The Box of Delights (8 page)

‘I don’t know,’ Kay said, ‘but I feel that I’m wanted there.’

‘Wanted?’ Peter said. ‘You’re talking in your sleep. What time is it?’

‘Nearly midnight,’ Kay said.

‘Well, who on earth would want you there at midnight?’ Peter growled. ‘Do be sensible; you’ll catch your death of cold. It’s probably pouring snow still.’

‘It isn’t,’ Kay said. ‘Look.’ He pulled back the curtains from the window so that Peter could see the bright moon shining on a world of deep snow. ‘You see,
it’s stopped snowing; it’s a lovely night now.’

‘I know your lovely nights,’ Peter said; ‘freezing like billy-o, and about a foot of snow to slodge through.’

‘It’s jolly fine being out in the snow at night,’ Kay said. ‘You see foxes, white owls and tawny owls.’

‘I never heard such rot,’ Peter said. ‘Do blow the light out and let a chap get to sleep.’

Kay said, ‘I’ll go alone.’ He had wrapped himself up in thick things; now he took the candle and slipped downstairs. It was certainly icy cold in the hall. Some frosty snow had
driven up underneath the doors and lay gleaming on the mats. He pulled back the bolts, took off the chain and opened. As he pulled the door back he became aware of something scraping the snow upon
the drive. Somehow he had half expected it, and there it was: a shining white pony, with a proud Arab head, scarlet harness and headstall. ‘Mount and ride, Kay,’ the little horse said,
‘for the Wolves are Running.’

Kay mounted at once; the horse sped over the garden with him, making no noise at all, but flicking up snow behind him as he sped. Kay could not be sure that these flicks of snow did not change
into little white hounds.

All the town was fast asleep, there was only light in one window. Soon the houses dropped behind, and there was the open country, looking very wild and strange under the snow. ‘Of course
it’s wild and strange,’ he muttered; ‘all the buildings are away: the two farms and the mill. Where have they gone? And those black pools . . . how did water come
there?’

While he was wondering, the horse turned off on the track to Arthur’s Camp. At this moment, Kay heard on the wind a note which he had heard once before that night. It was faint and far
away, but it was the cry of wolves running.

At the Camp there was more strangeness. All the trees which had darkened the Camp the day before were gone; it was now a bare hill with a kind of glare coming from the top of it. By this glare,
Kay saw that the earthen wall of the Camp was topped with a wooden stockade, which the horse leaped.

Kay slipped off the horse and kept a tight hold of the reins while he looked about him. Within the stockade a big fire was burning; it hissed and smoked as men put snowy branches on to it. By
the light of the fire Kay saw that the camp was busy with many short, broad, squat, shag-haired men and women, among whom some wizened savage children darted or cowered. Penned in one place were
some half-starved cows, in another place some long-legged sheep. A dog or two skulked and yapped. There were some huts and ricks, and great piles of wood for firing. Whoever these people were, they
had certainly been roused in the midnight by an attack of some sort.

In a moment Kay understood what the attack was. Somewhere down on the hill-slopes coming towards them that faint cry which had so scared him now burst out with a frenzy and nearness which made
his blood run cold.

‘The Wolves are Running,’ he muttered. ‘And now here they are.’

At this instant, the little white horse shied violently, plucked the reins from Kay and bolted. Kay saw the people running towards the stockade. The moon had come from her cloud and was shining
brightly.

‘Of course,’ Kay said, ‘this is only a dream. I shall wake up presently . . . But, no,’ he added, ‘no, it isn’t a dream. They are wolves, and here they are at
the pale.’

Just three feet from him, a big wolf leaped to the stockade and almost scrambled to the top. A man struck at it with a kind of adze, and missed it, Kay thought, but the fierce head fell back. As
he fell back, there was a worrying, yapping snarl, as the rest of the pack came over the palisade in a body behind Kay. All rushed to meet them, flinging stones and lighted logs, shouting and
striking. Kay rushed with them. Three wolves had got over, and at their appearance all the cattle and sheep were stampeding in the pens. There were the three wolves all hackled and bristled,
snarling and slavering. Stones and burning embers fell all about them and hit them, they flinched and dripped and snarled but did not give way. Some men ran up and struck at them with spears and
adzes; they gave way then and leaped easily back over the paling, to their fellows. In another instant, the pack was over the stockade in the darkest of the Camp. ‘They’re over
again,’ Kay cried. It was plain that they were over, for the cattle and sheep now cried out in terror and again stampeded, this time in such force that they broke their pens and scattered.
The men shouted, and ran at the wolves. A woman thrust a great piece of gorse into the fire, lit it, and ran with it blazing. Kay seized another piece of gorse and did the same. A terrified little
cow charging past him upset him. When he was again on his feet he saw that one of the sheep had been bitten, not too badly, and that the wolves were driven off. One wolf in scrambling back had had
his backbone hacked through with an axe: another was being finished with spears. Three or four women had lighted gorse: for the moment the glare was too much for the wolves; they drew away; but
they had not yet given up the attack. Kay could see them not far away, sometimes as green eyes glaring, sometimes as darknesses in the snow. They were waiting for the fires to die down, getting
their breath, laying their plans, and licking their knocks and singes. Kay wondered how he was to get home to Seekings with the wolves in the fields. ‘They always said there aren’t any
wolves,’ he muttered, ‘but there could easily be wolves in places like Chester Hills, and now, in this wild winter, out they come.’

The men now drove the stock to a space all lit and cornered by fire. Great flakes of fire floated away into the wind, as the dead leaves took flame: blots of snow fell hissing among the embers;
the cattle flinched at both.

Kay had been reading a few days before that wolves are creatures of extraordinary cunning. Presently, he noticed that all the pack had shifted away from the palisade. The cattle inside the
enclosure became quieter. The men and women put out the flares which they were burning. There was a general slackening of the tension. Then, suddenly, from the darkest point of the Camp, there came
a howl and the noise of rushing bodies. The pack was over the stockade and into the Camp, and the cattle were stampeding, and the people shouting and lighting flares, and flinging weapons and
burning embers again. Kay said to himself, ‘This is the real attack. The others were only just feints to find out how the land lay.’ Two enormous wolves, with red eyes and gleaming
teeth, rushed directly at himself.

He felt himself plucked by the arm. There was the little old Punch and Judy man, but no longer dressed like a Punch and Judy man: he was wearing a white stuff that shone. ‘You come here
beside me, Master Kay,’ he said. ‘Don’t you bother about those things: you only see them because I’m here. But it is like old times to me, Master Kay, to see this.
I’ve had fine times in winter nights, when the wolves were after the stock. Many times we would stand to, like this, almost till daylight. And, then, the thing to do is to follow them, Master
Kay, and never to let up till you’ve caught them; for the wolves lose heart, and they’re not half what you’d think they’d be when you see them like this.

‘But, I hoped that you would come, Master Kay, because other wolves are running. They’re running after me, and they’re running me very close. It’s not me they want,
it’s my Box of Delights that you caught sight of at the inn. If I hand that to you, Master Kay, will you keep it for me, so that they don’t get it?’

‘Of course,’ Kay said, ‘I’ll keep anything for you that you want kept, but, if you are in danger from anybody, go to the magistrates; they’ll defend you.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the magistrates don’t heed the kind of wolf that’s after me. This, Master Kay, is the little Box, and there are three things I must tell you about
it: you open it like this; if you push this to the right you can go small; if you press it to the left you can go swift. I’ve not had this long, Master Kay; it is Master Arnold’s, not
mine; and though I’ve sought for him and called him, I have not found nor been heard. He’s gone a long way back, Master Arnold has.

‘If I had time, Master Kay, I might best the wolves. But they run me close, with this New Magic, which I can’t guard myself against. Going swift and going small will save you,
you’ll find; you’re young. But they won’t save me, Master Kay, not any more, for I’m old now, and only know the Old Magic. Now, will you keep this for me till I’m able
to claim it, if I ever may be able, or till old Master Arnold can come back for it?’

‘I will indeed,’ Kay said.

‘And, if they put me to an end, Master Kay, as perhaps they will, then you are to keep it till old Master Arnold comes; but above all things, keep it from coming to them. Will you do
that?’

‘If I possibly can, I will, of course. But who is this Master Arnold and how shall I know him?’ Kay said.

‘You’ll know him if he comes,’ the old man answered, ‘for he’ll come right out of the Old Time.

‘Now, one other thing. If you and your friend, Master Peter, would come out this way towards dawn, you may see what comes to me. And now, good fortune, Master Kay, and I hope that
I’ll come back for this Box of Delights before so very long and give it to Master Arnold in person.’ He handed Kay the little black, shiny box. Kay had seen one or two of the old men in
the village with tobacco boxes that looked like it. ‘Put it in your inner pocket,’ the old man said.

He was about to put it into his pocket, when somebody thrust a big gorse bush into the fire. It flared up with a blaze and crackle. Instantly, the cattle and the tribesmen had disappeared. Kay
seemed to be alone in a glare of light, surrounded by a ring of wolves all snarling at him and glaring with red eyes.

‘Never heed them,’ the little old man’s voice said from far away. ‘Press it to the left and go swift.’

He had the box in his breast pocket with his hand still upon it. He pressed the catch to the left, and in a flash, he was plucked up into the air away from the wolves and the hillside, and there
he was, rather out of breath, in his bed at Seekings, with Peter sitting up in the bed opposite, saying, ‘I say, Kay, what are you doing? Haven’t you gone yet? What’s the
time?’

‘Quarter to one,’ Kay said.

‘Uh,’ said Peter with a growl, rolling over.

K
ay put the little box under his pillow, and was soon asleep again. He dreamed of wolves padding on the snow after the Punch and Judy man. At six
o’clock he woke again, and heard the bells chiming for the hour. What with the moonlight and the snow-blink, there was light enough in the room for him to see the Box with its old, worn,
shiny, shagreen cover, and magic knob upon it. ‘He said I must go out towards the Camp at dawn with Peter,’ he muttered. ‘I must do that.’ He waited for another twenty
minutes, and then called to Peter: ‘I say, Peter, wake up. Let’s go out and explore.’

‘Explore what?’ Peter growled. ‘What d’you expect to find – mushrooms, may I ask?’

‘Oh, don’t come if you’d rather not,’ Kay said, ‘but it’s always rather fun being out in the fresh snow, and seeing all the animals’ tracks.’

‘But to get up before it’s light on the first day of the holidays – I think it’s the purple pim!’ Peter said.

‘Oh, get up, Peter,’ Kay said. ‘We can forage in the larder. We can get heavenly breakfast foraging in the larder, then a real breakfast when we get in.’

‘Oh, all right,’ Peter said. So up they got.

They went down into the larder, and got themselves ham and bread, which they spread with blobs of butter. Then, each had a big mincepie, and a long drink from a cream pan.

Before they set out together, Kay looked at the little black box in his inner pocket. ‘I won’t examine this till I come back,’ he thought, ‘when I can be sure of being
alone. Now we must hurry, to see what comes to him . . . if it isn’t all an absurd dream.’

They went out into the white world of the snow, and took the road to Arthur’s Camp. Nobody was about yet: a few upper windows showed lights, a few chimneys smoked. The way looked very
different from what it had been when he had ridden it at midnight. The buildings were back in their places and the lakes of water were gone. By the short cuts, it is only twenty minutes’ walk
to Arthur’s Camp.

At the Camp, the wood (with its yew trees) was again in its place. All bracken and brambles were prone under the snow; there was no close cover left. There were no wolf-tracks in the snow under
the ramparts where the wolves had run: there were many rabbit-tracks. Now that it was beginning to be light, the boys found some fox-tracks and the tiny neat imprint of what they judged to be
rats’ feet.

Kay was soon at the very place where he had stood within the stockade, when the fires had burned and the beasts had stampeded. That was the place, with Oxhill dead in front and Broadbarrow, or
Gibbet Hill, square to the right; the bearings proved it. Where the old man had spoken to him must have been a little to the left. Three great yew trees grew there now close together, all very old.
Kay moved towards them. In the space between them, which must have been the spot where the old man had given him the Box, someone had scuffled aside the snow, and had camped for the night, wrapped
in a woven stuff which had printed its texture on the snow: it must have been a coarse woollen. The strange thing was, that no footprints led to the place, although footprints led away from it.

‘Someone’s been here for the night,’ Peter said. ‘Look out for creepy-crawlies.’

‘No footprints to show where he came from,’ Kay said.

‘He must have come before the snow,’ Peter said. ‘Let’s follow to see where he goes. What a night to have been out in.’