The Little White Horse Read online

  But Maria could not stay long looking at the Bell because Peterkin Pepper was pulling at her hand, dragging her towards a niche in the wall where there was a statue of a Lady with her Baby in her arms. It was a small wooden statue, not much bigger than a doll, and so worn by age and the caressing hands of many children that the features of Mother and Child had nearly been worn away. But the sweep of the Lady’s cloak was lovely and graceful, so was the proud poise of her head, and the Baby had his hand upraised in blessing and a smile upon his face. The children had put two vases of flowers in the niche, one on each side of the statue.

  ‘We always give the Lady something pretty,’ said Prudence Honeybun. ‘Sometimes in the winter it’s only berries or birds’ feathers that we’ve picked up. But it’s always something. We love the Lady. We’d like to bring her seashells from the shore, but we’re afraid to go down to the shore because of Them.’

  Peterkin Pepper now spoke for the first time, giving tongue in a deep bass voice that was most startling, coming from one so young. ‘I wish I had a great big stick,’ he said. ‘I wish I had a great big knobbly stick to chase Them away!’

  ‘Have They been stealing your father’s chickens again, Peterkin?’ one of the children asked him.

  ‘Four chickens,’ said Peterkin briefly. ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘It’s the Men from the Dark Woods,’ Prudence told Maria in a whisper. ‘They live in the pine-wood, you know, and they are very wicked. They won’t let people go to Merryweather Bay, though it isn’t really their bay. And they set cruel traps for the wild animals, and they steal our chickens and ducks and geese. And they steal the honey from the hives, too, and fruit from the orchards. We are happy in Silverydew, but we can’t be perfectly happy because of Them. But no one knows how to stop them from being wicked.’

  A little shiver went down Maria’s spine. So those wicked men lived in the pine-wood, did they? That pine-wood that pressed up so close to the manor-house walls. No wonder she was afraid of it. She would have liked to ask Prudence some questions, but the other children were calling out to her that she must come and see the Merryweather Chantry, and the knight, and the two animals.

  ‘Robin’s in the chantry,’ said Old Parson. ‘Let Robin show her the chantry. It is his right. The rest of you will stay outside.’

  So Robin was here! Maria abruptly forgot her fears for joy that Robin was here too, and in the Merryweather Chantry. And she was delighted, too, to find Old Parson and the children talking about Robin as though he were a flesh-and-blood boy. She had always known that he was, even though in London no one but herself had seemed able to see him. But here it seemed that other people saw him too. The children and Old Parson accompanied her to the two worn steps that led up to the chantry, and there they stopped and she went inside alone.

  It was a little low stone chamber, just like a cave, and it was almost entirely filled up by a big stone tomb. Upon the top of the tomb lay a life-size effigy of a knight in full armour, with his helmet on his head, the visor raised to show his grim unsmiling face, and his mailed hands crossed upon his breast. His great cross-handled sword was by his side, and it was not carved out of stone like the rest of the effigy — it was a real sword, bent and rusty with its great age, but real. But even more exciting to Maria than the sight of that great sword was the fact that there were two animals carved at the top and bottom of the tomb. The knight’s head was pillowed upon the recumbent figure of a little horse, and his feet were propped against a creature the living image of Wrolf. After that, Maria was not surprised to find the Merryweather motto carved in Latin round the tomb. She was just spelling out the faint almost obliterated lettering when Robin popped up from behind the tomb, brandishing a scrubbing-brush. He grinned at her, and she grinned at him, and it seemed to Maria that suddenly the sun came out.

  ‘Whatever are you doing with that scrubbing-brush?’ she asked him.

  ‘Scrubbing Sir Wrolf,’ said Robin. ‘I scrub him most mornings. And the animals too, and the floor, and as much of the rest of it as I can reach. Looks nice and clean, don’t you think?’

  It looked beautifully clean, and the little bunches of flowers that were placed here and there about the tomb, one between Sir Wrolf’s stone fingers, one stuck jauntily behind the ears of the little horse, had a familiar look.

  ‘Is it you, Robin, who puts my clothes ready for me each morning with a bunch of flowers on top of them?’ she asked.

  ‘It is I who pick the flowers,’ said Robin.

  ‘But who puts my clothes ready for me? And who put those lovely things in Miss Heliotrope’s drawer? And who did my prayer-book and riding-habit belong to?’ demanded Maria.

  Robin just smiled.

  ‘There must be some other small person about the place,’ said Maria. ‘For only a very small person could get through my door.’

  But Robin only grinned, and fell upon Sir Wrolf’s grim face with the scrubbing-brush. He had a pail of water behind the tomb, Maria discovered, and a piece of soap the size of a mangel-wurzel.

  ‘No wonder he looks as he does,’ said Maria, as Robin plied the scrubbing-brush with more zeal than tenderness. ‘If you were more gentle with him, perhaps he’d smile.’

  ‘They say in the village that on the day They can be persuaded not to be wicked any more Sir Wrolf will smile,’ said Robin. ‘He’s the founder of the Merryweather family, you know. The one who was armour-bearer to King Edward I. It was his fault, originally, that They started to behave so badly. He must be awfully bothered about it. No wonder his soul can’t get to Paradise.’

  ‘Isn’t the poor man in Paradise?’ asked Maria pitifully.

  ‘They say in the village,’ said Robin, ‘that he can’t get nearer to Paradise than Paradise Hill because of making Them so wicked. They say he rides round and round Paradise Hill sighing and weeping because of what he did. But they say that he is sorry now, and that he would get into the real Paradise if only he could find a way of stopping Them being such a nuisance in the valley.’

  Maria regarded her ancestor with pity and concern. Though riding was lovely fun and Paradise Hill a lovely place, she thought that after riding round and round it for so many centuries Sir Wrolf must be heartily tired both of the saddle and of the hill.

  ‘I suppose if They could be persuaded to behave nicely and he smiled, then it would be a sign to us that he had got into Paradise?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Robin.

  ‘But, Robin, who are They and what did Sir Wrolf do?’

  ‘Old Parson tells the story best,’ said Robin. ‘And listen! The children are singing.’

  He put his pail and brush neatly away in the corner, and together they went back to the chancel steps, where Old Parson was standing, his fiddle tucked under his chin, with the children all sitting on the steps round him, singing the Bell Song to his accompaniment. Robin and Maria sat down with the other children, and in a moment Maria had picked up the words and the tune and was singing too. The words were those she had just failed to catch that first Sunday.

  BELL SONG

  High in the tall church tower,

  Signed with the mystic sign,

  Theirs since the days of chrism,

  The oil and salt and wine,

  The great bells wait in silence

  Through the long death of night,

  For resurrection triumph

  And resurrection light.

  When dawn comes out of darkness,

  Victory out of pain,

  Then music shakes the belfry

  And spring is born again.

  Chorus

  Ring again, sweet Marie,

  Ring again, Gabriel,

  Ring once more, Douce and John,

  Cry aloud, tenor bell.

  Grey old heads, lifted high,

  Peal your old joyful cry

  Of life on earth. Life on earth.

  Life.

  When man and maid are wedded,

  With laughter and with tears,

 
When babes to God are given

  For all their coming years,

  When oats and corn have ripened

  Through blue and golden days,

  When harvest home is gathered

  With gladness and with praise;

  Then grateful hearts are lifted

  Up to God’s throne above,

  Then music shakes the belfry

  And joy is born of love.

  Chorus

  Ring again, sweet Marie,

  Ring again, Gabriel,

  Ring once more, Douce and John,

  Cry aloud, tenor bell.

  Grey old heads, lifted high,

  Peal your old joyful cry

  Of love on earth. Love on earth.

  Love.

  Earth in a snowy mantle

  Beneath the Christmas star,

  The shepherds on the hillside,

  The wise men from afar,

  Ox and ass in the stable,

  The children about the Tree,

  The father and the mother,

  Neighbours, and you and me;

  All of us singing praises,

  Loving the new-born King,

  While music shakes the belfry,

  And makes the welkin ring.

  Chorus

  Ring again, sweet Marie,

  Ring again, Gabriel,

  Ring once more, Douce and John,

  Cry aloud, tenor bell.

  Grey old heads, lifted high,

  Peal your old joyful cry

  Of peace on earth. Peace on earth.

  Peace.

  When they had finished singing, Robin said: ‘Please, Sir, will you tell Maria the story of Sir Wrolf Merryweather and the Men from the Dark Woods?’

  Old Parson turned his bright penetrating eyes upon Maria. ‘Are you quite sure that you want to hear it?’ he asked. ‘Sometimes, Maria, a story that one hears starts one off doing things that one would not have had to do if one had not heard it. Sir Benjamin, I notice, has not told you the story. Perhaps he feared to lay upon you a woman’s burden, while you are still a child.’

  The last sentence settled it for Maria. In her opinion no girl in her teens is a child. ‘Please tell it’ she said a little haughtily.

  All the children sighed and stirred, rustling like a flock of birds. Then they were quite still, and in the stillness Old Parson laid aside his fiddle and told the story.

  3

  ‘Centuries ago,’ said Old Parson, ‘a piece of land in this lovely valley was given to Sir Wrolf Merryweather as a reward for courageous deeds well done, and he built the manor-house where Sir Benjamin lives now, and came to live there with his men-at-arms, his cooks and scullions, his jester, and his huntsmen, his hawks and hounds and horses; and he lived there hunting and hawking, eating and drinking and making merry to his heart’s content. For he was a jovial man, a great ruddy Viking of a man, with a lion’s heart of courage, a laugh like a lion’s roar, and the appetite of a lion for his meals.

  ‘But though he possessed courage and joviality, and a proper appreciation of good food, he was by no means an entirely virtuous man, for he was possessed of a pride and covetousness that made him something of a trial to the neighbourhood. If anything took his fancy then he must have that thing, and such was his opinion of himself that he believed everything he coveted to be his by right.

  ‘At first his manor did not include the whole of this valley, but only the tract of land now occupied by Moonacre Park and the village of Silverydew, with the fields and woods immediately surounding it. The monastery upon the summit of Paradise Hill had been there since Norman times, and the monks owned Paradise Hill. They grew their corn upon its lower slopes and pastured their sheep upon the sweet turf of the high ground, and made a good deal of money out of selling the wool. Those holy men were a blessing to the whole valley, for they had built this church, and one of their number served it, they taught the children and tended the sick, and saved many a soul by prayer and example. People liked to look up and see the monastery towering against the sky, where now you see a group of trees growing about the holy well that the monks once used, and they liked to hear the Bell ringing out up there.

  ‘But Sir Wrolf wanted Paradise Hill for himself, for the pasture-land was the best in the valley, and he wanted to keep his sheep there. It seemed to Sir Wrolf ridiculous that these men of God, who should have been living in holy poverty, should possess such worldly blessings as pasture-land and sheep. He thought it neither suitable nor right. And he said as much to the King, when His Majesty visited him at his newly completed manor-house. And the King, whose life Sir Wrolf had saved no less than three times, agreed with him, and Paradise Hill was taken away from the monks, and they were driven out of the valley, and Sir Wrolf kept his sheep on the hill and turned the monastery into a hunting lodge.’

  Old Parson and the children who had heard this tale many times before, sighed and shook their heads sadly over the dreadful behaviour of Sir Wrolf, but did not upset themselves about it too much. But Maria sat frozen with horror. For Sir Wrolf was her own relation, and he was really nothing better than a common thief.

  ‘The possession of Paradise Hill did Sir Wrolf little good,’ went on Old Parson. ‘He was sleeping at the lodge one night when a violent thunderstorm broke, and lightning struck the building and killed some of the sheep. It nearly struck Sir Wrolf, too, and gave him a bad fright. He never went there again, for he believed that the monks had sent the storm to punish him for turning them out, and gradually the monastery fell into ruins, and now there’s nothing left of it but a few fallen stones and the well that for centuries has been regarded as a holy well, and where the country people still go to say their prayers.

  ‘But his narrow escape in the thunderstorm did not cure Sir Wrolf of thinking that what he wanted he must have. As you know, this lovely valley is ringed all round by a circle of hills that protect it from the outside world, and it seemed to Sir Wrolf only right and sensible that he should have the whole of the valley, with the circle of hills as the boundary of his property. He’d got Paradise Hill, but there remained the pine-woods behind his manor-house that ran right down to the sea, to what is now called Merryweather Bay, which were the property of Sir William Cocq de Noir, called Black William because of the black cockerel that was his family crest, and because of his flashing dark eyes, black hair and beard, and sallow French skin.

  ‘And also because of his wicked heart. Coeur de Noir, men sometimes called him, instead of Cocq de Noir. For he was a bad man, was Black William, cruel to wild creatures, domineering with his servants, morose and ungenerous. Sir Wrolf, with all his faults, was generous as the sun itself, but Black William, like night, kept all he had close in his own darkness, so that no one might share it with him.

  ‘The first Cocq de Noir had come-to England with William the Conqueror, and been given his land by no less a person than the Conqueror himself, and the family had therefore inhabited their Norman castle in the pine-woods for much longer than Sir Wrolf had inhabited his manor-house.

  ‘But that did not weigh with Sir Wrolf at all. He wanted to hunt the wild boar in the pine-woods, and he wanted the timber, and he wanted to keep the fishing in the bay entirely to himself. He offered to buy his land from Black William, but Black William refused. Then he appealed once more to the King, but the King this time sided with Black William. Then he threatened Black William, insulted him at every opportunity, tried to set the countryside against him, did everything he could think of to make life in his Norman castle unpleasant for him; but Black William was a man of spirit and returned threat for threat and insult for insult, until at last the whole valley was seething with discord, the followers of the two knights championing the cause of their masters and fighting each other whenever they met. The men of those days were savage fellows, and fighting was the breath of life to them. And the more these men fought the more savage they became, until at last this lovely valley was little better than a battlefield, with the turf of the green meadows
stained red with blood, the harvest fields neglected, and gardens choked with weeds.

  ‘But though Sir Wrolf enjoyed the fighting it brought him no nearer to his heart’s desire, the possession of Black William’s land. Violence being useless, he decided to try guile. Black William was a man of some fifty years, a widower, and he had only one child, a young and beautiful daughter who was his heiress. Sir Wrolf, although at that time he was about forty years old, was also unmarried, owing to the very poor opinion he had of the female sex. He was not a lady’s man, and he had always vowed that he would live and die unmarried. But it now occurred to him that if he were to marry Black William’s daughter, upon Black William’s death, he would become possessed of the pine-wood. Though Black William was not an old man, he was in poor health, while Sir Wrolf had never ailed in his life.

  ‘So Sir Wrolf did violence to his own nature and became, not all at once, for that would have aroused suspicion, but gradually, a changed character. An astonishing gentleness became apparent in him. He announced that he had seen the error of his ways. He tidied up the church, which had been grievously neglected since the departure of the monks, built the Parsonage where now I live, and installed a priest there to say mass and care for the neglected souls of the villagers of Silverydew. He even went to church himself and said amen so loudly that the rafters sang. He attended to his neglected fields, weeded his neglected gardens, and punished severely any of his followers who were guilty of violent behaviour towards the one-time enemy.

  ‘And finally, after a decent interval had elapsed, one autumn day when the leaves were falling he rode alone to the castle in the pine-woods and apologized to Black William; and Black William, heartily tired of the last two years of warfare, accepted his apology, and peace descended once more upon the beautiful valley. And then the following Christmas Sir Wrolf made a great feast and invited Black William and his daughter to it, and treated her like the queen of all the earth. And in the spring he subjected her to a swift passionate wooing, and as spring passed into summer he captured her heart and on midsummer day they were married.