The Runaways

  With cheering people lining the way they drove down the hill past the Vicarage and then over the bridge and up the hill beyond. The people did not follow up the hill, for they thought that Lady Alicia would want to be alone with her son and her faithful servants, when, after so many years, she saw the moors again. So the strange old carriage rolled away unattended to where the larks were singing in a cloudless blue sky, and the wind was warm and honey-scented and the bees were humming in the gorse. They were gone for quite a long time and when they came back they looked happier than ever.

  The people did not cheer this time, for too much cheering can be trying for the people who are cheered, but when they heard the carriage wheels they came to the doors and waved and smiled. And Tom Biddle stood at his door and waved and smiled, and Emma Cobley stood at her door and curtsied and smiled, with Frederick beside her, and as the carriage passed the shop Lady Alicia turned and smiled at Emma and because she was so happy, and wanted everyone else to be happy, she forgave Emma all her wickedness from the bottom of her heart. Yet as she drove back through the shrubbery to the Manor she was weeping a little, because in the last few days all her old love for her husband had come back again and she was very sorry indeed that he had lost himself.

  The only people who were not at their doors to smile at Lady Alicia were Eliza and William Lawson. They were not there because they had gone away. William was not a Devonian, he had never been happy at High Barton; he thought it rained a lot in the west country and he thought they would be happier somewhere else. So they went and they were not missed, and the village settled down to enjoy the finest summer anyone could remember, with no more rain than was necessary for the gardens and the crops.

  But Emma and Tom did not go away and they became quite nice old people. Their change of heart was astonishing at their age and the villagers were at a loss to explain it. Of course they did not know what a hard fight the goodwill of the children and Uncle Ambrose and Ezra had put up against the ill will that had opposed them, and they did not know about Ezra’s good spells or the labour of the bees. Least of all did they know how Lady Alicia had forgiven Emma from the bottom of her heart.

  It was a wonderful summer, with one happy thing after the other falling into place like pearls threaded on a string. The children worked hard at their lessons, spurred on with the promise of a month’s whole holiday in September if they deserved it, but they had fun too. They spent a lot of time with Lady Alicia and her son. Nan and Betsy helped Lady Alicia sweep away cobwebs and make new cushions and curtains for the Manor house, and Robert and Timothy helped Francis weed the garden, and day by day, as house and garden came slowly back to their old order and beauty, Lady Alicia and her son grew younger and younger and happier and happier. And so did Moses and Abednego.

  But Francis still kept his home in the Lion Rock. He had it as his workshop and did carpentry there and painted beautiful pictures on canvas with oil-paints. He had always wanted to do this, but had never had enough money to buy the paints. Of course he was not really daft, and he never had been, he had only been called daft by the country people, because in his efforts to speak he had made queer noises. He was really a very clever man as well as a very good and charming one. All the children loved him, but especially Nan. She often went with him to his workshop and read aloud to him while he painted. Neither of them had ever been so happy as they were when they read and painted together. At these times Nan felt she would have nothing left to wish for if only her father were here. And Francis felt very much the same. If only, he thought, the father whom he remembered so vividly had not been so foolish as to lose himself. If only he were here too, how perfect life would be.

  Robert also was happy and content because he had at last saved up enough money to buy a proper bridle for Rob-Roy and gallops on the moor became more wonderful than ever. Sometimes Moses and Abednego came too, riding the two dapple-grey horses. They made an astonishing trio of riders, and strangers driving over the moor and seeing them could hardly believe their eyes. Sometimes they stopped their carriages and gazed with their mouths open, and then Robert, Moses, and Abednego would wave their hands in greeting and shake their reins and canter away laughing.

  It was on a day in August, when the moor was purple with heather and the bracken was just beginning to turn gold, that a cab with two men inside and luggage on the roof came bowling across the moor and came in sight of the three riders. One of the two men inside called out to the driver and the cab stopped. The driver gazed in stupefaction, but the two men jumped out of the cab and came striding towards the riders. They were tall men, much of a height, their faces tanned golden brown, and one of them had a fine lion-like head and grey hair and a grey beard.

  ‘Moses!’ cried out a voice. ‘Abednego!’

  And the other man, who was fair with a fair moustache, called out, ‘Robert!’

  Then followed one of those times that are afterwards remembered as though they had happened in a dream, or in heaven, or on another star, because they seem too wonderful to belong to earth. Moses, Abednego, and Robert fell off their mounts and ran to meet the two men, who seemed as they strode over the heather to be gods, not men, so strong and tall were they, so golden, gay, laughing, and splendid in the sun. But Moses, Abednego, and Robert, though their hearts were nearly bursting with joy, could not laugh. Moses, as he ran across the heather and fell on his knees before the lion-man, was sobbing, and Robert, springing into his father’s arms, was crying too. Abednego, having leapt to the lion-man’s shoulder, wiped his eyes on Gertrude. It was as though for the first time in their lives they saw the sun burst out from behind a cloud. The two horses and Rob-Roy watched for a few minutes and then, coming slowly nearer, whinnied and gently thrust their muzzles against the necks and chests of the men and boy and monkey. They did not altogether understand what was happening, but they knew it was an occasion that called for the unobtrusive steadying influence of their marvellous equine sympathy. The horse who was drawing the cab whinnied too and the driver thrust his bowler hat to the back of his head and stared and stared.

  A little later the sound of wheels once more brought the village to its doors to watch another carriage procession, as the three riders triumphantly led the cab over the bridge and up the hill to the Vicarage. The villagers were puzzled, but they laughed and waved because the faces of Moses, Abednego, and Robert told them that this was a matter for joy. At the Vicarage door Robert, Rob-Roy, and some of the luggage and one of the two god-like men were separated from the main cavalcade, and then as the cab went on up the hill to the green, with Moses riding in front and Abednego behind, and the remaining god-like man leaning forward and waving to them from inside the cab, the emotion in his face and his likeness to his son told them who he was. When they saw the cab drive in through the Manor house gates they began to cheer wildly. The last squire was not dead after all. The squire was home.

  He was the man who had lost his memory, whom the children’s father, Colonel Linnet, had met in Egypt, and his memory had returned to him when Ezra had taken the pins out of the head and feet of the figure of the tall man. He was delighted to be home and Lady Alicia and Francis were delighted to have him home. It was, of course, a great shock to Lady Alicia to have her lost husband restored to her so suddenly, and so soon after the restoration of her son, but she had longed for him and she was a strong elderly lady, and the air of the high moors is invigorating, and so she not only survived but became younger and happier than ever.

  They did the same at the Vicarage, for Colonel Linnet had applied for special leave to bring Hugo Valerian back to his home, and in the very peculiar and special circumstances it had been granted him and he could stay for three weeks. The first fortnight of the three weeks was wonderful, but during the last week a certain gloom made itself felt, for even though they had Uncle Ambrose and Ezra, the children felt they could not bear the coming parting. And their father felt the same. And so did Uncle Ambrose and Ezra and all the animals. The gloom grew steadily wo
rse until suddenly one day at lunch Colonel Linnet said to Uncle Ambrose, ‘I wish to heaven I could leave the army, live here with you and the children and take up farming.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Uncle Ambrose.

  ‘These same children,’ said Colonel Linnet, indicating his offspring. ‘The boys must eventually go to boarding school. Possibly Oxford or Cambridge later.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Uncle Ambrose sternly. ‘Why do you suppose I am wasting valuable time and strength hammering knowledge into their wooden heads?’

  ‘I doubt if I could afford it on what I’d make farming,’ said Colonel Linnet gloomily.

  ‘I share your doubt,’ said Uncle Ambrose. ‘But farm by all means if you wish. Any one of the local farmers will be delighted to instruct you and your total lack of talent will give great pleasure. In time you may develop some slight efficiency in the art and be able to contribute towards the education of these young blockheads. But even if you do not, I am happy to inform you that my own financial means will be equal to the strain. In my youth I had me good fortune to escape matrimony. Having never been under any obligation to waste good money on feather bonnets, woolly boots, rattles, and so forth, I have put by a considerable sum. Before making the acquaintance of these children, I had thought to leave it to my old college upon my decease, but have lately changed my mind. These children are the most troublesome I have ever encountered and you yourself as stubborn, unintelligent, and reactionary as any soldier I have ever had the misfortune to meet, but I am nevertheless attached to the lot of you. I should welcome a joint home and a joint bank balance. And so, I know, would Ezra.’

  Ezra, clearing away the beef and kidney pudding and bringing in the apple dumplings, was grinning from ear to ear, Hector was flapping his wings and hooting, Absolom was barking and the children yelling with joy. Their father tried to put before his brother the disadvantages of the scheme from Uncle Ambrose’s point of view, before it was too late, but was shouted down. By the time the apple dumplings had imposed their own silence it was too late. The thing was as solidly real as the dumplings themselves.

  ‘A very excellent dinner, Ezra,’ said Uncle Ambrose, laying down his spoon. ‘Only requiring for its ultimate perfection that we partake of some soothing digestive mixture in order that future memory, as well as past participation, may be equally happy. A thimbleful of ginger wine all round, Ezra. You will join with us, I beg, while we drink the toast of happy ever after!’

  epilogue

  It merely remains to say that they all worked hard to make that toast come true and it did come true. High Barton became the happiest village in the whole of Devonshire, with no more ill-wishing, poaching, pin-sticking, quarrelling, or anything at all that anyone could take exception to. Emma Cobley and Frederick remained at the village shop and appeared so trustworthy that even Ezra took to buying Windsor soap there, but not anything to eat because he was never quite sure about the inwardness of Emma’s and Frederick’s virtue. He thought it might be merely skin-deep, all right for soap, but not to be relied upon for bacon. But skin-deep or not, it lasted, and when Frederick died at the age of twenty, and eventually Emma herself at the age of a hundred and two, they were much mourned. And so was Tom Biddle, who only lasted till ninety-eight, but then he, it was thought, had been somewhat bewitched by Emma and so when she behaved well so did he. A Devon-born man took over the inn, the Falcon Arms, and it became a gay and happy place. Ezra, coming to the conclusion that he could set a good example to the children just as well by moderation as by total abstinence, took to going there instead of to the Wheatsheaf and every Saturday night he banged his beer mug on the counter and sang his song. Everyone else joined in and a loud and cheerful noise rolled out through the open window of the inn and across the green, under the crescent of spring or the harvest moon, or the frosty stars of Christmas, and everyone abed in the village would wake up and smile. Sometimes the two Valerians, father and son, joined the merry-making at the inn and when the singing was over they would all listen spellbound to the wonderful tales of his adventures that the squire had to tell.

  Hugo Valerian still went abroad sometimes, because he loved travelling, but he did not go alone, he took his wife and son with him because the love between the three of them was now so great that they could not bear to be parted. Moses and Abednego had to go too, of course, because they could not bear to be left behind. And as the years went on and she grew older, they would take Nan with them to be a companion to Lady Alicia when the men and the monkey wanted to go adventuring on their own. And sometimes, because they were the two youngest, Francis Valerian and Nan would go adventuring alone and he taught her to paint nearly as well as he did himself. He loved her very much, so much that on her eighteenth birthday, midsummer day, he married her in High Barton church. Uncle Ambrose married them, blowing his nose a good deal while he did it, and the bells pealed and all the animals were allowed to come into church. Hector and the bees came too. It was a remarkable wedding and made quite a stir in the countryside. Thereafter Nan lived at the Manor, but as a day never passed without all the people at the Vicarage visiting the Manor, or all the people at the Manor visiting the Vicarage, there was no real parting. Nor was there when Betsy grew up and married the Vicar of Pizzleton, because Robert gave her Rob-Roy, who never grew old, as a wedding present, and Uncle Ambrose gave her the governess-cart and she was always driving over with the little cart stuffed full of her round fat babies. She had six, three boys and three girls, and she was a very bustling mother. Nan only had two children, beautiful lion-hearted Valerian boys, but as she was less busy by nature than Betsy, she required less outlet for her bustle.

  Colonel Linnet was a very bad farmer, but a very happy man and everyone loved having him farming badly at High Barton. Uncle Ambrose was able to finish his book once Robert and Timothy had been packed off to boarding school. He was pleased to finish it, heaved sighs of relief and immediately started another. Robert did quite well at school because, though he wasn’t clever, Uncle Ambrose had taught him to work hard, and then, to his father’s delight and Uncle Ambrose’s great annoyance, he went into the army. He was a good soldier and managed both to win medals and honour and to stay alive at the same time, and once he had got over his annoyance, Uncle Ambrose was very proud of him, and of the beautiful wife, four children, and six polo ponies whom he collected in due course.

  But it was Timothy who was his uncle’s chief delight, for both at school and at Oxford he won scholarships and prizes, and was such a brilliant scholar that as the years went on his name was spoken with bated breath wherever learned men were gathered together. He did not get married, but became a Fellow of his college and lived in luxurious rooms looking out on green lawns, and wrote books and poems and was very happy. He was also very nice. His head did not swell at all and he was devoted to his relatives, but especially perhaps to Uncle Ambrose, and he visited High Barton every vacation without fail. Uncle Ambrose also visited him, and the greatest pride and joy of his old age was to walk down the Oxford High Street arm-in-arm with his brilliant nephew, with Hector, who appeared to be gifted with eternal life, sitting proud and erect upon his shoulder.

  biographical note

  Elizabeth Goudge was born in 1900 in Somerset. She had a long and distinguished literary career writing novels for adults and children, which were bestsellers throughout the world. She was awarded the Carnegie Medal in 1946 for The Little White Horse, perhaps her best-known work..

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