The Hounds of the Morrigan (52 page)

‘Do you understand?’ the barrel-organ man asked.

‘Yes,’ Pidge replied, and they moved away then.

After much searching, they found the yellow bird man having a pint of Guinness at a booth. When he caught sight of them, he searched the surrounding people with quick glances and saw that the tall thin people were skulking within hearing. He laid down his glass, and put his stock of little yellow birds that flew on string and stick, on a clean area of the trestle-counter. A paper bag appeared in his hand, and again Brigit was offered a sweet. Pidge read:

Brigit’s sweet in return just said:

‘I think these sweets are wonderful,’ Brigit said.

The man laughed and went back to his pint.

When they had been walking for some time, Pidge realized that he couldn’t really remember the whereabouts of the Fortune-Teller’s booth. He frowned and struggled to form a picture of it in his mind, but it did no good. He craned his neck, trying to see past the people who were always in his way. The best thing to do, he decided, was to go to where they had seen the dancers, and try to work their way back from there to where they had first entered the small town, and then they would be sure to pass it on the way.

He explained this to Brigit.

They hadn’t gone very far when, to their great delight, they found their old companions. The Poor Woman was sitting on an upturned box in a space between two sideshows and there was dear Cooroo, still draped around her neck. The ducks and geese were at her feet, nestling comfortably on trodden grass, and the Poor Woman didn’t see them at first because she was lost in rapture as she gazed at a tethered bull-calf.

‘Oh, you little beauty,’ she was saying, over and over again.

But Cooroo saw them at once, and he saw the thin people, and he must have either had some kind of muscle tension or a faster heart-beat, because the Poor Woman turned abruptly to look at Pidge and Brigit.

Without stopping for greetings or anything else, Pidge whispered that he and Brigit had to go somewhere, but that they were being followed everywhere by hounds and that they must get rid of them somehow.

‘Leave it to me,’ Cooroo said; and he jumped to the ground, scattering the ducks and geese.

He went straight up to the tall thin ones, who were now together in a bunch—or pack, as Pidge preferred to think—and confronted them bravely.

‘Puppy-dogs!’ he taunted them. ‘You are base, you are servile—you live for a pat on the head!’

And then he barked a laugh at them and flounced and flaunted right before their astounded and offended eyes.

They stared at Cooroo and their eyes blazed and the lips pulled back from the sharp teeth and they changed in a second from people into real hounds. Cooroo sprang away from them and flashed through the crowds and the hounds streaked after him, baying dreadfully. The crowd opened up for Cooroo to pass. It didn’t divide into two lines of spectators making a course so that they could enjoy the sight of an animal being hunted for its life; but the people opened a way for Cooroo and then closed together again, making passage difficult for the hounds. Soon it was impossible to see anything through the block of people.

It hit Pidge and Brigit then that Cooroo was gone!

Tears filled Brigit’s eyes; she was sure that she would never see him again, and she felt miserable and sorry.

‘I didn’t stroke him half enough while I had the chance,’ she said, and she sobbed.

Pidge was having trouble holding back the tears himself. This is the second time he’s risked his life to help us, he thought. He had a painful, uncomfortable feeling in his chest and a lump rising in his throat.

The Poor Woman stroked Brigit’s face gently and she took Pidge’s hand and pressed it affectionately.

‘You might see him again. Nothing is certain,’ she said kindly.

‘We think he’ll get away, don’t we?’ said the little brown duck.

‘We do, we do; oh
indeed
we do,’ the others all said.

‘Especially as the hounds are handicapped by such a bunching of people,’ Thick Dempsey added; and nobody laughed.

For a while everyone stood silently—one looking at another. There didn’t seem to be anything left to say about Cooroo.

With a sigh Pidge decided that he and Brigit had better find the Fortune-Teller and he wondered what to do about the Poor Woman and the ducks and geese.

‘Would you like to come with us? We have to find the Fortune-Teller’s tent,’ he said.

With a shake of the head and a smile, the Poor Woman said:

‘No, I won’t come. Now that you don’t need me any more, I’ll be going on my own road again. I thank you for your great kindness and friendship. I’m glad to say that I’m leaving you feeling happier than I was when I found you.’

They all said goodbye then. Brigit tried to kiss all the ducks at once, but they sorted themselves out into a queue and held their bills up in turn. She was surprised when Charlie and his tribe all came and lined up for one as well.

When they had gone, Pidge was left with a very let-down feeling. All the fun had gone out of the day. Brigit felt it as well, because she said:

‘I wish we’d never come here. I’m going to miss them all but most of all, I’m going to miss Cooroo. And I don’t even care about these swapping sweets or anything. I’m fed up.’

Her voice still quivered.

‘I suppose we’d better go and find the Fortune-Teller now that we are here—or everything has been a waste of time,’ Pidge said doggedly.

Brigit brushed her eyes with her sleeve.

‘I feel the same,’ Pidge told her. He looked away in case he might actually cry himself. I’m too old for that, he told himself firmly.

They walked again through the crowds of people who seemed to have thinned out rather, now that the hounds were gone.

But when they found the gaily-coloured tent, the Fortune-Teller too had gone, leaving a pinned sign, saying:

They peeped into the tent through a rip in the canvas and saw that it was empty.

‘Now what do we do?’ Pidge wondered loudly.

‘Look!’ Brigit exclaimed, pointing downwards.

At their feet dandelions and daisies grew tightly together in a line. The line began at Brigit’s toes and led away from the Fortune-Teller’s booth, and it was like a rope of two bright colours on the grass. Pidge understood at once that it was a distinct path of flowers to follow; it was plain as plain.

The flowers ran in a straight course through the remaining groups of people, and no one was treading on them. And when Pidge and Brigit in following them had reached the road, they were delighted to see that the flowers had even pushed up through the compacted surface, to mark the way. The saw as well that the sign was only for them; as they passed them by, the flowers were vanishing, just as the candles had quenched themselves in the mist earlier on.

The stripe of flowers took them all the way to, and past, The Amber Apple. They stood hesitating; the smells coming out were so tempting and they had not eaten a bite since breakfast.

‘I tell you what, Brigit. If we miss her again, we’ll come back here and have something to eat. What about that?’ Pidge suggested.

‘Right!’ she said.

Now the path of flowers led them round a corner into an alley. Here they ran down the middle of the road as a bright band of colour. The children followed them down.

At the bottom there were lots of carts and wagons, and there were yards that opened off the sidepaths. When they were near the bottom, there was another smell of cooking. And then Pidge and Brigit were startled to hear a familiar voice say:

‘Oh, you Bold Unspiritual! Don’t get strigalous with me while I’m forkling me sausages!’

The path of flowers was finished.

T
HEY
turned a corner and they saw Boodie and Patsy. The moment that he saw them, questions jumped into Pidge’s head; but he decided that he would ask for answers later. He kept his questions carefully in the fringes of his mind.

After what had happened with Cooroo, the pleasure they felt at seeing their old friends from the past—so unexpectedly in Brigit’s case—filled them with a grateful kind of happiness. They stood for some moments just looking and waiting to be seen, recognized and welcomed.

At first they weren’t noticed and they nudged one another and grinned.

Boodie was crouched over a fire, frying a panful of sausages and making half-hearted attempts to fend off a blackbird that was perched on her head. The blackbird was struggling to pull straw from her hat. He was an ordinary enough bird but very cheeky.

On the ground nearby a clean cloth was spread; set with covered dishes and crockery. Patsy was kneeling there, putting a bunch of daisies into a small jar of water. He turned his head and saw them and his face lit up in a smile.

‘They’ve come, Boodie,’ he said.

Boodie’s hands flew up in excitement and the blackbird flew off, scolding her sharply as he went. Patsy was up on his feet and holding out the tips of his mackintosh hem, he came towards them as he had done once before, that day on the island in the past.

‘It Pidge exclaimed, as he and Brigit ran to meet him. ‘I thought I saw someone in the crowd that I knew. It was you, selling apples and windmills. I sort of knew you were here, even before the strawboy came!’
was you
!’

And even though he had only just realized it, this was true. He felt a kind of glad surprise.

‘That’s right,’ Patsy beamed, nodding. ‘There are things that need to be said; but I couldn’t get next, nigh or by you, for them old vaggybones of hounds and their busy, busy ears.’

‘They’ve chased away Cooroo. He’s a fox and they want to kill him,’ Brigit said. Her eyes glistened and she stuck her thumb in her mouth.

Boodie and Patsy exchanged glances. And Pidge thought that there was a look of sadness in their eyes.

To distract Brigit, he said, while looking at Boodie:

‘We’re supposed to be looking for a Fortune-Teller. She’s supposed to be down here somewhere.’ He was sure he knew what she would say in reply. And so he was not surprised when she laughed and said:

‘That’s me. I’m partial to that diversion once in a way and we wanted to talk without being overheard or lip-read. But I had to give up waiting for you in the end, and come down here to make my fire; or there’d be no dinner at all today.’

She had made a simple hearth of stones and her fire burned brightly within it. With a long fork she turned the sausages in a great black frying pan.

‘We knew you’d find us before the day ran its course,’ said Patsy.

Pidge and Brigit sat down beside Boodie. The blackbird came back, and now he was trying to tug out a few of Boodie’s straggling hairs that stuck out from under the brim of her hat. The hat was still flower-covered and butterflies opened and closed their coloured wings as they rested on the blossoms.

‘He thinks I’m a scarecrow,’ she laughed, pointing upwards with the fork.

‘Small blame to him!’, said Patsy, and he passed plates around. ‘We hope you like sausages.’

‘Oh yes! They smell great,’ Brigit said, drawing in a deep sniff. ‘Except for the swapping sweets, we’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast and that was ages ago.’