‘You don’t want to leave the Players; that is the real reason, isn’t it?’
Hugh turned bright pink under his tan. He would have liked to scuffle his feet, but the Players had long ago taught him not to do that.
‘They’re my friends,’ he said very firmly.
‘I see. You’re a loyal friend, Hugh.’
Hugh turned from pink to scarlet, but he didn’t say anything; and after a moment Mr Heritage laughed and got up, saying: ‘I shan’t take no for an answer this evening. I shall come back. By the way, how long shall you be playing in Sherborne?’
‘We are starting for Shaftesbury in the morning.’
‘So soon? Then I shall come back in the morning before you start out, just in case you have changed your mind. And now Martin and I will be on our way, and leave you to think it over.’
So they all went back to the inn. But there was no way out into the street excepting through the common room, and in the common room the Players had by this time gathered for their supper. There they were lounging at ease in the fire-glow with their pasties on their knees, and Argos sound asleep in their midst with his front to the leaping warmth, and several town tradesmen watching them with open mouths as though it was tremendously surprising to see Players eating like ordinary people.
They all looked up when Mr Heritage came in, and Mr Heritage turned aside to them in a friendly way; and they all swallowed their mouthfuls of pasty and got to their feet, and there were ‘Good evenings’ all round. Then of course the whole story came out. Hugh had known that it would, the moment he saw that the Players were there, and his heart sank into his broken shoes. He dodged in to Jonathan’s side, and stood there, utterly miserable, while Mr Heritage explained how Hugh’s father had been his servitor at Oxford, and how he wanted Hugh to come and live with him and go to Oxford as servitor to his son Martin.
When he had finished, everyone began to talk at once; everyone except Hugh and Jonathan, that is. And Master Pennifeather, who was the first to get over the gasping and exclaiming stage, swept Hugh the most prodigious bow, and said: ‘Did I not say you would make your fortune, if you joined our Company, my lord?’
Ben Bunsell turned to Mr Heritage and said, ‘We shall be main sorry to lose him, sir, but we’re all glad of his good fortune. And I’ll tell you this, master, you wouldn’t find a better lad to take into your house, not in all the South Country. All is not gold that glitters, I always say, and he certainly don’t glitter much – not at present, anyways – but he’s a good lad for all that.’
‘I am sure you are right,’ said Mr Heritage. ‘The only difficulty is – that he won’t come.’
Everybody stopped talking and simply stared at Mr Heritage, while Argos got up and smelled his shoes very carefully, to make sure that he was trustworthy, and then sat down and scratched behind his left ear. Usually when Argos did that people told him not to, but this time no one even noticed, and so he scratched on – and on – and on.
‘Won’t come?’ said Master Pennifeather at last. ‘Did you say “Won’t come”, sir?’
Everyone stopped staring at Mr Heritage and stared at Hugh instead, and Hugh stood with his feet planted a little apart, and his curly mouth tight shut, and stared back, as stubbornly as ever he knew how.
‘I have told him not to make his choice tonight,’ said Mr Heritage. ‘It’s difficult to decide important things in a hurry. I shall come back in the morning before you take the road.’ Then he turned to Hugh and brought a hand down on his shoulder, saying, ‘I hope you’ll change your mind, Hugh.’
And almost before Hugh knew what was happening, he had gone, and Martin with him.
Everyone went on staring at Hugh, and Nicky let out a shrill, derisive whistle, and said, ‘My eye! You don’t know when you’re in luck, you don’t!’
But Jonathan, who had not spoken a word all the time, said, ‘Don’t plague him, Nicky; he’s had enough,’ and gave Hugh his supper, which had been keeping warm for him before the fire.
And Master Pennifeather said, ‘Quite right, Johnnie. The lad’s old enough to know his own mind. Therefore let us leave the subject while we enjoy these noble viands.’
So they finished their supper, talking pleasantly about the weather and the prospects of the harvest, and how well they had done in Sherborne, and things like that.
But when supper was over, Jonathan said: ‘Wouldn’t you like to push on to bed, now, Dusty?’
The other Players glanced at each other, and Hugh knew quite well that they wanted him out of the way so that they could talk about what had happened, without him being there to hear what they said; at least, Jonathan wanted that. So he got up and faced them all.
‘I’ll go to bed, but I won’t go to Oxford, you know!’ he said, and he stalked out with his nose in the air, across the twilit courtyard to the stable where they all slept, and kicked off his shoes and burrowed into the straw beside Argos, and lay there watching the shadows creeping in from the corners.
Quite soon Jonathan came and lit the stable lantern hanging from its beam, and sat down cross-legged to mend a torn costume, just as he had done on the first night that Hugh had spent with the Players; only this time it was his own spangled tumbler’s tights, instead of the green dragon’s skin. Hugh lay and watched him, and watched the lantern, and watched the gay blue flowers of his periwinkle that looked almost purple in the lantern light. And it was all so like that first night, that it made him feel quite odd, as though everything that had happened since then had been a dream.
Jonathan did not say anything until he had threaded his needle and began to sew. Then he said, more seriously than Hugh had ever heard him speak before, ‘Dusty, we have been talking about what happened this evening, and I think – well, we all do, that you should go with Mr Heritage.’
But Hugh knew quite well that it was all Jonathan’s idea, and that was what made it hurt. He said very firmly, ‘But I don’t want to!’
But for once Jonathan did not seem to be listening. He just went straight on talking, very quietly, but just as firmly as Hugh, pointing out the advantages of an education, and things like that. And when Hugh demanded to know who would play the girls’ parts if he wasn’t there, he said, ‘I daresay we could find another boy, Dusty.’
At that a dreadful, aching misery swelled up suddenly in Hugh’s inside, and he rolled over on to his front and said in a small, husky, furious voice, ‘You want to get rid of me!’
Just for a moment nothing happened, and then, ‘Don’t you ever dare to say a thing like that again, Dusty,’ said Jonathan’s voice, with a queer, harsh sound in it.
And when he rolled over again, he saw that Jonathan had that tightened-up look that people have sometimes when they have a bad pain and are too proud to mention it.
Hugh sat up and looked at him forlornly. ‘Well, then, why are you trying to make me go? – Why, Jonathan?’
‘Because,’ said Jonathan, ‘you have been given a chance to go back to your own kind – to the sort of life and the sort of people you belong to; and people who sit down like cabbages and let their chances go by are generally sorry for it one day.’
‘But you are the people I belong to!’ protested Hugh; and when Jonathan did not answer at once, he said more loudly, ‘I do belong to you – don’t I, Jonathan?’
‘No,’ said Jonathan; and he began to stitch at the spangled tights again. ‘Not quite – never quite, Brother Dusty-Feet.’
‘But, Jonathan, I—’
‘No. Listen, Dusty. You were always supposed to be going to Oxford, you know. You were on your way there when you fell in with us, because you hoped to pick up a little learning in exchange for digging people’s gardens and running their errands; and now you’ve got a chance to go to Oxford properly, and have your full share in the New Learning, I think you ought to take it.’
‘But I shouldn’t ever see you again!’
Jonathan put in three careful stitches, then he said: ‘It wouldn’t be quite as bad as that. T
his isn’t the first time we’ve played in Sherborne, and I daresay it won’t be the last.’
‘You mean – you’ll come back?’
‘Yes, from time to time,’ said Jonathan, and looked up for an instant from his sewing. ‘Dusty, if you’ll go with Mr Heritage when he comes tomorrow, we will play in Sherborne next harvest time. Toby will agree to that, I know.’
‘You promise,’ said Hugh miserably.
‘Yes,’ said Jonathan.
Hugh thought and thought, staring first at his own feet, and then at Argos’s ears, and then at the bright needle flashing up and down in Jonathan’s long, brown fingers. He thought about Oxford, and about Master Thomas Bodley’s wonderful lectures, and the glories of the New Learning that he would be able to share, and Magdalen Tower standing like an archangel with folded wings at the threshold of the city. Then he thought about the others going on without him – Jonathan going on without him. Then he thought about Oxford again; and he looked up slowly, and said, ‘All right – I’ll go.’
And next instant, without any warning, a great aching lump rushed up into his throat, and he said, ‘Oh Jonathan!’ and forgot about being nearly twelve.
Jonathan dropped the tights, and put a long arm round him; and neither of them talked any more for a bit.
14
The Foot of the Rainbow
So the next morning, while the rest of the Company were making ready for the road, Hugh gathered his own few belongings into a separate bundle and put it down beside the stable door with the pot of periwinkle, and told Argos to guard them. Nicky had wanted him to wear the green doublet as a parting gift, but of course he wouldn’t, so he put on the old out-grown one. Then he went to say good-bye to Saffronilla.
Master Pennifeather had promised that they would come back to Sherborne next harvest, and Jonathan had made him feel much happier about leaving the Company; but now that the time for good-byes had really come, he was very miserable again. Saffronilla seemed to know that he was leaving them, and she dropped her heavy head on his shoulder and nuzzled at him in a bothered way, and her eyes were big and soft and troubled.
‘Good-bye, Saffronilla,’ he said. ‘Good-bye.’
And when at last he turned away, he found that Jonathan was standing close beside him, balancing in his hand the lovely little dagger he always wore.
It’s all I have to give you,’ said Jonathan, ‘but it’s a good dagger. Pay me a farthing for it.’ (For of course you must always pay something for a knife that is given you, or it will cut your friendship with the giver.) And he put it into Hugh’s hand.
Hugh stood quite still for a moment, looking from Jonathan to the dagger and back again. Then he turned very red, and said: ‘Oh Jonathan! Oh thank you—’ And he felt in the little pocket inside the breast of his doublet, and brought out the threefarthing bit which the old woman had given him on the very first morning of his adventures, and which he had treasured ever since.
‘Here’s my three-farthing bit,’ he said. ‘You have that for the dagger, Jonathan.’
So Jonathan put the tiny silver coin away inside the breast of his tattered jerkin, and Hugh stuck the lovely, keen dagger in his belt, and they stood and looked at each other.
‘Oh, Jonathan, you will come next harvest, won’t you?’ said Hugh.
And Jonathan said, ‘We’ll come.’ And then he put his hand on Hugh’s shoulder and said, ‘Don’t you ever be forgetting this year and more that you’ve spent with us, nor the things you’ve learned in it. All your life you’ll know things that respectable folk in houses can never know; and all your life you’ll be one of us, because you were given Seisin of the Road. So if you come to be Lord Mayor of London or Archbishop of Canterbury, you’ll still be able to claim brotherhood with every quack doctor and tumbler and Tom-o’-Bedlam who travels the roads, and it isn’t many Lord Mayors or Archbishops who can say that!’
‘I’ll remember,’ promised Hugh. ‘But perhaps – perhaps I shall come back to you all, one day, when I have got my learning.’
‘Perhaps you will, Dusty,’ said Jonathan. ‘But whether you do or not, we’ll be meeting again from time to time, you and I.’
And at that moment they heard Mr Heritage’s voice in the yard; so they went out to meet him. And as soon as he saw them, Mr Heritage said: ‘So you’re coming with me, Hugh.’
Hugh said, ‘Yes, sir,’ rather gruffly.
And then everybody was crowding round him, and Master Pennifeather clasped him to his chest (people did that sort of thing in those days). So did Jasper Nye and Ben Bunsell; and Nicky grabbed both his hands and pumped them up and down, saying: ‘Good-bye, old lad. Look out for us next harvest.’
But Jonathan only touched him on the shoulder, and said: ‘God speed you, Brother Dusty-Feet.’
Then Mr Heritage was shaking hands all round, while Hugh gathered up his little bundle and his pot of periwinkle.
‘Come along,’ said Mr Heritage. ‘I came on foot, so there are no horses to bother about. Give me the bundle, and you can keep the pot; that’s fair division of labour. Now, best foot forward.’
It was all over so quickly that Hugh really had no time to feel dreadful, and almost before he knew what was happening he was following Mr Heritage down the crooked street, with Argos padding beside him, and the soft wetness of summer rain blowing in their faces, for it was not a very nice morning.
Argos kept on looking back and whining in a troubled sort of way; and just once, Hugh looked back too. All the Players were gathered in the inn archway; Master Pennifeather with a crimson carnation behind his ear, and Jasper Nye with provincial roses on his worn-out shoes. Ben with the broken peacock’s feather dangling from his hat, and Nicky in the flame-green doublet – and Jonathan, who had not even got his little bright dagger now, but still looked like Rahere the King’s Jester. They waved to him, and he waved back; and then he walked straight on after Mr Heritage.
Mr Heritage began to talk at once, and went on talking so hard that Hugh was too busy listening and answering to have any time to think about having just said good-bye to his friends. He asked Hugh how old he was, and when Hugh said he would be twelve next week, he said he thought the best thing would be for Hugh to stay at home that autumn, and just get used to them all and grow a few months older, and go to the Vicar for tutoring every morning so as to catch up on his lessons, and then go to Oriel with Martin after the Christmas holidays. Then he began to tell Hugh about his father, all kinds of funny stories about the things they had done together, and how nobly Hugh’s father had stood by his friend and remembered to feed him every time he got locked up in Bocardo.
So they walked on, out of Sherborne and down the muddy Shaftesbury road, between hedges gay with honeysuckle and meadowsweet, and cornfields golden-ripe for the harvest. Mr Heritage, with his feathered bonnet on the back of his head and the little bundle in one hand, talking very fast indeed over his shoulder to Hugh. Hugh marching with his legs straight and his shoulders back as the Players had taught him, and the gay pot of periwinkle in the crook of his arm. Argos stalking like a stately black-and-amber shadow at Hugh’s heels.
After a bit the soft rain stopped, and stray blurs of golden sunshine began to spread through the grey. And at last Hugh saw the roofs of a village in the distance, a nice sheltering huddle of roofs, with a church tower rising in their midst. But before they reached the village the road turned a sudden corner, and there, just in front of them, was a house; not withdrawn into its own gardens, as big houses usually are, but sitting close beside the road in the friendliest way, as though it liked to see everything that went on.
‘Look,’ said Mr Heritage. ‘We’re home.’
And Hugh looked.
The house was golden, like the Abbey and the Sun Inn; even the wavering, dipping roofs that showed above medlar and mulberry trees were golden too. But Hugh did not notice that; he was too busy looking at The Window. The friendly house had poked out a long central wing right to the edge of the road, so as to be quite
sure that it really did see all that went on; and there, alone in the blank gable-wall, hanging out over the road like a lantern, like a jewel, like a flower, was a great oriel window. It seemed made to hold yellow candle-light after dark, as though it really was a lantern that the house had hung out to welcome home the people who belonged to it. There was no candle-light there now, of course, in the broad daylight; but instead there was the gold of late summer flowers massed in a great jar, yellow hollyhocks and marigolds and goodbye-summer.
‘Oh!’ said Hugh, stopping short in his tracks. ‘Oh, it’s lovely!’
‘My lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places,’ said Mr Heritage in a quiet, very contented voice. ‘You are going to be happy here with all of us, Hugh.’
They turned in between mossy stone gate posts beside the gable wall, and Hugh just had time to catch a glimpse of green turf and contented flowers that looked as though they were allowed to grow as they liked best, without being interfered with, before Mr Heritage lifted up his voice in a joyous shout.
‘Oie! I’ve brought him!’
Next instant the starry little girl came bundling out over the low sill of an open window, picked herself out of a flower-bed with a flurry of russet skirts, and flew across the lawn to meet them. And Martin appeared round the corner of the house, with an old lean greyhound and a fubsy roundabout spaniel puppy at his heels. But the starry little girl arrived first, with her skirts kilted high, and her hair bursting out in all directions from under her little lawn coif.
‘Good!’ said the little girl, dropping her father a respectful but hurried curtsey, and beaming joyously at Hugh.
Mr Heritage said, ‘This is Antigone – Tiggy for short,’ and the little girl beamed more joyously than ever.
Then Martin came up, and the greyhound and Argos began to talk to each other, blowing their cheeks in and out and giving little watchful flicks to their tails, while the spaniel pup rushed round and round them, squeaking excitedly. And somehow they all closed round Hugh and drew him with them into the big, shadowy hall of the friendly house, without his quite knowing how it happened. He felt breathless and bewildered; but then an inner door opened, and the lady he had seen before appeared.