The Wind on the Moon (25 page)

‘Do you know what it means?' asked Dorinda.

‘I'm not quite sure,' said Dinah. ‘Anyway, it seems to me that good advice is never so helpful as the people who give it think it is going to be. It doesn't really tell you what to do, it only makes you stop and think. And that can be very tiresome.'

‘I don't like good advice,' said Dorinda. ‘Where is the bag she gave you? And what use will it be?'

‘I left it on the garden seat, because it has rather a strong smell. And I don't really understand how it's going to help us either. But Mrs. Grimble said we must use it to draw a circle round the house after tea this afternoon. It has to be a big circle, at least a hundred yards across, and we must be careful not to leave any gaps in it.'

‘But why?' asked Dorinda.

‘I don't exactly know,' said Dinah. ‘You see, after I told Mrs. Grimble that we meant to go to Gliedermannheim whether she helped us or not, she said, “You'll need a friend, a strong friend and a brave friend, and I have something here that will keep your friend safe, and that's all I can do for you, so don't trouble me any more.“ Then she went to her cupboard, and her magpie was sitting on it, but he'd been eating pork too and was almost as sleepy as she had been. He opened his beak and seemed to yawn. Then she took out the bag with the smell, and gave it to me.'

‘And was that all she said?'

‘Just as I was going she called me back and whispered, “The Puma has been on the warpath again. She's killed a pig, and she's killed another lamb, and last night she killed a calf. They'll hunt her with men and they'll hunt her with dogs, and you and your sister are the only friends she has, and she'll be a good friend to you if she gets the chance. Remember that, and now be off home and don't come worrying me again, for I'm an old woman and I like my peace.“'

‘It's very wrong of the Puma to kill things,' said Dorinda, ‘even though she doesn't know the difference between what is hers and what is somebody else's. But they'll never catch her, will they?'

‘I hope not,' said Dinah.

‘Nothing can run as fast as she can. Not even a horse.'

‘There are two packs of foxhounds not far away,' said Dinah, ‘and Captain Bilbo's beagles, and Mr. Haggle's bloodhounds, as well as hundreds of terriers and setters and pointers and bulldogs. If they hunt her with all those, it will be very difficult for her to get away. Oh, poor Puma! It was very generous of her to give Mrs. Grimble a leg of pork. And it's our fault, in a way, that she's in danger, because it was we who let her out of the zoo. I'm terribly worried about her.'

‘The Falcon will give her plenty of warning,' said Dorinda. ‘She'll be all right.'

Then they went in and had their tea, and after tea they took the little bag with the smell in it and rubbed it on the ground so as to draw a circle, at least a hundred yards across, all round the house. This took them a long time, and it was later than usual when they went to bed.

They were half asleep when they heard the Falcon's wings at the open window and his voice calling to them. Dorinda rose quickly and pulled up the blind to let him in. A silvery light came with him into the room, making his feathers gleam, for the moon was rising.

‘The Golden Puma is in danger,' he said. ‘She has been killing too many beasts, though there are so many in the fields that no one could think their owners would miss a lamb or two, or a young pig, or even a calf. Your farmers must be greedy men, as well as good counters, for now they are angry and have made up their minds to hunt and kill the animal that is feeding on their flocks. Yesterday they went to those men who are Masters of Foxhounds, one pack on this side of the Forest of Weal, and one upon the far side. They went to a man who has a pack of bloodhounds, great ravening beasts, and to another who hunts with a score of those little dogs called beagles. Many others have joined them with lurchers and greyhounds, terriers and retrievers. The men have guns; some are on horseback, some on foot. This evening they gathered all their strength and surrounded the Forest. We first saw them coming from the east, and were not alarmed, the Puma and I, because we knew that she could out-distance them. But then I flew high, soaring above the Forest, and to the west I saw others, and others to the north and south. They were closing in upon the Forest to make a ring all round it. So I flew down and told her what I had seen, and she bade me come here and ask if she could find harbour with you.'

‘Of course she can,' said Dinah and Dorinda, speaking together.

‘Listen!' said the Falcon. ‘You can hear them now.'

Out of the moonlit night, clear enough though still far away, rose the cry of hounds. And in that distant chorus there was a wild and cruel excitement that made Dinah's heart beat faster, and Dorinda felt her skin prickling as though a cold wind blew.

‘Quickly!' exclaimed the Falcon. ‘Go down and open the door, but quietly, so that no one hears.'

They ran downstairs together, turned the key in the front door, and carefully, so that it would not creak, pulled it open. A little nervously, they looked out at the empty garden. Already the cry of hounds was louder. They were coming nearer.

Then swiftly a lithe shape crossed the lawn and the Puma, panting a little, stood in the doorway.

‘Will you give me harbour?' she asked.

‘Yes, yes,' they whispered.

‘Where shall I go?'

‘Come to our room,' said Dorinda, and led the way while Dinah, as carefully as she had opened it, closed and locked the door. Then, following Dorinda, she locked their bedroom door and put the key under her pillow.

‘Did they nearly catch you?' asked Dorinda.

The Puma lay on the hearth-rug, still panting. ‘There were too many of them,' she said. ‘They were coming from all sides.'

‘You're quite safe now,' said Dinah, but even as she said it they heard a new and louder noise, so fierce that they felt as though a hand were tightening round their throats.

This new noise came from the back of the house, where suddenly another pack of hounds gave tongue. Their voices seemed to fill the night. There were high voices and deep voices, hounds that bayed and hounds that babbled, a yelping chorus.

They looked out at the empty garden

‘Forty or fifty yards from your door,' said the Puma, ‘there was a scent that rose like a wall before me. It stopped me, I did not know what it was. Then I leapt across it.'

‘We made that,' said Dorinda.

‘Mrs. Grimble gave us a bag,' Dinah explained, ‘and told us to make a circle round the house by rubbing it along the ground. But we didn't know what good it was going to do.'

‘You made the circle complete?' asked the Puma. ‘You missed nowhere? You left no gaps?'

‘We did it very carefully indeed,' said Dinah.

‘Look how we scratched ourselves, getting through the hedges,' said Dorinda.

‘It will keep them out,' said the Falcon.

‘Let us hope so,' said the Puma, and rising from the hearth-rug paced slowly up and down the room. The fur on her neck was bristling and her eyes were very bright.

Now the hounds, in full cry, encircled the house, and their terrible voices came from all sides. Some were shrill and some were deep, some were as clear as a bell and some nearly as hoarse as a ship's siren. There were those that babbled and those that bayed, and one like a wolf caught in a trap howled most horribly. And that was not unreasonable, for in a way they were all caught in a trap.

As soon as they came to the scent that Dinah and Dorinda had laid, they had to follow it. It was so strong that it held their doggy noses as if they had been chained to it. It filled their simple doggy minds, and led them round and round the house, at full gallop, and round again.

There were two packs of foxhounds, Sir Leopold Livery's hounds from one side of the county and Mr. Vortigern's from the other, and Captain Bilbo's beagles, and about thirty or forty setters and pointers and spaniels and lurchers and terriers of one sort or another, and Mrs. Fumer's pack of otter-hounds from Watercress Court a dozen miles away, who were always bad-tempered, and her two poodles, and a Bedlington terrier that was out on its own and up to no good, and Mrs. Steeple's lion-hearted Pekinese that got in the way of the great hounds, who were continually tripping over it and tumbling and falling.

Round and round they went, barking and baying and yelping in the moonlight, and the men who had brought them—Sir Leopold Livery and Mr. Vortigern and their two huntsmen, and eight or nine farmers, and Captain Bilbo and Mrs. Fumer's husband—some of whom were on horseback and some on foot, went round and round as well, till they saw what was happening, and then they tried to call off their hounds, shouting and bellowing and making almost as much noise as the hounds themselves, but all to no purpose. For the scent was so strong that nothing could persuade even the little dogs to leave it, while the big ones were nearly mad with pleasure and excitement and the ridiculous belief that all the time they were getting nearer and nearer to something they could kill.

About this time Mr. Haggle arrived with his bloodhounds. They were late in coming because they hunted much more slowly and deliberately than the foxhounds; for a foxhound that has lost the scent will cast forward to look for it, but the sagacious and thoughtful bloodhound will cast back. The other packs, and the setters and terriers and spaniels and so on, had by now galloped round the circle eleven times at full speed, and some of them were a little tired. They were all hunting in the same direction, running round the circle like the hands of a clock, though much faster.

But when the bloodhounds arrived and found the scent, they gave tongue like thunder and with ears flapping and their noses to the ground immediately began to gallop round in the opposite direction; or anti-clockwise. The first thing that happened was that a bloodhound called Hannibal met a foxhound called Ranter, and knocked him over. Then two bloodhounds called Hengist and Horsa, who were brothers, collided with two otter-hounds called Danger and Ranger. The otter-hounds, who were quite unused to running so far and so fast as this, were hot and tired and more bad-tempered than usual. So Danger bit Hengist and Ranger bit Horsa, the first in the ear and the second in the leg, and the Bedlington who was out on its own and up to no good, seeing that a fight had started, thought it would be good fun to join in and bit Ranger the otter-hound in the left cheek. Then Ranger, who as well as being hot and tired was rather confused in his mind, howled like a banshee and bit a very handsome foxhound called Dairymaid who had stopped for a moment to see what was going on.

Now Dairymaid was one of Mr. Vortigern's favourite hounds, and when Mr. Vortigern saw that she had been attacked he became so excited that he fell off his horse. The horse galloped away and knocked Sir Leopold Livery off his horse, which also ran away, with Sir Leopold's huntsman in close pursuit. Mr. Vortigern in the meantime, sprawling on the ground, had been bitten on the nose by the Bedlington; and a foxhound belonging to Sir Leopold, who had tripped over a fat spaniel and was rather out of humour in consequence, knocked him flat on his back again when he tried to get up. Then eight or nine hounds of one sort or another fell over him, and the Bedlington, who was a quickwitted and happy dog, bit four or five of them so swiftly that none knew who had done it, and they began to fight among themselves.

Where the circle of scent crossed the road to the left of the Palfreys' house, the hounds had made gaps through the hedges, and here there was now a traffic block of a very noisy and serious kind. The bloodhounds were largely to blame for it, because they still insisted on hunting in the opposite direction to all the others, but as the fast-running foxhounds grew tired they more and more often tripped and fell over the smaller and slower beagles, and that added to the confusion. The gaps in the hedges were full of hounds struggling to get through, and thirty or forty of all kinds were fighting on the road while Mr. Vortigern's huntsman and the eight or nine farmers stood and shouted at them. Mrs. Fumer's husband had been bitten by Mrs. Steeple's lion-hearted Pekinese, and was sitting in a ditch crying.

From the window of their bedroom Dinah and Dorinda had been able, in the bright moonlight, to see the wild running of the hounds as they crossed and recrossed a field. The Falcon stood on the window-sill, and the Puma, on her hind legs, stood between Dinah and Dorinda. For about a quarter of an hour they had watched the extraordinary spectacle, but now there were only a few hounds on the roundabout, some running aimlessly to and fro, for most of them were either fighting on the road or in the other battle which had started over Mr. Vortigern.—Mr. Vortigern himself, pursued by two otter-hounds called Dimple and Daffodil, who wanted to tear off his breeches, was on his way home.—Mrs. Fumer's poodles, who were clever enough to keep away from the fighting but not clever enough to see that they were going round in a circle, still ran wearily one way, and so did three stubborn old hounds called Varlet and Vagabond and Venomous; while a huge bloodhound, whose name was Horatius and who looked the very picture of sorrow, went shambling and shuffling with equal persistence in the opposite direction. Here and there, their tongues lolling out and their sides heaving, lay dogs in utter exhaustion, and the voices of those who still ran, or still were fighting, were cracked and hoarse.