but fairy fruit could restore it to her, and that at Miss Primrose Crabapple’s she had either been given the wrong kind or not enough.

The reign of winter was now established, and Lud-in-the-Mist seemed at last to have settled down into its old peaceful rut.

Master Nathaniel had turned into “poor old Nat,” and was to most people no more than a lovable ghost of the past. Indeed, Master Polydore was thinking of suggesting to Dame Marigold that two empty coffins should be placed in the Chanticleers’ chapel bearing respectively the names of Nathaniel and Ranulph.

As for the Senate, it was very busy preparing for its annual banquet, which was celebrated every December in the Guildhall, to commemorate the expulsion of the Dukes; and it was kept fully occupied by such important questions as how many turkeys should be ordered and from what poulterers; which Senator was to have the privilege of providing the wine, and which the marzipan and ginger; and whether they would be justified in expending on goose liver and peacocks’ hearts the sum left them in the will of a late linen-draper, to be devoted to the general welfare of the inhabitants of Lud-in-the-Mist.

But one morning a polished conceit of Master Polydore’s concerning “that sweet and pungent root commonly known as ginger, a kindly snake who stings us that we may better enjoy the fragrant juice of the grape,” was rudely interrupted by the sudden entry of Mumchance, his eyes almost starting out of his head with terror, with the appalling tidings that an army of Fairies had crossed the Debatable Hills, and that crowds of terrified peasants were pouring into Lud.

The news produced something like pandemonium in the Senate. Everyone began talking at once, and a dozen different schemes of defense were mooted, each one more senseless than the last.

Then Master Ambrose Honeysuckle rose to his feet. He was the man that carried most weight among his colleagues, and all eyes were turned to him expectantly.

In a calm, matter of fact voice, he began thus: “Senators of Dorimare! Before the entry of the Captain of the Yeomanry we were discussing what dessert we should have at our annual feast. It seems unnecessary to start a fresh subject of discussion before the previous one has been settled to our satisfaction. So, with your permission, I will return to the sweet and pungent (I think these were his Worship’s well-chosen words) subject of dessert; for there is one item I should like to add to those that have already been suggested.”

He paused, and then he said in a loud challenging voice, “Senators of Dorimare! I propose that for the first time since the foundation of our annual feast, we should partake at it of…
fairy fruit!”

His colleagues stared at him in open-mouthed amazement. Was this some ill-timed jest? But Ambrose was not given to jesting … especially on serious occasions.

Then, with a certain rough poetry breaking through the artificial diction of the Senate, he began to speak of the events of the year that was nearly over, and the lessons to be learned from them. And the chief lessons, he said, were those of humility and faith.

He ended thus: “One of our proverbs says, ‘Remember that the Dapple flows into the Dawl.’ I have sometimes wondered, recently, whether we have ever really understood the true meaning of that proverb. Our ancestors built the town of Lud-in-the-Mist between these two rivers, and both have brought us their tribute. The tribute of the Dawl has been gold, and we have gladly accepted it. But the tribute of the Dapple we have ever spurned. The Dapple — our placid old friend, in whose waters we learned as lads the gentle art of angling — has silently, through the centuries, been bringing fairy fruit into Dorimare … a fact that, to my mind, at least, proves that fairy fruit is as wholesome and necessary for man as the various other gifts brought for our welfare by our silent friends — the Dawl’s gift of gold, the earth’s gift of corn, the hills’ gift of shelter and pasturage, and the trees’ gift of grapes and apples and shade.

“And if all the gifts of Life are good, perhaps, too, are all the shapes she chooses to take, and which we cannot alter. The shape she has taken now for Dorimare is that of an invasion by our ancient foes. Why should we not make a virtue of necessity and throw our gates wide to them as friends?”

His colleagues, at first, expressed themselves as horrified. But perhaps they, too, though unknown to themselves, had been altered by recent events.

At any rate, this was one of the crises when the strongest man inevitably finds himself at the helm. And there could be no doubt that the strongest man in the Senate was Master Ambrose Honeysuckle.

When the Senate rose, he addressed the terrified populace from the market-place, with the result that before nightfall he had quieted the panic-stricken crowds and had persuaded the citizens, with the exception of such models of old-fashioned respectability as Ebeneezor Prim, to accept with calm passivity whatever the future might hold in store.

His two most ardent supporters were Sebastian Thug and the disreputable Bawdy Bess.

Only a few months ago what would he have said if someone had told him the day would come when he, Ambrose Honeysuckle, would turn demagogue, and, assisted by a rough sailor and a woman of the town, would be exhorting the citizens of Lud-in-the-Mist to throw wide their gates and welcome in the Fairies!

S
o, instead of repairing its walls and testing its cannon and laying in provision against a siege, Lud-in-the-Mist hoisted its flags and festooned its windows with wreaths of Duke Aubrey’s ivy, and flung the west gate wide open; and a thong of silent, expectant people lined the streets and waited.

First came the sounds of wild sweet music, then the tramp of a myriad feet, and then, like hosts of leaves blown on the wind, the invading army came pouring into the town.

As he watched, Master Ambrose remembered the transfigured tapestry in the Guildhall, and the sense they had had of noisy, gaudy, dominant dreams flooding the streets and scattering reality in their wake.

Behind the battalions of mail-clad dead marched three gigantic old men, with long white beards reaching below their girdles. Their long stiff robes were embroidered in gold and jewels with strange emblems, and behind them were led sumpter mules laden with coffers of wrought gold. And the rumor passed through the waiting crowd that these were none other than the balsam-eating priests of the sun and moon.

And bringing up the rear on a great white charger was — Master Nathaniel Chanticleer, with Ranulph riding by his side.

T
he accounts of what took place immediately after the entry of the fairy army read more like legends than history.

It would seem that the trees broke into leaf and the masts of all the ships in the bay into blossom; that day and night the cocks crowed without ceasing; that violets and anemones sprang up through the snow in the streets, and that mothers embraced their dead sons, and maids their sweethearts drowned at sea.

But one thing seems certain, and that is that the gold-wrought coffers contained the ancient offering of fairy fruit to Dorimare. And the coffers were of such miraculous capacity that there was enough and to spare, not only for the dessert of the Senate, but for that of every household in Lud-in-the-Mist.

Y
ou may, perhaps, have wondered why a man so full of human failings, and set in so unheroic a mould as Master Nathaniel Chanticleer should have been cast for so great a role. Yet the highest spiritual destinies are not always reserved for the strongest men, nor for the most virtuous ones.

But though he had been chosen as Duke Aubrey’s deputy and initiated into the Ancient Mysteries, he had not ceased to be in many ways the same Master Nathaniel as of old — whimsical, child-like, and, often, unreasonable. Nor, I fear, did he cease to be the prey of melancholy. I doubt whether initiation ever brings happiness. It may be that the final secret revealed is a very bitter one … or it may be that the final secret had not yet been revealed to Master Nathaniel.

And, strange to say, far from being set up by his new honors, he felt oddly ashamed of them — it was almost as if he was for the first time running the gauntlet of his friends’ eyes after having been afflicted by some physical disfigurement.

W
hen things had returned again to their usual rut, Master Ambrose came to spend a quiet evening with Master Nathaniel.

They sat for some time in silence puffing at their pipes, and then Master Ambrose said, “Tell me what your theory is about Endymion Leer, Nat. He was a double-dyed villain, all right, I suppose?”

Master Nathaniel did not answer at once, and then he said thoughtfully, “I suppose so. I read the report of his defense, however, and his words seemed to me to ring true. But I think there was some evil lurking in his soul, and everything he touched was contaminated by it, even fairy fruit — even Duke Aubrey.”

“And that spiritual sin he accused himself of … what do you suppose it was?”

“I think,” said Master Nathaniel slowly, “he may have mishandled the sacred objects of the Mysteries.”

“What are these sacred objects, Nat?”

Master Nathaniel moved uneasily in his chair, and said, with an embarrassed little laugh, “Life and death, I suppose.” He hated being asked about these sorts of things.

Master Ambrose sat for a few moments pondering, and then he said, “It was curious how in all his attacks on you he defeated his own ends.”

“Yes,” cried Master Nathaniel, with much more animation than he had hitherto shown, “that was really very curious. Everything he did produced exactly the opposite effect he had intended it should. He feared the Chanticleers, and wanted to be rid of them, so he gets Ranulph off to Fairyland, whence nobody had ever before returned. And he manages to get me so discredited that I have to leave Lud, and he thinks me safely out of the way. But, in reality, he was only bringing about his own downfall. I have to leave Lud, and so I go to the farm, and there I find old Gibberty’s incriminating document. While the fact of Ranulph’s having gone off yonder sends me after him, and that is why, I suppose, I come back as Duke Aubrey’s deputy,” and again he gave an embarrassed laugh; and then added dreamily, “It is useless to try and circumvent the Duke.”

“‘He who rides the wind needs must go where his steed carries him,” quoted Master Ambrose.

Master Nathaniel smiled, and for some minutes they puffed at their pipes in silence.

Then Master Nathaniel gave a reminiscent chuckle: “Those were queer months that we lived through, Ambrose!” he cried. “All of us, that’s to say those of us who had parts to play, seemed to be living each others’ dreams or dreaming each others’ lives, whichever way you choose to put it, and the most incongruous things began to rhyme — apples and bleeding corpses and trees and ghosts. Yes, all our dreams got entangled. Leer makes a speech about men and trees, and I find the solution of the situation under a herm, which is half a man and half a tree, and you see the juice of fairy fruit and think that it is the dead bleeding — and so on. Yes, my adventures went on getting more and more like a dream till … the climax,” and he paused abruptly.

A long silence followed, broken at last by Master Ambrose. “Well, Nat,” he said, “I think I’ve had a lesson in humility. I used to have as good an opinion of myself as most men, I think, but now I’ve learned that I’m a very ordinary sort of fellow, made of very inferior clay to you and my Moonlove — all the things that you know at first hand and I can only take on faith.”

“Suppose, Ambrose, that what we know at first hand is only this — that there is nothing to know?” said Master Nathaniel a little sadly. Then he sank into a brown study, and Master Ambrose, thinking he wanted to be alone, stole quietly from the room.

Master Nathaniel sat gazing moodily into the fire; and his pipe went out without his noticing it. Then the door opened softly, and someone stole in and stood behind his chair. It was Dame Marigold. All she said was, “Funny old Nat!” but her voice had a husky tenderness. And then she knelt down beside him and took him into her soft warm arms. And a new hope was borne in upon Master Nathaniel that someday he would hear the Note again, and all would be clear.