Half-Past Bedtime Part 16

Cuthbert was very sorry when he heard about the fire at Doris's house, and when he next saw her in the street, he almost crossed the road to speak to her. But she hadn't spoken to him for so long that he had resolved not to talk to her unless she spoke to him first. Doris and Jimmy and Jocko were now staying with some people called Brown; and Doris's mother and the twins and Christopher Mark were staying with Gwendolen's aunt and Captain Jeremy. It was rather fun staying with the Browns, but on the whole Doris was rather sad, because it would be two months, so the builders said, before they could all be at home together again.

Cuthbert knew about this, because Marian had told him; and that was why he nearly crossed the road. But he decided not to, and he didn't see Doris again until the second day of the holidays. That was the Thursday before Christmas, and it was a grey day and very cold, with a strong wind blowing out of the north-east, and all the houses looking huddled and shrunken. It was early in the afternoon, and he had just been to call for Edward, but Edward had gone out to sit by the railway. He was collecting the numbers on engines, and had already got thirty-seven.

Cuthbert was collecting too, but he was collecting the dates on pennies, so he didn't feel inclined to go and sit with Edward; and it was just as he was wondering what to do that he saw Doris turn the corner. For a moment he thought that he would pretend not to see her, but she was all alone, and it suddenly occurred to him that it would be rather a good idea to take her out to tea at Uncle Joe's.

So he stopped and asked her, and she was very glad, because she had nothing particular to do; and she told him all about St Uncus and the fire and what it was like being nearly burnt to death.

"Let's cut across the fields," she said, "past old Mother Hubbard's.

It's jolly cold. I think it's going to snow."

"I hope it is," said Cuthbert. "But it's not so cold as the day on which we found the ice-men."

But it was quite cold enough, with the horses in the fields standing dismally under the naked hedges, and the black north-easter crumbling the ridges of the plough-lands until they looked like pale-coloured powdered chocolate.

"I shall be jolly glad," said Cuthbert, "when we get to Uncle Joe's,"

and just then they pa.s.sed Mother Hubbard's--a melancholy house standing by itself, with all its blinds and curtains drawn.

It was always like that, and behind it were some ruined stables, with a tin roof that flapped up and down; and a big yellow dog on a long chain ran out and yelped at them as they pa.s.sed. This was called Mother Hubbard's house, because it belonged to a Miss Hubbard who lived there all by herself, and who had allowed n.o.body to enter the door since her father had died fifty years ago.

He had been a proud old general with a bad temper; and some people said that he had driven Miss Hubbard mad, but other people said that she was only queer, and hated everybody except her dog. Occasionally she could be seen peering round one of the blinds, or feeding her dog in the ruined stables; and once a week she went into the town with a big bag to do her shopping. The shop-people said that she was very polite, and so did the postman, who sometimes took her a letter. But she always kept her own counsel, and n.o.body could ever make her talk. Why she lived like that, n.o.body knew. Some people said that it was because she was so poor, and because her father had made her promise never to let people know how poor she was. But other people said that she was really rather rich, and that she must have had some great trouble. She was very old--nearly eighty--although her eyes were clear and so were her cheeks; but there were still a few people who remembered her as a girl galloping on horseback over the fields.

"Silly old thing," said Doris, as they left her house behind them. "I shouldn't be surprised if she was a witch."

But Cuthbert said that there weren't any such things, and perhaps she had killed somebody and had a guilty conscience.

Then they crossed a road, and climbed over a stile, and skirted a great field p.r.i.c.ked with tiny wheat-blades; and then they slipped down a rather steep bank into a sheltered lane still wet with mud. They had already forgotten old Mother Hubbard, and the next moment they forgot her still more; for just then there came clattering down the lane a young man on horseback, splashed to his eyes. His bowler hat was crammed down on his head, and he shouted at them as he galloped by. "Which way have they gone?" he cried, but he never stopped for an answer, and soon there came some more riders, both men and women. They had evidently come down the lane to avoid a big ploughed field that lay between high hedges on the other side of it, for Cuthbert and Doris presently saw them turn sharply to the right into a gra.s.s meadow where it was easier to gallop.

"It's the hunt," said Doris. "Let's run after them," so they turned and ran down the lane, and saw the riders, one by one, jumping over a gate on the far side of the meadow. Then they crossed the meadow and scrambled over the gate just in time to see the last of the hors.e.m.e.n disappearing over another hedge a couple of hundred yards away.

"We shall never catch them," said Cuthbert, but just then they heard a horn blowing. "It's the fox," cried Doris. "They've seen the fox," and half a minute later, from a little rise in the ground, they saw the whole hunt streaming away from them.

They were so hot now that they had forgotten all about the wind and the grey clouds gathering over the downs, and their only thought was to be up among the horses and their jolly, red-cheeked riders. So they ran down the rise and across another road and over some more fields and past a wood, until they came at last to a stream, running rather sluggishly between some pollarded willows. On one of these there was a man standing, and he waved his hand to them as they came up.

"They're coming back," he said. "Keep along the stream, and I'll lay a dollar you'll see some fun."

It was now nearly four, and the light was beginning to fade, and they were ever so far from Uncle Joe's; but they pushed their way through the tangled gra.s.s until they came to a plank across the stream. This led them out beside a hazel copse, and just as they were wondering which way to go they heard the horn again, not very far away, and the clear, deep calling of the hounds. Something cold fell on Cuthbert's cheek.

"Hullo!" he said, "it's beginning to snow." And then a burly man on a big grey mare came crashing through the undergrowth on the other side of the stream. He gave a shout, and they jumped aside as his horse rose to clear the water; but the next moment he was sprawling on the ground in front of them, with his scarlet coat about his ears.

They heard him swear, but as he picked himself up and helped his horse out of the stream he began to laugh, and soon he was in the saddle again and vanishing into the dusk. For a minute or two they waited, but n.o.body else came. An old c.o.c.k pheasant rattled out of the hazel copse. The horn blew once more, and then all was still. Their breath stood like smoke upon the air.

Then Doris suddenly stooped and picked up a coin that had been half trampled into the bank.

"Hullo!" she said, "he's dropped a penny. You'd better add the date of it to your collection."

Cuthbert took it from her, but the penny was an old one, and the date was difficult to see. The snow began to fall upon them in heavy flakes.

Cuthbert took out his handkerchief and polished the coin. And then an odd thing happened, for suddenly, as he polished, the stream and the hazel copse seemed to fade away; and it was another girl--a grown-up girl--who had just given him the penny.

"A penny for your thoughts," she said, and Cuthbert knew that she wasn't speaking to him, but to somebody else; and the thoughts that came into his head weren't his own, but a grown-up man's. He knew that they were somebody else's thoughts, because he was thinking his own thoughts too; and the other person's thoughts were of two kinds--the weak thoughts that he decided to tell the girl, and the strong thoughts that went into the penny.

The thoughts that he told the girl were that, when he got to South America, he was going to spend his spare time studying the birds there.

He was going to write a book about them, and perhaps, when he had written his book, he would get a job looking after a museum. But his strong thoughts, that he didn't tell her, were "I love you and want to marry you; but I mustn't tell you that, because I'm only a carpenter, and you're a lady, and ever so far above me."

"What's the matter?" said Doris.

Cuthbert gave her the penny.

"It's a queer sort of penny," he said. "Catch hold of it."

Doris took it.

"I don't see anything queer in it," she said. So Cuthbert polished it once more. This time he polished it harder, so that when he gave it to Doris again it was quite warm from the polishing; and Doris seemed to be standing in a strange sort of room, full of old-fashioned furniture and heavy ornaments. The same girl said, "A penny for your thoughts," and the same thoughts came to her as had come to Cuthbert. The day drew in.

It was almost dark now, and the snow was glistening on their shoulders.

"I know what's happened," she said. "His real thoughts were so strong that they all went into the penny."

Cuthbert nodded.

"That's what I thought," he said. "And when you rub the penny they all come out."

"Did you notice the girl's dress?" asked Doris, "and the way her hair was done, and the blue china dog on the mantelpiece?"

Cuthbert shook his head.

"Let's have another go," he said, and he rubbed the penny again as hard as he could.

This time he noticed the room, with its queer high-backed piano, and a picture of people hunting hanging on the wall, and the blue china dog, and the girl's dress, and the curious way in which she had done her hair. It was pulled back from her forehead into a smooth sort of bundle behind her head; and her dress was all in terraces, like a wedding-cake, or a theatre turned upside down.

"It must have been a good long time," said Cuthbert, "since she gave him the penny. Do you think he was the man who fell off the horse?"

"Oh, he couldn't have been," said Doris. "He was much too young; and besides I'm sure that he was never a carpenter."

She shivered a little.

"We ought to be getting home," she said, but Cuthbert lingered for a moment, looking at the penny.

"I expect hundreds of people," he said, "have had it in their pockets and never known what was inside it."

"I daresay," said Doris, "but I know I'm jolly hungry, and we must be miles away from anywhere."

Nor were they quite sure where anywhere was, but they crossed the plank again and started for home, with the snow driving past their ears and piling up in front of their feet. Grey-capped hedges loomed up before them, rising unexpectedly out of the darkness; and so thick lay the snow that they were never able to tell whether the next field was a ploughed one. But they pa.s.sed the tree--or they thought that they did--on which the man had been standing; and they crossed the road--or they thought that they did--that they had crossed after running down the rise. But the hours went by, and they felt emptier and emptier, and several times they stumbled into snow-filled ditches; and the snow roared past them in angry whiteness, and melted upon their necks and trickled down their backs.

Longingly they thought then of Uncle Joe's and of plates of hot m.u.f.fins before the fire, and even more longingly of supper at home, with bowls of steaming bread and milk. But every field seemed endlesser than the last, and the snow grew deeper and ever more deep; and the night closed down upon them like a lid, and their feet felt heavier than ten-pound weights.

"I believe we're lost," said Cuthbert, but Doris didn't seem to hear, and so they toiled on with sinking hearts, and then at last, just as they were almost spent, they suddenly knocked their knees against a little gate. It was the sort of gate that leads into a garden path; and though they could see no sign of this, or even of a light, they pushed it open with a great effort, and went plunging into the snow beyond.

Sometimes people have been frozen close to a house, but in a little while they saw a great dark shadow; and then to their joy they found themselves in front of a door, with a gleam of light shining through the letter-box. For a long time they knocked, but n.o.body came; and several times they shouted through the letter-box. But still n.o.body came, and then from behind the house they heard the barking of a dog.