The Borrowers

  "'Stand by now,' Rich William was saying; there was a rising note of excitement in his voice, but he did not turn his head. 'Stand by. Ready now to slip the dogs.'

  "Mrs. Driver let go my brother's arm and moved toward the hole. 'Keep back,' said the rat-catcher, without turning. 'Give us room—' and Mrs. Driver backed nervously toward the table. She put a chair beside it and half raised one knee, but lowered it again when she caught Ernie Runacre's mocking glance. 'All right, ma,' he said, cocking one eyebrow, 'we'll give you a leg up when the time comes,' and Mrs. Driver threw him a furious look; she snatched up the three cups from the table and stumped away with them, angrily, into the scullery. 'Seemingless smutch of something-or-other.' my brother heard her mutter as she brushed past him. And at those words, suddenly, my brother came to life.

  "He threw a quick glance about the kitchen: the men were absorbed; all eyes were on the rat-catcher—except those of the village boy who was getting out his ferret. Stealthily my brother drew off his gloves and began to move backwards ... slowly ... slowly ... toward the green baize door; as he moved, gently stuffing his gloves into his pocket, he kept his eyes on the group around the hole. He paused a moment beside the rat-catcher's tools, and stretched out a wary, groping hand; his fingers closed at last on a wooden handle—smooth it was and worn with wear; he glanced down quickly to make sure—was as he hoped the pick-ax He leaned back a little and pushed—almost imperceptibly—against the door with his shoulders: it opened sweetly, in its silent way. Not one of the men had looked up. 'Steady now,' the rat-catcher was saying, stooping closely over the bellows, 'it takes a moment like to go right through ... there ain't much ventilation, not under a floor....'

  "My brother slid through the barely opened door and it sighed to behind him, closing out the noise. He took a few steps on tiptoe down the dark kitchen passage and then he ran.

  "There was the hall again, steeped in sunshine, with his bags beside the door. He bumped against the clock and it struck a note, a trembling note—urgent and deep. He raised the pick-ax to the height of his shoulder and aimed a sideways blow at the hole below the wainscot. The paper tore, a few crumbs of plaster fell out, and the pick-ax rebounded sharply, jarring his hands. There was indeed iron behind the cement—something immovable. Again he struck. And again and again. The wainscot above the hole became split and scratched, and the paper hung down in strips, but still the pick-ax bounced. It was no good; his hands, wet with sweat, were sliding and slipping on the wood. He paused for breath and, looking out, he saw the cab. He saw it on the road, beyond the hedge on the far side of the orchard; soon it would reach the russet apple tree beside the gate; soon it would turn into the drive. He glanced up at the clock. It was ticking steadily—the result, perhaps, of his knock. The sound gave him comfort and steadied his thumping heart; time, that's what he needed, a little more time. 'It takes a moment like,' the rat-catcher had said, 'to go right through ... there ain't much ventilation, not under a floor....'

  "'Ventilation'—that was the word, the saving word. Pick-ax in hand my brother ran out of the door. He stumbled once on the gravel path and nearly fell; the pickax handle came up and struck him a sharp blow on the temple. Already, when he reached it, a thin filament of smoke was eddying out of the grating and he thought, as he ran toward it, that there was a flicker of movement against the darkness between the bars. And that was where they would be, of course, to get the air. But he did not stop to make sure. Already he heard behind him the crunch of wheels on the gravel and the sound of the horse's hoofs. He was not, as I have told you, a very strong little boy, and he was only nine (not ten, as he had boasted to Arrietty) but, with two great blows on the brickwork, he dislodged one end of the grating. It fell down sideways, slightly on a slant, hanging—it seemed—by one nail. Then he clambered up the bank and threw the pick-ax with all his might into the long grass beyond the cherry tree. He remembered thinking as he stumbled back, sweaty and breathless, toward the cab, how that too—the loss of the pick-ax—would cause its own kind of trouble later."

  Chapter Twenty

  "BUT," exclaimed Kate, "didn't he see them come out?"

  "No. Mrs. Driver came along then, in a flurry of annoyance, because they were late for the train. She bustled him into the cab because she wanted to get back again, she said, as fast as she could to be 'in at the death.' Driver was like that."

  Kate was silent a moment, looking down. "So that is the end," she said at last.

  "Yes," said Mrs. May, "it could be. Or the beginning."

  "But"—Kate raised a worried face—"perhaps they didn't escape through the grating?"

  "Oh, they escaped all right," said Mrs. May lightly.

  "But how do you know?"

  "I just know," said Mrs. May.

  "But how did they get across those fields? With the cows and things? And the crows?"

  "They walked, I suppose. The Hendrearys did it. People can do anything when they have a mind to."

  "But poor Homily! She'd be so upset."

  "Yes, she was upset," said Mrs. May.

  "And how would they know the way?"

  "By the gas-pipe," said Mrs. May. "There's a kind of ridge all along, through the spinney and across the fields. You see, when men dig a trench and put a pipe in it all the earth they've dug out doesn't quite fit when they've put it back. The ground looks different."

  "But poor Homily—she didn't have her tea or her furniture or her carpets or anything. Do you suppose they took anything?"

  "Oh, people always grab something," said Mrs. May shortly, "the oddest things sometimes—if you've read about shipwrecks." She spoke hurriedly, as though she were tired of the subject. "Do be careful, child—not gray next to pink. You'll have to unpick it."

  "But," went on Kate in a despairing voice as she picked up the scissors, "Homily would hate to arrive there all poor and dessitute in front of Lupy."

  "Destitute," said Mrs. May patiently, "and Lupy wasn't there remember. Lupy never came back. And you know what Homily would do? Can't you see her—she'd be in her element. She would tie on her apron at once and cry '...these poor silly men,' and she'd bustle and fuss and cook and clean and make them wipe their feet when they came in."

  "On what?" asked Kate.

  "On a piece of moss, of course, laid down at the door."

  "Were they all boys?" Kate asked, after a moment.

  "Yes, Harpsichords and Clocks. And they'd spoil Arrietty dreadfully."

  "What did they eat? Did they eat caterpillars, do you think?"

  "Oh, goodness, child, of course they didn't. They had a wonderful life—all that Arrietty had ever dreamed of. They could live very well. Badgers' sets are almost like villages—full of passages and chambers and storehouses. They could gather hazel nuts and beechnuts and chestnuts; they could gather corn—which they could store and grind into flour, just as humans do—it was all there for them: they didn't even have to plant it. They had honey. They could make elderflower tea and lime tea. They had hips and haws and blackberries and sloes and wild strawberries. The boys could fish in the stream and a minnow to them would be as big as a mackerel is to you. They had birds' eggs—any amount of them—for custards and cakes and omelettes. You see, they would know where to look for things. And they had greens and salads, of course. Think of a salad made of those tender shoots of young hawthorn—bread and cheese 'we used to call it—with sorrel and dandelion and a sprinkling of thyme and wild garlic. Homily was a good cook remember. It wasn't for nothing that the Clocks had lived under the kitchen "

  "But the danger," cried Kate; "the weasels and the crows and the stoats and all those things?"

  "Yes," agreed Mrs. May, "of course there was danger. There's danger everywhere, but no more for them than for many human beings. At least, they didn't have wars. And what about the early settlers in America? And those people who farm in the middle of the big game country in Africa and on the edge of the jungles in India? They get to know the habits of the animals. Few animals kill for the sa
ke of killing. Even rabbits know when a fox isn't hunting; they will run quite near him when he's full fed and lazing in the sun. These were boys remember; they would learn to hunt for the pot and how to protect themselves. I don't suppose Arrietty and Homily would wander far afield."

  "Arrietty would," said Kate.

  "Yes," agreed Mrs. May, laughing, "I suppose Arrietty might."

  "So they'd have meat?" said Kate.

  "Yes, sometimes. But Borrowers are Borrowers; not killers. I think," said Mrs. May, "that if a stoat, say, killed a partridge they would borrow a leg!"

  "And if a fox killed a rabbit they'd use the fur?"

  "Yes, for rugs and things."

  "Supposing," said Kate, "when they had a little roast, they skinned haws and baked them, would they taste like browned potatoes?"

  "Perhaps," said Mrs. May.

  "But they couldn't cook in the badger's set. I suppose they cooked out of doors. How would they keep warm then in winter?"

  "Do you know what I think?" said Mrs. May; she laid down her work and leaned forward a little. "I think that they didn't live in the badger's set at all. I think they used it, with all its passages and storerooms, as a great honeycomb of an entrance hall. None but they would know the secret way through the tunnels which led at last to their home. Borrowers love passages and they love gates; and they love to live a long way from their own front doors."

  "Where would they live then?"

  "I was wondering," said Mrs. May, "about the gas-pipe—"

  "Oh yes," cried Kate, "I see what you mean!"

  "The soil's all soft and sandy up there. I think they'd go right through the badger's set and dig out a circular chamber, level with the gas-pipe. And off this chamber, all around it, there'd be little rooms, like cabins. And I think," said Mrs. May, "that they'd bore three little pinholes in the gas-pipe. One would be so tiny that you could hardly see it and that one would be always alight. The other two would have stoppers in them which, when they wanted to light the gas, they would pull out. They would light the bigger ones from the small burner. That's where they'd cook and that would give them light."

  "But would they be so clever?"

  "But they are clever," Mrs. May assured her, "very clever. Much too clever to live near a gas-pipe and not use it. They're Borrowers remember."

  "But they'd want a little airhole?"

  "Oh," said Mrs. May quickly, "they did have one."

  "How do you know?" asked Kate.

  "Because once when I was up there I smelled hot-pot."

  "Oh," cried Kate excitedly; she twisted round and knelt up on the hassock, "so you did go up there? So that's how you know! You saw them too!"

  "No, no," said Mrs. May, drawing back a little in her chair, "I never saw them. Never."

  "But you went up there? You know something! I can see you know!"

  "Yes, I went up there." Mrs. May stared back into Kate's eager face; hesitant, she seemed, almost a little guilty. "Well," she conceded at last, "I'll tell you. For what it's worth. When I went to stay in that house it was just before Aunt Sophy went into the nursing home. I knew the place was going to be sold, so I"—again Mrs. May hesitated, almost shyly—"well, I took all the furniture out of the doll's house and put it in a pillowcase and took it up there. I bought things too out of my pocket money—tea and coffee beans and salt and pepper and cloves and a great packet of lump sugar. And I took a whole lot of little pieces of silk which were over from making a patchwork quilt. And I took them some fish bones for needles. I took the tiny thimble I had got in a Christmas pudding and a whole collection of scraps and cracker things I'd had in a chocolate box—"

  "But you never saw them!"

  "No. I never saw them. I sat for hours against the bank below the hawthorn hedge. It was a lovely bank, twined with twisted hawthorn roots and riddled with sandy holes and there were wood-violets and primroses and early campion. From the top of the bank you could see for miles across the fields: you could see the woods and the valleys and the twisting lanes; you could see the chimneys of the house."

  "Perhaps it was the wrong place."

  "I don't think so. Sitting there in the grass, half dreaming and watching beetles and ants, I found an oak-apple; it was smooth and polished and dry and there was a hole bored in one side of it and a slice off the top—"

  "The teapot!" exclaimed Kate.

  "I think so. I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find the quill spout. I called then, down all the holes—as my brother had done. But no one answered. Next day, when I went up there, the pillowcase had gone."

  "And everything in it?"

  "Yes, everything. I searched the ground for yards around, in case there might be a scrap of silk or a coffee bean. But there was nothing. Of course, somebody passing might just have picked it up and carried it away. That was the day," said Mrs. May, smiling, "that I smelled hot-pot."

  "And which was the day," asked Kate, "that you found Arrietty's diary?"

  Mrs. May laid down her work. "Kate," she began in a startled voice, and then, uncertainly, she smiled, "what makes you say that?" Her cheeks had become quite pink.

  "I guessed," said Kate. "I knew there was something—something you wouldn't tell me. Like—like reading somebody else's diary."

  "It wasn't the diary," said Mrs. May hastily, but her cheeks had become even pinker. "It was the book called 'Memoranda,' the book with blank pages. That's where she'd written it. And it wasn't on that day I found it, but three weeks later—the day before I left."

  Kate sat silent, staring at Mrs. May. After a while she drew a long breath. "Then that proves it," she said finally, "underground chamber and all."

  "Not quite," said Mrs. May.

  "Why not?" asked Kate.

  "Arrietty used to make her 'e's' like little half-moons with a stroke in the middle—"

  "Well?" said Kate.

  Mrs. May laughed and took up her work again. "My brother did too," she said.