The marvellous land of Snergs
it had been on the whole a most successful and interesting expedition;
though they were to start on the homeward journey on the next day but
one (a Snerg had been sent post haste to let Miss Watkyns know they
were safe) and they would have preferred to stop a little longer, they
were also looking forward to the time when they would be back with the
other children and telling them all about it. And they really wanted to
know what Miss Watkyns and the other ladies would think of it all.
There was a ball that night at the palace. Among those present were
Joe and Sylvia, but only for a short time because the King said they
were too young for dissipation. They went to sleep, soothed by the
distant music of rebecs, psalterys and viols de gamboys. Truly a happy
time.
AND THE DAY AFTER THAT
“Aha!” said King Kul, striking his hands lightly together as he glanced
round the breakfast table, “what good things have we to eat this
morning? I see kidneys--kippers--a dressed ham--pies of various sorts.
Come, our cousin of Snerg, let me recommend the grouse pie.”
“Thank you,” replied King Merse, helping himself to a good deal. “Are
grouse plentiful here?”
“Very plentiful. When you come again we must get up some hawking
parties. Mynheer Vanderdecken, this wine is a good breakfast vintage.
Let me fill your goblet--But where are our little guests? I heard their
merry prattle from my window long ago, when I was having my early
hippocras and sandwich.”
Before anyone could answer, the Lady Ermyntrude came rushing into the
hall holding her skirts some six inches from the ground to facilitate
her movements.
“Sire,” she panted, “the children cannot be found! I left them about an
hour ago in order to powder my--I mean to arrange my coiffure--and they
have gone!”
“Gone where?” exclaimed both monarchs, rising to their feet.
“Alas, I cannot say. The household varlets have searched the gardens
and called to them, but they cannot be found. The guards at the palace
gates have not seen them pass. But they are lost!”
“Tut, tut!” said King Kul, “that seems impossible. They are playing
some prank on you. Have you searched the herbaceous borders?”
“Yes, sire, everywhere. But they cannot be found.”
Amid general consternation the Captain of the Gate was sent for and
came on the run, bolting a crust and brushing crumbs from himself.
“Come, come!” said the King angrily, “you must learn to eat in your own
time. We like not this munching in our presence. Now tell me if those
children passed the gates this morning.”
The Captain made an effort and bolted what was left of the crust. “No,
sire,” he replied. “Only serving-men have passed in or out on your
Majesty’s affairs. They and one old man.”
“What manner of old man?”
“Of very indifferent manner, sire. He came early this morning to offer
fat boiling fowls for your Majesty’s kitchen. He had a thin grey beard
and he wore a high peaked hat and a cloak and he rode an ass.”
“That does not help us very much,” remarked the King, pondering deeply.
“Not at all, sire. We were glad to see him pass out, for when he had
sold his fowls he brought forth bagpipes from under his cloak and
played most execrable music. He went out a-riding his ass, with his
feet disposed on his two covered baskets that hung on either side, and
there were none that did not stop their ears as he passed. My own ears
still ding with the fearsome squealing.”
“Enough of this old man and your ears,” said the King impatiently. “Now
let my soldiers search----”
He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Gorbo, who darted out
from the throng and flung out his arms before him.
“It’s Mother Meldrum!” he cried, “The old man was Mother Meldrum! She’s
got them after all!”
“Got them _where_?” roared the King and a few other people.
“In the baskets! She popped them in the baskets and played bagpipes so
that people wouldn’t hear them screaming! Oh!”--here he flung his cap
on the ground and jumped on it and tore his hair.
There was a momentary silence of astonishment. That Gorbo, already
widely known in these parts as the prize fool of the strange race of
Snergs, should find the solution of the mystery came as a bit of a
shock. King Merse stared at him as if he were experiencing something of
a miracle.
“He is right,” exclaimed King Kul. “If this toss-pot and muncher had
had the sense to see what is plain to us all” (he forgot that he hadn’t
seen it himself until it was shouted at him) “those children would not
be now in the power of that wretch. Let no one rest until they are
found, or avenged--Ha, here comes one who may help us,” he went on.
“Welcome back, Sir Giles. Have you any news?”
“Ay, your Majesty, lots,” replied that capable knight, clanking up the
hall. “But I have not found Golithos. His tower is empty except for
miscellaneous rubbish, and the doors swing idly in the wind. He has
flown.” His voice was hoarse with weariness and his mail showed signs
of hard travel.
“Flown, has he? And Mother Meldrum?”
“She also has flown--probably on a broomstick. Her house is dismantled
and deserted, and doubtless the foul things of the haunted woods will
hold their revels there to-night. Ugh!” He shuddered, for though he was
dauntless where a reasonable number of caitiffs were concerned he had
no taste for the supernatural.
“Strange,” said the King musingly. “The plot thickens--But you are
weary, Sir Giles. Pray seat yourself beside us while we consider the
matter.”
“Thanks, sire, but I prefer standing. I have sat some score of hours or
more.”
“I fear you will have to sit some more, good knight, for you must mount
and lead your men again. Come, sirs, let us consider what course we are
now to take.”
CAPTIVES AGAIN
In a wood of scattered and stunted trees many miles from Banrive,
Mother Meldrum was urging on her heavily loaded ass with the assistance
of a cudgel. Beside her strode the gigantic form of Golithos, with a
big bundle tied to his shoulders and carrying his mighty axe. There
was a kind of horrible contentment about the two as they went along
in silence only broken by an occasional chuckle from Golithos and the
thumping of the cudgel as it came down on the animal’s ribs. Round
about them walked seven large black cats.
“We can take it a bit easier now,” said Mother Meldrum at length. She
had taken off her cloak and in her man’s dress and with the false beard
removed she looked a particularly hideous figure; the beard had at
least hidden part of her face. “It’s not far now to the barren rocks
and nobody ever comes as near to them as this. Everything’s going very
nicely.”
“Yes, isn’t it,” he said. “Do you know I got very worried, waiting
outside the town with your bundles and the cats. I thought you’d never
come. I was afraid something had happened and you couldn’t find the
little ones.”
“That’s because you’re a fool,” she said with her usual candour. “I got
them almost at once, as I knew I would. Don’t you start complaining
about me!”
“No, of course not. But the cats worried me so much--snarling and
rolling about and getting their ropes entangled. And when I tried to
sort them out they simply bit pieces out of me. Look at my hands.”
“Glad they did; I wish they’d done more to you. You lost one of my
cats, too, you lout! If it doesn’t come along soon, I’ll remember it
when we settle up.”
“But it really wasn’t my fault,” he said quickly. “I just untied it a
moment to disentangle it and it clawed me and bolted off. It’ll come
along all right.”
“There’ll be trouble for you if it doesn’t. Now let’s stop a bit and
see how things are.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Golithos eagerly.
“You keep away! No touching.” She lifted up the lid of one of the
baskets on the ass and untied the neck of a coarse sack within. “Aha,
you’re tired of grizzling now, are you? That’s a good thing for you.”
The head of Joe came out and stared at her, white and horrified.
“Get out and walk!” she ordered. “No, wait a bit: I’ll have to tie your
hands behind you.”
She tied him up and lashed the rope to the huge bundle that formed
the principal load of the ass. Then she went to the other basket and
liberated Sylvia.
Poor Sylvia’s eyes were swollen with weeping and her face showed a
stunned horror. She shook with fear as she got out, her pretty silk
dress with the golden flowers and bees all crumpled and stained with
the filthy sack she had been tied in, and looked up in the old witch’s
face.
“Keep apart,” she shouted, for Joe had got close to Sylvia to give her
what consolation he could, which was not very much. “One on each side.
Now march!”
They started off again, Joe and Sylvia walking in a dazed way on either
side of her, Golithos coming behind with his load and leading the ass,
and the cats surging about them like a pack of grim black hounds.
“You were clever to get them, the way you did,” said Golithos, to put
her in a good humour. “You seem to manage everything the way you want
it.”
“Oh, I’m clever enough. I just went in with my half-dozen fat hens
and offered them for next to nothing, and I talked to the fat old
cook about things in general until I saw these brats coming along and
looking for something new. They got something new all right enough. I
just gave them good morning and asked them if they knew of a nice quiet
place in the garden where I could turn a little rabbit loose, because
it was so cruel to keep a rabbit cooped up and it’d be much happier in
the garden. And they took me to very nice quiet place, all thick bushes
and the like. Ho, ho, ho! I had them twisted up in two sacks before
they could begin to think what was happening. And by the time they’d
started to yell I had them in the baskets and hopped on top of the ass
and started the bagpipes. And some gardeners and people came running
up and out but I went a-galloping and blowing the pipes and all they
wanted was to see the last of me. And out in the street some stared at
me and some pitched carrots and things at me, but I didn’t stop blowing
until I was clear out of Banrive. Ho, ho, ho!”
Golithos laughed hideously and the children cowered as they stumbled
along. Mother Meldrum jerked furiously at the ropes that held them and
told them to step out smartly if they didn’t want some extra trouble.
“Don’t make them walk too fast,” said Golithos. “Poor things, it won’t
do to get them too tired! Children _do_ get thin so easily,” he added
with a touch of pathos.
“They’ll walk and you’ll walk and I’ll walk just as long as it suits
me!” she shouted with one of her sudden changes to fury.
“Oh, yes, of course,” he said hastily. “I was merely suggesting----”
“Well, don’t. You’ve got your job to attend to before you need worry
whether they’re thin or fat. As soon as we get beyond the barren rocks
you’re finished with them until you’ve done your job.”
“Oh, I’ll do it all right,” he said, twirling his gigantic axe. “The
sight of them has done me ever so much good. I’ll go back and just hide
near Banrive until I get my chance. It won’t take long because you tell
me the King goes out hawking every other day or so and it won’t be at
all difficult to creep up when he’s sitting on his fat old horse and
staring up in the sky. I’ll have him hacked to bits in no time. And
if any twenty of his men come up I’ll cut them all down, as I used to
do in the fine old days.” He roared with laughter and made the air
whistle as he swung the axe over his head.
“At last I’m getting part of what I want,” said Mother Meldrum as she
watched him approvingly. “Only part, because there’s others in the
town I’m going to get square with. Wait till we’re comfortably settled
beyond the barren rocks and we’ll be able to do quite a nice lot of