Half-Past Bedtime Part 13

The days were so short now that the dusk had already come, and the firelight cast strange shadows over the little quarry. The boys drew closer to him, and he took from his waistcoat pocket a small box, with a pinch of red powder in it.

"For twenty years," he said, "I've been trying to make this powder; and at last I've succeeded--just in time."

They bent over his hand and examined the powder. It was as light as thistle-down, and smelt like cloves.

"Now look," he said.

He threw some on the fire. But the boys could see nothing except the crumbling leaves.

Tod laughed.

"Look a little higher," he said; and then, in the smoke, they suddenly saw a bird hovering, and then another bird and another, and a couple of nests hanging faintly in the air.

"Now listen," said Tod; and above the whisper of the flames they could hear the soft sharpening of tiny beaks, and the sound of wings, and the ghosts of cheepings and chirpings, as if they had been hundreds of miles away. Then they faded, and Tod leaned back, looking triumphantly at the two boys.

"But what were they?" said Cuthbert.

"They were memories," said Tod. "They were the memories of those dead leaves."

"But do leaves remember?" asked Edward.

"Everything remembers," said Tod, "only n.o.body's been able to prove it.

The ground we're sitting on, the fields you've come across, the hills above us, they're crammed with memories. And when they die, if they ever do die, these memories come crowding back to them, just like they do to a dying man; and it's this powder that makes them visible."

He rose to his feet and looked about him.

"Of course, those leaves," he said, "were only a year old, and all that they remembered was just those birds. But look at this,"--he picked up a piece of wood--"this is the core of an old tree. This was a sapling three hundred years ago." He sprinkled the rest of the powder on it and threw it on the fire.

For a minute or two nothing happened, and then, high up, they saw some more birds hovering; but presently, as they looked, they saw the figure of a man, with his hair in ringlets hanging down over his shoulders. He wore a plumed hat, and his sleeves were frilled, and there was a sword at his belt, and he wore knee-breeches and stockings and jewelled buckles upon his shoes. He stood in mid-air, looking about him, and then he was joined by the figure of a girl. He took her in his arms, and then they faded away; and there instead was a peasant in a smock.

They saw him lean forward and carve something in the air, as though he were cutting somebody's name upon a tree-trunk; and then he too was gone, and there were two children playing hide-and-seek in the wreathing smoke. One was a little girl, and she wore a mob cap and a long skirt dropping almost to her ankles; and the other was a boy with a very short jacket and trousers that looked as if they had shrunk.

Then they saw a fox, with his ears p.r.i.c.ked, and one of his front paws lifted; and then there was nothing again but the sides of the quarry and the deepening shadows of the elms.

"That's all," said Tod, "because I've no more powder. All the rest's up there."

He jerked his thumb toward the top of the hill, hidden away from them by the trees.

"Why is it up there?" asked Cuthbert.

Tod stared at them as if he were trying to read their hearts.

"Have you courage?" he asked.

It was a difficult question. They told him that they hoped so, but that they weren't quite sure.

"Well, if you have," he said, "and you'd like to come back here to-night, just about half-past twelve, you'll be able to see something that n.o.body alive has ever seen or will see again."

Cuthbert and Edward looked at one another. It would be a six-mile walk, and they would have to start about eleven o'clock, and they would have to go to bed first and creep out of their houses without anybody knowing. The moon would have sunk, too, so that it would be quite dark.

They both felt a little queer inside. But they promised to come, and agreed to meet at eleven o'clock near St Peter's Church.

Cuthbert was there first, just before the clock struck. Everybody was in bed, and he had slipped out unnoticed. But his heart sank a little as he ran down the empty street and saw no Edward at the corner waiting for him. But Edward came just as the clock struck, and the night seemed less dark now that there were two of them, and soon they were out of the town and running close together between the hedges of the country road. Once a motor-car came travelling toward them, almost blinding them with the glare of its head-lamps; but after they had left the road and struck across the fields the night was so still that they could almost have heard a star drop.

It was so still that they spoke in whispers, and so dark that they sometimes tripped; and once when they stopped for a moment to take breath, a star did drop, and they almost heard it. Presently, when their eyes became used to the darkness, they could see the dim outline of the hills, and the faint ribbon of the Milky Way rising like smoke from Caesar's Camp. At the edge of the bracken they found Tod waiting for them.

"Come along," he said, "only don't go too fast," and they began to climb through the belt of trees out on to the hillside beyond. The gra.s.s was short here and slippery with dew, with glimmers of chalk beneath it where the turf was broken; and it was so steep that half-way up Tod stopped to fight for his breath.

"It's all right," he said. "I'll be better in a moment," and as they stood waiting for him and looking back, the country behind them seemed to have vanished into a lake of darkness. Then they began to climb again, their boots slipping, and suddenly as they climbed they smelt a new smell--a strange sort of acrid, sweet smell, as of turf-fires burning above them.

"Yes," said Tod. "I was up there an hour ago. I've lit half a dozen fires."

At the top of the hill he dropped down for a moment close to a large white stone. He lit a match and looked at his watch.

"Ten minutes to one," he said. "We're just in time."

They were now in a sort of trench or gra.s.sy moat that encircled the great mound, and they had climbed into this over a smaller mound that had once been a barricade. In this trench Tod had dug half a dozen holes, and in each of these holes there was a turf-fire smouldering; and now he turned and lifted the white stone, and took from under it a little bag.

"This is the rest of the powder," he said, "all there is, and all there ever will be, for the secret will die with me."

He rose to his feet and began to sprinkle it thickly over the burning turf in each of the little holes. Then he came back and spoke to the two boys.

"There are great memories," he said, "stored in this hill, but they are fierce ones, and you'll need all your courage."

Then he moved away from them toward the farthest of the fires, and Cuthbert felt a sort of change coming over the hill. He could see nothing, but it felt different, as if it were surrounded by a different sort of country--a savage country, with no railways in it, or roads, or parliaments, or policemen. Even the stars seemed to have grown younger, and nearer the earth, and more lawless; and then he heard voices filling the air about him, and a man shouting hoa.r.s.e commands.

He turned with a start and found himself among a crowd of naked and half-naked men--small men, with hair hanging over their shoulders, and bearded chins, and glittering eyes. Some of them were painted with curious patterns, shining in dull colours from their skins; and they were all pointing toward the darkness that lay like a sea round the sides of the hill. Then some of them spoke to him and asked him who he was, and he found that he understood them and could answer them; and the man who had been shouting, and who seemed to be their leader, came and looked into his eyes. He laid his hands on Cuthbert's shoulders.

"Son of my sons," he said, "are you ready to fight with us?" And Cuthbert suddenly felt himself burning with anger, because he knew that they were going to be attacked.

"Of course I am," he said, and then there was a great shout, and everybody rushed to the barricade; and there all round them, p.r.i.c.king out of the darkness, they could see helmets and the rims of shields.

Cuthbert somehow knew that these belonged to the Romans, and that he hated them for invading his country; and he was so excited that he had forgotten to notice what had happened to Edward Goldsmith. He only knew that he had disappeared.

As for Edward, he had forgotten all about Cuthbert. For he had suddenly noticed that there were now trees growing half-way up the hillside, and he had jumped over the barricade and run down to explore them. When he got there, he had found himself among an army of men marching up the hill behind locked shields, and a young centurion with merry eyes had stooped and gripped him by the arm.

"Hullo!" he said; "son of my sons, are you going to fight with us against these barbarians?" And Edward tingled all over with pride, and said, "Rather, you bet I am." Then a great stone from the top of the barricade came leaping down the hillside and crushed one of the men in the front rank, but the others closed together and never stopped marching.

When Cuthbert saw them he was blind with anger, but he knew in his heart that they were bound to win; and next moment they were over the parapet like a wave of hot and breathing iron. He heard groans and cries and the shouts of the British chief, and his eyes were full of tears as he beat at the Roman shields; and then he saw Edward and hit him in the face, and made his nose bleed, and knocked out two of his teeth. Edward struck back, and gave Cuthbert a black eye, and the night was full of hewings and the flashings of swords; and then everything was still again, and the hill was empty, and the stars were the same stars that they had always known.

Squatting on the barricade, with his arms round his knees, they saw Tod the Gipsy laughing at them; and Cuthbert rubbed his eye, and Edward sniffed hard to try and stop the blood running from his nose. Tod rose and stretched himself.

"Well, you've had it out," he said, "and so has the hill, and now you'd better be off home."

So they said good-bye to him, and they never saw him again; and next morning when Edward came down to breakfast, his father scolded him for explaining that an ancient Briton had hit him on the nose. But Cuthbert's daddy only stroked his chin when he heard that the Romans had given Cuthbert a black eye, because that was just the sort of thing, he said, that the Romans sometimes did, though they had many good qualities.

Down the dead centurions' way, Tod the Gipsy drives his shay.