The Complete Mouldiwarp Series (Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит
and walking quickly away from the castle. ‘I should say it just the same if it was midnight.’ And he very nearly believed what he said.
Elfrida it was who had picked up the paper that Edred had dropped when that thing moved in the corner. She still held it fast.
‘I expect it was only a rat or something,’ said Edred, his heart beating nineteen to the dozen, as they say in Kent and elsewhere.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Elfrida, whose lips were trembling a little; ‘I’m sure it was only a rat or something.’
When they got to the top of Arden Knoll there was no sign of sunset. There was time, therefore, to pull oneself together, to listen to the skylarks, and to smell the bean-flowers, and to wonder how one could have been such a duffer as to be scared by a ‘rat or something.’ Also there were some bits of sandwich and crumbled cake, despised at dinner-time, but now, somehow, tasting quite different. These helped to pass the time till the sun almost seemed to rest on a brown shoulder of the downs, that looked as though it were shrugging itself up to meet the round red ball that the evening mists had made of the sun.
The children had not spoken for several minutes. Their four eyes were fixed on the sun, and as the edge of it seemed to flatten itself against the hill-shoulder Elfrida whispered, ‘Now!’ and gave her brother the paper.
They had read the spell so often, as they sat there in the waning light, that both knew it by heart, so there was no need for Edred to read it. And that was lucky, for in that thick, pink light the faint ink hardly showed at all on the yellowy paper.
Edred stood up.
‘Now!’ said Elfrida, again. ‘Say it now.’ And Edred said, quite out loud and in a pleasant sort of sing-song, such as he was accustomed to use at school when reciting the stirring ballads of the late Lord Macaulay, or the moving tale of the boy on the burning deck:
‘Hear, Oh badge of Arden’s house,
The spell my little age allows;
Arden speaks it without fear,
Badge of Arden’s house, draw near,
Make me brave and kind and wise,
And show me where the treasure lies.’
He said it slowly and carefully, his sister eagerly listening, ready to correct him if he said a word wrong. But he did not.
‘Where the treasure lies,’ he ended, and the great silence of the downs seemed to rush in like a wave to fill the space which his voice had filled.
And nothing else happened at all. A flush of pink from the sun-setting spread over the downs, the grass-stems showed up thin and distinct, the skylarks had ceased to sing, but the scent of the bean-flowers and the seaweed was stronger than ever. And nothing happened till Edred cried out, ‘What’s that?’ For close to his foot something moved, not quickly or suddenly so as to startle, but very gently, very quietly, very unmistakably – something that glittered goldenly in the pink, diffused light of the sun-setting.
‘Why,’ said Elfrida stooping, ‘why, it’s—’
Chapter II.
The Mouldiwarp
And it was – it was the living image of the little pig-like animal that was stamped in gold above the chequered shield on the cover of the white book in which they had found the spell. And as on the yellowy white of the vellum book-cover, so here on the thymy grass of the knoll it shone golden. The children stood perfectly still. They were afraid to move lest they should scare away this little creature which, though golden, was alive and moved about at their feet, turning a restless nose to right and left.
‘It is,’ said Elfrida again, very softly, so as not to frighten it.
‘What?’ Edred asked, though he knew well enough.
‘Off the book that we got the spell out of.’
‘That was our crest on the top of our coat-of-arms, like on the old snuff-box that was great-grandpapa’s.’
‘Well, this is our crest come alive, that’s all.’
‘Don’t you be too clever,’ said Edred. ‘It said badge; I don’t believe badge is the same thing as crest. A badge is leeks, or roses, or thistles – something you can wear in your cap. I shouldn’t like to wear that in my cap.’
And still the golden thing at their feet moved cautiously and without ceasing.
‘Why,’ said Edred suddenly, ‘it’s just a common old mole.’
‘It isn’t; it’s our own crest, that’s on the spoons and things. It’s our own old family mole that’s our crest. How can it be a common mole? It’s all golden.’
And, even as she spoke, it left off being golden. For the last bit of sun dipped behind the shoulder of the downs, and in the grey twilight that was left the mole was white – anyone could see that.
‘Oh!’ said Elfrida – but she stuck to her point. ‘So you see,’ she went on, ‘it can’t be just a really-mole. Really-moles are black.’
‘Well,’ said Edred, ‘it’s very tame, I will say that.’
‘Well—’ Edred was beginning; but, at that same moment the mole also, suddenly and astonishingly, said, ‘Well?’
There was a hushed pause. Then—
‘Did you say that?’ Elfrida whispered.
‘No,’ said Edred, ‘you did.’
‘Don’t whisper, now,’ said the mole; ‘’tain’t purty manners, so I tells ’ee.’
With one accord the two children came to their knees, one on each side of the white mole.
‘I say!’ said Edred.
‘Now, don’t,’ said the mole, pointing its nose at him quite as disdainfully as any human being could have pointed a finger. ‘Don’t you go for to pretend you don’t know as Mouldiwarps ’as got tongues in dere heads same’s what you’ve got.’
‘But not to talk with?’ said Elfrida softly.
‘Don’t you tell me,’ said the Mouldiwarp, bristling a little. ‘Hasn’t no one told you e’er a fairy tale? All us beastes has tongues, and when we’re dere us uses of en.’
‘When you’re where?’ said Edred, rather annoyed at being forced to believe in fairy tales, which he had never really liked.
‘Why, in a fairy tale, for sure,’ said the mole. ‘Wherever to goodness else on earth do you suppose you be?’
‘We’re here,’ said Edred, kicking the ground to make it feel more solid and himself more sure of things, ‘on Arden Knoll.’
‘An’ ain’t that in a fairy tale?’ demanded the Mouldiwarp triumphantly. ‘You do talk so free. You called me, and here I be. What do you want?’
‘Are you,’ said Elfrida, thrilling with surprise and fear, and pleasure and hope, and wonder, and a few other things which, taken in the lump, are usually called ‘a thousand conflicting emotions,’ – ‘are you the “badge of Arden’s house”?’
‘Course I be,’ said the mole, – ‘what’s left of it; and never did I think to be called one by the Arden boy and gell as didn’t know their own silly minds. What do you want, eh?’
‘We told you in the spell,’ said Elfrida.
‘Oh, be that all?’ said the mole bitterly; ‘nothing else? I’m to make him brave and wise and show him de treasure. Milksop!’ it said, so suddenly and