The Elfin Ship Read online

  ‘Oh?’ said Jonathan, rather disappointed. He much preferred larks to serious business.

  ‘No, sir! I’ve come about the traders.’

  ‘Which traders are these now?’ asked Jonathan, not really concerned yet but being polite out of regard for the mayor, who seemed about to pop from the importance of his mission.

  Old Bastable looked at Jonathan bug-eyed. ‘Why which traders do ye suppose, Master Cheeser? Do we have such a crowd of ’em that we can pick and choose which ones we’d wade knee-deep through a hurricane to chat about?’

  Jonathan had to admit that the mayor was right although he could see no reason to bluster about it. ‘That would be the traders of Willowood then,’ he said, putting on a serious look ‘Have they been caught dipping into the cargo again? Trading to the linkmen for brandy and hen’s teeth?’

  ‘Worse than that,’ replied old Bastable, leaning forward in his chair and squinting like a schoolteacher. ‘They’ve absconded – disappeared!’

  ‘They’ve what!’ cried Jonathan, interested finally in the mayor’s story. ‘How?’

  ‘Why walked away, I suppose. Or, more likely, sailed away downriver. Willowood is deserted. No one’s there.’

  In truth, Jonathan was only a week or so away from his own annual journey from Hightower to the trading station at Willowood Village where the traders would give him a note for the Christmas cheese, transport it downriver to the edge of the sea, and return with honeycakes. He’d accomplish all of that, that is, if there were traders at Willowood. But why, one might ask, would anyone suppose otherwise? And it was just such a question which Jonathan posed to Gilroy Bastable.

  ‘Because word’s come up from Hightower,’ said Bastable. ‘They found the Willowood Station looted and smacked up. Deserted, it is, and the wharf is gone. Or at least half of it is – all off down the river. Whole place gone to smash. Now, Wurzle says it’s pirates and Beezle says it’s flood, and the bunch from Hightower say the traders went downriver to the sea just out of lunacy.’

  ‘Like lemmings,’ offered Jonathan.

  ‘Just so,’ said Bastable. ‘And me, well I don’t pretend to know, but they’ve gone, and that’s sure.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this,’ Jonathan said ominously. ‘Something’s afoot. I saw an airship today.’

  ‘In a storm like this? Very odd, an airship in a storm like this.’

  ‘Just what I said myself. And then here you come, out in the rainy night like a duck.’

  Bastable was at a loss for words. He could see that, as he’d hoped, his news had startled Jonathan, but he wasn’t sure of all this duck business. ‘See here,’ he began in a mildly questioning tone. ‘I’m not sure that ducks – ’

  But Jonathan cut him off short, although under normal circumstances he wouldn’t consider doing so. ‘My cheeses!’ he cried, and Ahab, noting the perilous tone in his master’s voice was up and racing toward the kitchen at a gallop, toppling a chair, setting the rest of the ball of cheese into flight, and careening off a stout wooden breadcupboard before becoming sensible again. He wandered back across the wooden floorboards of the kitchen and peered around the sideboard at the two men who sat astounded, gaping at him.

  ‘The news has rather upset your hound, Jonathan,’ said Gilroy Bastable, retrieving the cheese and gouging out a hunk the size of his nose. ‘And well it should. Do you know, Jonathan, what the word about town is?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ said the Cheeser.

  ‘The cry goes round, my man, that you’re a stout enough lad to sail downriver yourself, all the way to Seaside with your cheeses and back again with cakes and elfin gifts.’

  ‘Stout lad, is it!’ shouted Jonathan, astounded at the suggestion and calculating the time it would take to make such a journey – weeks, surely. ‘It’s a fool’s idea; that’s what it is.’

  ‘But the people will have no cakes!’ protested Gilroy Bastable.

  ‘Then let them eat bread,’ Jonathan almost replied before wisely reconsidering. It would be a sad holiday without honeycakes, not to mention elfin gifts for the children. But then again, the very idea of sailing down the Oriel through the dark hemlock forests to the sea frightened him.

  Bastable could see that Jonathan was in a turmoil and knew that turmoils are bad things to go butting into, so he let the matter stand. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m not one to make such statements, for a man has to do what he has to do. I think you’ll agree to that.’

  Jonathan gurgled a reply and poked his forefinger into the cheese, stabbing little craters into its surface until it sat on its plate like a moon plucked from a miniature sky – half a moon, that is to say, for Gilroy Bastable had eaten the other half and, until he saw that Jonathan had fingered it so completely, he was prepared to shove down the remaining half.

  ‘I say,’ said Gilroy, ‘you’ve gone and ruined the cheese.’

  ‘What? Me?’ Jonathan said, lost in thought. ‘Oh, yes. I suppose I have. Poked it full of holes, haven’t I?’ He picked up the punctured lump of yellow, tore off a sizable hunk and rolled it toward Ahab who, it seemed, could smell it approaching even though he was again deeply lost in sleep, dreaming this time about finding a great treasure made of beef bones and ice cream, the two great passions of a dog’s life. Somehow the ball of cheese became connected to the idea of ice cream in his dream, and Ahab scooped it up and, still asleep, mashed it about in his mouth for a moment before the odd flavor and weird texture of the cheese made him lurch awake, fearful that he’d been poisoned. There are few things more unpleasant than innocently eating or drinking one thing when you mistakenly suppose you’ve gotten hold of something else.

  Once awake, however, Ahab forgot about the treasure dream and, being a cheeser’s dog, quickly determined the nature of that which he ate. He swallowed heartily and, as his master and Gilroy Bastable were clumping toward the door, Ahab thought it a first-rate idea to have another go at the last chunk of wrecked cheese on the plate.

  Outside, the wind was still blowing in fits and gusts that sailed right down the center of the valley between the mountains. The forest was a black line against the wild sky. When there was a break in the clouds, the moonlight would creep out across patches of the valley and, as if by enchantment, the dark fringe of the woods would cast wavering shadows along the hillsides. Rocks and bushes and clumps of raspberry vine that were familiar and friendly in the light of day soon became strange and forbidding night shapes, weirdly lit and twisted beneath the moon. Jonathan was glad it was Gilroy Bastable and not himself who had to trudge away through the nighttime. At least the rain had stopped. If the wind continued to howl, it would pursue the last of the clouds to the ocean by morning, and the day would dawn clear beneath a cool autumn sun.

  The mayor assured Jonathan that this business about river travel would surely be brought up in the morning. The next day was market day, and a meeting was planned at the Guildhall to discuss the Willowood doings and the fate of the holiday celebrations.

  After returning to his chair by the fire, Jonathan picked up The Tale of the Goblin Wood and tried to read. He pretended that the issue of sailing to sea was closed and that his unconcerned reading proved it. But he merely looked at words on the page and found that after working through a page or two, he hadn’t any idea of what he had read. ‘A stout enough lad,’ he said aloud to himself, and Ahab, who was sitting in the chair opposite, naturally thought it was he who was being spoken to and was half afraid that Jonathan would scold him over the disappeared cheese.

  ‘Stout lad is it? Surely,’ thought Jonathan, ‘I am the Master Cheeser, and I do have a fine little raft, and I am, I suppose, the man in the village best suited for an adventure such as this. Still, weeks of travel through the long miles of empty river …’ The proposal, a bit much for the Cheeser, was best pondered by the light of day. Late at night sometimes, things seemed deeper and smokier than they were.

  The hour finally arrived for Jonathan Bing to turn the lamp down, bolt the door, and crawl i
nto bed. Ahab elected to spend the night on his pillow by the embers of the fire and was lost immediately in his dreams.

  2

  A Good Month for Traveling

  Ahab awoke before Jonathan did because the fire had burned itself out, and the morning was frightfully cold. Jonathan was covered with blankets topped by a feather comforter that came up to his chin and covered his bed all the way to the floor. He wore his cloth nightcap and striped nightshirt and, all in all, he was as warm as a honeycake in a dwarf’s oven. Ahab climbed onto the bed and began burrowing beneath the covers pretending to search for some lost object. Awaking with a shout at the sudden cold thing that had crept into his bed, Jonathan slid over far to one side and let Ahab have the other.

  He couldn’t fall asleep again, however, because of the ticking of his pocketwatch which lay nearby on the table. The harder he tried to ignore the noise, the louder it seemed to be. Then the bottom of his foot, which should have been feeling warm and content, began to itch and no mere scratching would suffice; it wanted to be up and about. But Jonathan was far too snug for any such foolishness. Then just when he’d managed to ignore the pocketwatch and the itch in his foot, Ahab set in to snore like a grizzly bear and began to flail his legs about. He was lost in a very active dream in which he seemed to be chasing a boatload of funny little men wearing tall hats along the banks of a river.

  Jonathan, in a rage – not a wild rage, but one of those mild, morning rages – flew out of bed. Just as well, for the bells in the village struck seven times, and if he wished to be at the Guildhall by eight-thirty and have a load of cheeses with him to boot, he’d best make tracks.

  His first duty each morning was to put the coffee on the stove. He ground a handful of dark, oily coffee beans, measured out a third of a cup of grounds, and threw them into the bottom of a porcelain-coated coffee pot which he filled three-fourths to the top with cold water. Jonathan then set about boiling another pan of water for oatmeal porridge and slicing wheat bread for toast. Soon the coffee water started to bubble and steam, and when it was just set to boil he took the pot off the stove to let the coffee steep. Its rich smell filled the kitchen, and there was nothing for it but that Jonathan should have a cup at once. As he was enjoying his toast and porridge and peach jam and sugared coffee, Ahab wandered in from the bedroom. Barely awake, he stretched deeply and stood by the table eyeing the slices of buttered toast. Jonathan tore off a piece, smeared a dab of jam on it, and tossed it to Ahab, who found the morsel very good indeed. Together, they decided on having another.

  Breakfast finished, Jonathan trudged up the gravel path to the cheesehouse and pulled his wagon out from beneath its covering. With Ahab trotting alongside or resting now and again just inside the door, Jonathan carried out some two or three dozen cheeses of various shapes and sizes including a half dozen crocks of creamed cheese and three of the round swirly cheeses that he and the mayor had picked at the night before. Goat’s milk cheeses covered with rock salt hung from the ceiling, and there were wedges of fancy cheeses made with onions and bacon and sardines. Before long he had the wagon loaded and was off down the hill toward town, marveling at the clear sky and the thin crusts of frost on the rooftops and on the deep, still river that sailed along below on its way to the sea. At some point during his reveries, his wagon shook and suddenly grew heavier. When he looked over his shoulder, Jonathan discovered that Ahab had crawled up onto the rear of the cart and fallen asleep among the cheeses.

  The Guildhall was bustling with activity. A score of the sort who take everything very seriously were shouting and pounding their fists into open palms and clearing their throats to make everyone note that something important was being said. Old Beezle of Beezle’s Dry Goods and General Merchandise was red-faced; his spectacles kept sliding away off the tip of his nose. He maintained, in a loud voice, that Willowood Station had been demolished by flood. He had, he said, scientific proof that the sorts of levees and piers built at Willowood could not have stood the onslaught of swollen rivers over the course of many seasons. If those present would just pay attention to the diagrams and charts he’d brought along, the whole matter would be clarified and the people of Twombly Town could set about fortifying their own banks against the same eventuality.

  All in all, the villagers appeared to be uninterested in Mr Beezle, mainly because he brought the same charts and diagrams to town meetings every time the rainy season began. His wonderful drawings of what looked like medieval fortifications were written all over with large numbers and words like ‘stress load’ and ‘flow value’ and ‘whirl schute’ – words which sounded marvelous and important.

  Old Wurzle, the researcher, was also carrying on. As Jonathan poked his head in through the door he could hear Professor Wurzle saying, ‘We’ve seen your piers and levees, Mr Beezle. We’ve seen your piers and levees until they’ve given us the pip!’ Even though the Professor’s comments were made in a loud voice, Mr Beezle didn’t seem to hear them. Professor Wurzle, as a consequence, repeated the part about having gotten the pip and added, as a capper, that he was a ‘man of science’ and that Mr Beezle was a greengrocer. But, as far as Twombly Town and perhaps the whole valley was concerned, Professor Wurzle was fairly scientific. He had a laboratory filled with apparatus and with devices continually bubbling and whistling.

  But the Professor’s main accomplishment was that he was a historian. He knew the history of Twombly Town and of most of the families living there, and it was even rumored he had once climbed into the mountains in the east and lived with the Light Elves for a month or so. But that was thirty or forty years ago, and almost nobody remembered much about the incident anymore. What they did remember was that Wurzle, while researching the mysteries of Stooton Slough, a water lily-choked swamp far below Willowood Station, had come across the hulk of a very old and very beautiful sailing ship – rather like a sloop – mired in the rushes.

  The figurehead and three masts with a few tattered bits of stiff and crusted canvas were visible above the stagnant water and pond lilies of the swamp. The figurehead itself was carved in the semblance of a frightful dragon with furled wings. In either eye was a great jewel, one a ruby and the other an emerald. The masts themselves were minutely carved with odd runes and hieroglyphs. Wurzle’s intention was to cut off all that was above water and haul it back upriver to Twombly Town.

  He realized, of course, that such a feat would require a barge and tools and ropes and the help of several men, so he returned to Willowood and found three traders and a raft. The four men set out, although it was late in the season, and hadn’t floated halfway down to Stooton-on-River when a great storm overtook them and forced them ashore. For two days the men huddled in a cavern above the banks, the masts and sails of their own raft having been reduced to rubbish by the wind and rain. Finally two of the traders struck out overland for Willowood. When the storm cleared, Wurzle and the last trader, who had an enormous nose and the unlikely name of Flutesnoot, continued on Wurzle’s raft which had somehow survived the storm, to see what they could see.

  To poor Wurzle’s dismay, the ruins of the mysterious sloop had gone to bits in the storm and there was nothing at all jutting up through the swamp lilies which floated purple and yellow on the surface of the water. The two men probed below the dark surface, but found nothing. Whereupon Mr Flutesnoot, having come so far on a wild goose chase, began to complain.

  First he grumbled that a man had to be a lunatic to journey out after enchanted sailing ships. Then he moaned that he supposed the money Wurzle offered wasn’t half worth the trouble. He had, he said, eight little children, all wearing the same pair of shoes in shifts, and his wife had certain problems with her joints. Finally, he seemed to hint that it would be only fair that the Professor pay him the salary he’d promised the two deserters and, ‘Cut ’em out,’ as he put it.

  Just about then, both men were wading in a shallows several hundred feet below the mouth of the slough when Wurzle saw the flash of green in among the rocks. He p
lunged in and, after dredging about for a moment, plucked up the emerald eye of the dragon. Two more days of searching and sifting through sand and pebbles, brought forth two strawberry-size rubies and a three-foot-long fragment of one of the carved masts lodged in a stand of rushes plus another curious elf device which was altogether unidentifiable. The Professor gave the two rubies to Mr Flutesnoot, who returned to Willowood and, on the strength of his adventure, was promptly elected mayor.

  Professor Wurzle brought the faceted emerald eye back to Twombly Town where he graciously contributed it to the museum. The section of mast he studied for several years, deciphering runes, puzzling out hieroglyphs. He finally determined that the carvings told the story of an entire nation of piratical elves living on some far distant Oceanic Isle, thousands of leagues from the coast of the field dwarfs. Why their sloop had sailed upriver and why it had been left deserted and how long ago all of this had come to pass were mysteries.

  The meeting took up the better part of the morning. Almost everyone there had something powerfully important to say, or at least thought he did. Beezle had his say; Professor Wurzle had his; then Gilroy Bastable made it clear half a dozen times that he couldn’t say one way or another but that everyone, as far as he could see, should do his duty. The high, open-timbered roof of the old Guildhall fairly shook with the tumult while Ahab slept outside, guarding the cheeses and dreaming about roaming through subterranean caverns in pursuit of gingerbread cookies.

  Jonathan remained silent throughout even though broad hints were dropped here and there concerning the necessity of saving the holiday celebrations whether or not there were traders at Willowood Station. In fact, Jonathan had already made up his mind. The previous night while staring into the embers of his fire, he had chosen his course of action. Without question, adventure was on the horizon, gesturing to him like a forest nymph – his fate led downriver to the sea. He had heard stories of the fogbound coast and of the great fish and sea monsters that frolicked in seaweed gardens. Such tales held a certain appeal for him, although he, like most of the people of Twombly Town could be easily satisfied. Though they loved beyond anything to be told tales of travel to distant lands, they rarely, with the possible exception of Professor Wurzle, actually enjoyed the prospects of such travel.