Brother Dusty-Feet Page 2

  With a sob of relief, Hugh took a firmer hold on his shoes and the periwinkle pot and darted out from the wall into the shadow of the cow-byre. Past the barn he went, and reached the black opening of the cart-shed; and then came the next danger, for if Argos barked to greet him it would set the other dogs off again, and they would be caught, Argos would be knocked on the head, and there would be no going away together and being happy.

  ‘Argos!’ he whispered, ‘Argos, it’s me – be quiet! Quiet, boy!’ and next instant, before Argos had time to make a sound, Hugh was sitting on his heels with his arms round the big dog’s neck, while Argos whimpered softly and kissed his master’s face from ear to ear with his warm, loving tongue. ‘We’re going away,’ he told him, untying the wagon-rope in a frantic hurry. ‘We’re going to Oxford – just us two, and Aunt Alison won’t be able to beat you any more.’ He threw aside the wagon-rope, and got up. ‘We’re going now – come on! Quiet! – Quietly, boy!’

  Argos gave a little joyful whine and a little joyful bounce, and Hugh picked up his belongings and they went out together; out from the sleeping farm-yard and across the home-meadow towards a gate that opened into the deep-rutted lane.

  The grass was cold and dew-wet under Hugh’s feet and Argos’s paws, and the night was full of little wandering scents of hawthorn and wet bracken. Behind them the farm slept, and the village in the coomb slept too, and only Hugh and Argos and the stars seemed awake in all the world. It was rather a lonely feeling. Then they came to the gate, and Hugh climbed over, because that seemed easier than opening it, and Argos crawled underneath; and they sat down in the ditch together while Hugh put on his shoes. Then Hugh found he had been quite mistaken about the world being asleep; it was as wide awake as ever it could be! Out in the open meadow he had not noticed it, but here in the ditch he could not help noticing; there were little rustlings through the grass, and little scutterings among last year’s leaves, and a swish of wings along the hedgerow, and countless busy sounds of countless comings and goings, where the small folk of the wild were busy about their own affairs. It was nice to feel that the world was awake, after all.

  When Hugh had put on his shoes he climbed out of the ditch and set off down the lane, he and Argos and the pot of periwinkle.

  So the three adventurers set out on their way to Oxford, walking through the night, with their hearts very high within them – Hugh because he was going to seek his fortune, Argos because he was following Hugh, and the periwinkle because a periwinkle’s heart is always high; you only have to look at its joyous little blue flowers to know that.

  2

  The Joyous Company

  It was growing light as Hugh, with the periwinkle under one arm and Argos padding at his heels, came down into Bideford town and across the Long Bridge. It was market day, and presently the town would be full of farm-carts and farmers with their wives, and sheep and pigs and cattle; but now it was very quiet, and the only things that moved were the river flowing towards the estuary, and a few gulls among the topsail spars of the shipping in the Pool. The sky was streaked with flaming cloud-bars of gold and saffron that grew brighter every moment, and Hugh, looking up to them, knew that he must hurry – hurry – hurry, because any minute now his aunt would discover he had gone, and be looking for him.

  You would think, from the way she talked, that Aunt Alison would be only too pleased to be rid of both Argos and Hugh; but Hugh had a very uncomfortable feeling that he did a lot of work that she would have to pay someone else to do, if he was not there; and besides, she would not like it to be known that he had run away, because of What People Would Say. Aunt Alison cared a great deal about What People Said. And that being so, he must hurry! He crossed the bridge and climbed the steep hill beyond, and finding a road at the top that seemed to lead more or less in the right direction, set out along it.

  He had no idea of the way to Oxford, and he would not dare to ask anyone until he was much farther from Aunt Alison; but he did know that it was somewhere to the east, and he thought if he kept on walking eastward he could not go very far wrong. And after he had walked a long way, perhaps tomorrow, he would stop at a village and go to the parsonage house and ask his road of the parson, because a parson was sure to know the way to Oxford, even if he had only been to Cambridge himself.

  The sun was up now, and it felt warm and friendly on Hugh’s face as he walked, and there was a little wind smelling of rabbits for Argos to sniff at. The white, dusty road beckoned them on and on, and the hedges were thick with hawthorn; the larks sang so high overhead that Hugh could not see them, however hard he stared up into the blue, and all along the hedgerows chaffinch and wren and robin were attending to their families, The cows woke up in the fields, and presently a few people began to pass on their way to market, and said ‘Fine morning, my dear,’ to Hugh, because West-country folk never pass you without speaking; but none of them knew him, and afterwards none of them particularly remembered having passed a boy and a big dog and a pot of periwinkle, which was just as well. A long-legged cart-horse foal with bright eyes and feathery tail came galloping across one meadow to stick its head through the gate and pass the time of day with Argos; and Argos was thrilled, because he quite understood that it was a baby, although it was bigger than he was. So he kissed the foal, and the foal kissed him, and it was quite a long time before Hugh could get him away. But he managed it at last, and they went on down the dusty road.

  Hugh’s legs were beginning to grow tired, and he was dreadfully hungry, but he was happier than he had been for three long years, and he was sure that he would get to Oxford somehow, and that when he got there everything would be all right, because everything always is all right at the Foot of the Rainbow.

  Of course it would have been easier if he had had some money, even a very little money. Still, he would be sure to find people on the way who would let him chop wood or carry water or weed their gardens or mind their babies in exchange for a meal for him and Argos. Quite soon hay-harvest would begin, too, when farmers were always glad of help, and perhaps he would find a farmer who would take him on for a week or two, and pay him a silver shilling. You could do a lot with a shilling, when Queen Elizabeth held court in Whitehall Palace.

  Hugh was just thinking this when he turned a corner and came upon a cottage with a tethered cow and a few scratching hens, and at the side, the gayest flower-patch imaginable, where already the York-and-Lancaster roses were budding. And before the door of the cottage stood a small grey donkey wearing a pair of great plaited rush panniers, and a little old woman with a face as red as Aunt Alison’s, but in a much nicer way. She was surrounded by neatly plucked poultry, green cheeses and baskets of eggs and bunches of gay cottage flowers, which she was trying to pack into the panniers, while the small donkey would not stand still, but sidled about and flapped its ears in the most annoying fashion.

  Hugh came to a halt when he saw this, and said, ‘May I help you, mistress?’ (And really he would have stopped even if he had known that the old woman would not give him anything to eat; but he did rather hope that she would.)

  The little old woman looked him up and down, with her head on one side like a robin, and then she said, ‘You’m hungry, I reckon?’

  ‘Yes, mistress.’

  ‘Well, if you’ll hold on to Posy before her puts her gurt foot amongst the eggs, and keep her quiet while I packs the panniers for market and puts on my cloak, I’ll give you what I can.’

  So Hugh put down the periwinkle and told Argos to guard it, and went and hung on to Posy’s head. Posy was a nice donkey, really, and when Hugh stroked her nose she stopped sidling about, and stood still, twiddling her long ears in a pleased sort of way; and quite soon the panniers were firmly packed, with the fowls and cheeses underneath and the eggs and flower-bunches on top.

  ‘My Good Man’s laid up with the rheumatics,’ said the old woman, as she gave everything a final pat, ‘and I never can manage Posy by meself; and well she knows it, the li’l madam! Now do ’e
e keep her quiet till I come back; I won’t be but a li’l while,’ and she toddled off into the cottage.

  Hugh went on stroking Posy’s nose, and Argos sat bolt upright, with one eye on the periwinkle to see that it did not run away, and the other on Hugh because he loved him.

  The old woman was gone much longer than a little while, but she came back at last, in a faded scarlet cloak, with a large straw hat tied on over her coif. In one hand she carried a thick wedge of dough cake with a lump of cream cheese on it, and in the other a very nice bacon bone. She gave the dough cake to Hugh, and she was just going to give the bone to Argos when Hugh said, ‘If you please, mistress, I’ll take it for now, and we’ll both have dinner a little later on.’

  So she gave it to him, and then hoisted herself on to Posy’s back behind the panniers, while he went on holding Posy’s head for her (with the hand that was not full of dough cake and bacon bone). She was a very little old woman, but by the time she was settled, with her cloak tucked in round her, there was nothing of Posy to be seen but four round hooves and two long ears and a velvet muzzle.

  Hugh gave Posy a final pat on her nose, and stepped back. ‘Thank you very much for the food, mistress,’ he said.

  But instead of riding off, the old woman sat looking down at him from under her big straw hat. ‘Where are you going, my dearie,’ she asked, ‘you and the big dog and the pot of periwinkle?’

  ‘We’re going to Oxford,’ said Hugh. He had not meant to tell anyone until he was many miles farther from Aunt Alison, but somehow he was sure that he could trust the little old woman. ‘Do you know the way?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not I, my dear.’ Then she rummaged under her cloak and brought out something very small and bright. ‘Here be a three-farthing bit to help you on your way. Silver’s lucky on a journey; iss surely,’ and she dropped it into Hugh’s hand.

  ‘Oh!’ said Hugh, ‘Oh, thank you, mistress! It’s – it’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Bless your heart; may your journey be happy,’ said the old woman.

  She nodded and smiled and shook the reins, and after a time Posy decided she might as well move. Hugh turned to watch them – the little donkey, and the little old woman in the scarlet cloak, and the big panniers on either side – until they turned the corner of the road. Then he put the three-farthing bit carefully into the pocket inside the breast of his doublet, and stowed the dough cake down his front, and picking up the periwinkle, started out again, carrying the bacon bone in his free hand. Argos, who had been watching that bone hopefully since it first came out of the cottage (though he would never have dreamed of touching it before Hugh said he might), walked on the side of Hugh that the bone was, so as to keep it under his eye.

  They walked on for a long time, by spinneys and meadows and open moorland, carefully avoiding villages, until the time came when Hugh knew he could not go any farther until he had rested for a while, and he was so hungry that he felt rather ill. Then quite suddenly the road came out from the shadows of a little wood, and there was a small hump-backed bridge and a streamlet and a wide, green valley beyond. The stream had alder-fringed banks that looked very comfortable for sitting on, and the water that flashed and flickered over its bed of speckled stones looked as though it would be wonderfully cool and comforting to hot, way-weary feet. So Hugh turned aside from the road, and, following the stream a little way, sat down and took the dough cake and cheese from inside his doublet. If Argos had all the bone, Hugh thought, it was quite fair that he should have all the cheese. So he put the bone in front of Argos and the cheese in front of himself, and divided the dough cake carefully into two halves, putting Argos’s share with the bone.

  ‘There,’ he said, ‘you can have it now.’

  It did not take long to eat their dinner, and when they had finished they picked out the crumbs from among the grass-blades, because they were still hungry. But Hugh kept one little bit of dough cake from his share, and threw it away into the long grass, and Argos did not go after it, because he understood that it was the Good Piece – the last scrap of every meal that must be left for the Fairy Folk. Old Hepzibah, who had kept house for Hugh and his father, had always put aside the Good Piece, and she had taught Hugh to do the same.

  After that they had a long drink, and Hugh took off his shoes and hose and washed his hot tired feet in the clear cold water of the stream, and looked at Argos’s paws to see that they were not getting sore. Then he made sure his precious three-farthing bit was safe, and lay down flat on his back.

  It was lovely to lie staring up through the young green of the alder leaves to the blue beyond, and waggle one’s wet toes in the sunshine. The turf was soft to lie on, and the stream sang by, and the freckled leaf-shadows fluttered over his face; from the woods across the valley the year’s first cuckoo called softly, and when presently Hugh rolled over on to his elbow he saw that the meadow was all aflitter with lady’s smock. It must have been like that before he lay down, but he had been too tired and hungry to notice. Then he saw a V-shaped ripple travelling up-stream, which he thought must be an otter, and he lay for a long time watching for it to come again, but it didn’t, and at last he began to think it was time they took to the road once more. He would have liked to go on lying on the sun-dappled bank and waggling his toes all day, but he was a long way from Oxford, and he could not be more than twenty miles from Aunt Alison; and so he sat up and began slowly to put on his shoes and stockings. His feet seemed to have grown a good deal too big for his heavy shoes, but he got them on at last, and stood up.

  ‘Argos,’ he said, ‘we must be getting on, old lad.’

  Argos, who was sleeping peacefully with the remains of his bone between his paws, opened one eye, and then shut it again, pretending he had not heard.

  ‘We must go just a little farther before dark,’ Hugh explained. ‘Truly we must.’

  So Argos got up, stretched first his front legs and then his back ones, and picking up the remains of the bone, looked about him in a bothered sort of way. Then he buried it very carefully among the roots of an alder tree, while Hugh waited; and they set out again, trudging wearily down the road.

  But their legs were very tired, and dough cake and cheese and bacon bone is not really a very sustaining meal when you are walking all the way to Oxford; and after they had crawled on a few more hot and dusty miles, they found a nice dry ditch and simply tumbled into it and lay down. They were so weary that not even their hunger could keep them awake, and long before the daylight faded they were sound asleep, cuddled together for warmth and company, Hugh with his arms round Argos’s neck, and Argos with his head on Hugh’s chest, and the periwinkle carefully lodged in the crook of a tree-root farther up the bank. The dimpsey came and then the dark, and the stars peered down at them through the hazel scrub and white-flowered lady’s lace; the little creatures of the wild came and looked at them, and decided that they meant no harm, and went away again. And Argos dreamed that he was chasing dream-rabbits, and Hugh dreamed that he was walking to Oxford under the sky-wide arch of the brightest rainbow he had ever seen.

  They slept late next morning, and Hugh woke to find the sun poking golden fingers down at him through the lady’s lace and hazel leaves and wild marjoram. For a little while he did not remember how he came to be there, but just lay blinking sleepily up at the brightness and thinking how pretty the nut-leaves looked with a rim of greenery golden light round each one. Then suddenly he remembered about Aunt Alison having meant to have Argos knocked on the head, and how he and Argos and the periwinkle had all run away together and were walking to Oxford. And he sat up with such a jerk that the big dog, who was still bunched up on top of him, rolled over with a crash and woke up in a floundering sort of way. For a moment it was all arms and legs and paws and waving tail, and then Hugh and Argos disentangled themselves, and sat up in the ditch and looked at each other.

  ‘We’ve overslept,’ said Hugh.

  ‘Yee-ow!’ said Argos, leaping out of the ditch and stretching
first his front legs and then his back ones, and yawning so wide that Hugh could see right down his pink throat.

  Hugh made sure his three-farthing bit was safe, and collecting the pot of periwinkle, scrambled out too. Just at first he was so stiff all over and his feet hurt so much that he could hardly crawl along, but after a while the stiffness and soreness wore off a little. He was very hungry, too, but that did not wear off; it grew worse and worse as he trudged on down the road, until it became a dull gnawing pain in his inside. Still, he must be more than twenty miles from Aunt Alison, and Argos was safe, and at the next village they came to he meant to walk boldly in and find the parsonage and ask the way to Oxford. So when they came to a wayside pool he stopped to wash his face so that he should look tidy and respectable for the parson.

  It was a very still, dark pool, rimmed round with brown-tufted rushes and water forget-me-nots, and when Hugh knelt down and bent over it, his own face looked up at him just as clearly as from a mirror; a thin, brown, dirty face, with a large curly mouth; not at all respectable. He washed it very hard to see if that would improve it, and then he washed his hands and had a drink (Argos had already had one), and brushed himself down as well as he could. Then he smoothed Argos’s beautiful brindled coat so that he should look his best too, and gave the periwinkle a palm-full of water. It already looked its best, and perfectly tidy and respectable; periwinkles always do. After that they went on again.