The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood (11 page)

The little Jack Russell terrier, who lived at Belle Green with Mr. and Mrs. Crook, often went along with Jeremy as he tramped through the moors and up the fells, looking for animals to sketch. He had been with the boy as Jeremy drew the old badger who lived at the top of Holly How, the pair of frisky red squirrels who lived in the oak at Wise Een Tarn, and the shy pine marten they had found in Colthouse Wood. Rascal often said that Jeremy was the only boy in the village who’d rather draw and study a fox or a stoat than set traps for them.

Jeremy stroked the little dog’s ears. “How would you like to look for fairies with me on Saturday, Rascal? Caroline and Deirdre are going, too. Deirdre says she’s able to see them, and it doesn’t hurt to pretend.”

“Fairies?”
Rascal barked excitedly.
“Oh, ra-ther! There once was a fairy village near Fern Vale Tarn, at the top of the woods. Oak Folk, if I remember right. The Professor would know, or Bosworth Badger.”
Rascal knew, of course, that the boy—like most humans—didn’t understand what he was saying. But that might change, he reasoned. It never hurt to try.

With a gloomy look on his face, Jeremy sat down on a large boulder beside the rippling stream. “I’m afraid we won’t have many more tramps together, Rascal. The spring term will be finished in a few weeks, and school will be over.” His heavy sigh was resigned. “And everything will change.”

Rascal licked the boy’s face.
“Change? I don’t understand.”

Another sigh. “I’ll be grown up, you see. I’ll have to go to work.”

“Work?”
Rascal gave an astonished yip. Dogs, like a great many animals, live in the present moment and do not give much serious thought to what the future might bring. And Rascal, of course, was fully employed. He monitored strangers in the village, mediated disagreements among the other dogs, and slept with one eye open on the porch at Belle Green, keeping watch against possible trespassers. Still, he didn’t think of what he did as “work,” and he hadn’t thought of Jeremy as needing a job, either. The idea that the boy might not be free to wander the woods and fields forever came as a thunderous shock.

Jeremy picked up a stone and tossed it into the beck, watching the ripples widen across the surface. “I’m to be an apprentice, Rascal.”

Rascal stared.
“An apprentice?”

There was an undertone of bitterness in Jeremy’s voice. “I’m not a gentleman’s son, you know. They go to public school, and when they’ve finished, they go on to university. After that, they can do anything in the world they like. But boys of my sort go to the village school, and when that’s done, they’re grown up. No more books or games or tramps through the woods. They go to work.”

“Oh,”
Rascal said. Yes, of course. He knew that the village boys left Sawrey School when they were thirteen—most of them glad to be free of it, too—and went to work, usually doing the same things their fathers did, cutting wood or quarrying slate or burning charcoal or herding sheep. He just hadn’t thought of this happening to Jeremy, who liked books and learning as much as he liked the woods and fells.

A black grouse rattled out of a nearby ash coppice, tempting Rascal to a chase, but the terrier paid no attention. Of course, Jeremy was very clever, and would likely get on well in the world. But Rascal felt that there was an injustice here. He couldn’t quite get his mind around it, but if gentlemen’s sons were able to continue with their studies, it seemed a bit thick that Jeremy should have to go to work.

“Aunt Jane has found an apprenticeship for me,” Jeremy went on in a somber tone. He picked up a stick and used it to draw designs in the dust at his feet. “Two, in fact, so I’m to have a choice. Roger Dowling has offered me an apprenticeship in his joinery. And Dr. Butters says that the apothecary in Hawkshead is looking for a boy who is good with sums. I’m sure I should be grateful. Either is better than working in a slate quarry or burning charcoal.”

“Mr. Dowling would be a good master,”
Rascal said tentatively. The joiner’s shop was a warm and cheerful place, with the sharp smell of clean wood in the air and fresh sawdust underfoot. And Mr. Dowling was a generous man, who always saved the family’s soup bones for Rascal.

“I don’t want to make things hard for Aunt Jane,” Jeremy said, turning the stick in his fingers. “She does the best she can for both of us, so I try not to let her know how much I want to go to Kelsick.”

Rascal pushed his cold nose against Jeremy’s hand.
“Kelsick?”

Jeremy sighed. “Kelsick is the grammar school at Ambleside. Miss Nash encouraged me to take the entrance examination and I passed with high marks. If I went to Kelsick, I could learn Latin and Greek and study drawing and painting. Some of the Kelsick boys have gone on to university—to Oxford and Cambridge, even.” He glanced up at a jay scolding down at them from the branch of a willow. “But there’s the tuition, and books and supplies. And Ambleside is ten miles away. I’d have to have a room, and there would be the cost of meals. It’s far more than Aunt Jane can manage.”

“I’m sorry, Jeremy,”
Rascal said sadly.

Jeremy sighed again. “So either I must be apprenticed to Roger Dowling and be a joiner, or go to the apothecary in Hawkshead.” He gave Rascal a crooked smile. “Which would you choose?”

“Neither,”
Rascal barked decisively.
“I like to drop in at the joiner’s shop now and then, but I shouldn’t like to spend all day hammering and sawing. I shouldn’t like to count pills and pound powders, either. Both are respectable trades, I’m sure, but they’re not for me.”

“I thought so,” Jeremy said, reflecting that it was a comfort to discuss the situation with the little dog, who—even though he didn’t understand a word you said—could always be imagined to agree with you, whatever position you took. He sighed gloomily and fell silent for a moment, trying to picture himself astride the joiner’s bench all day long, a saw in his hand, wearing a canvas apron with pockets full of nails. Or dressed in a white coat, standing behind the apothecary’s counter from dawn until dusk, surrounded by jars of pills and bottles of potions.

Aunt Jane was right, of course. It was all very well to dream, but he ought to be glad that he had a choice, and that whatever he chose, he would be working indoors, out of the wind and weather, at a trade that earned people’s respect and enough to live on, eventually. She said the other boys would envy him, and he guessed she was right there, too. Harold Beechman, for instance, who was going to work alongside his father in the slate quarry, which was cold in winter and hot in summer and dangerous the year round. Harold would be glad of a chance to sit on a joiner’s bench and wield a smoothing plane.

But Jeremy wasn’t glad. He didn’t care a fig whether or not he was envied, and he didn’t want to grow up and go to work. He wanted to be a schoolboy, wanted to study and learn, wanted it so urgently that he could feel the desire like a hot, sweet taste in his mouth.

“It’s too bad that fairies can’t really grant wishes,” Jeremy muttered, thinking of what he had said to Caroline.

“Why, of course they can,”
Rascal replied in surprise. He knew this was true, although he had never had occasion to put it to the test.

But Jeremy only sighed, stood, and looked down at the little dog. “Tomorrow, then.” He put his hands in his pockets, and turned away in the direction of the cottage he shared with his aunt.

Sadly, Rascal watched him go. Dogs, as you no doubt know from your own experience, don’t need to be told what humans are thinking and feeling; they have an intuitive sense of it, sorrowing with their favorite people, and taking pleasure in the things that make them happy.

But knowing how Jeremy felt and being able to do something about it were two entirely different things. Rascal was only a terrier, and rather small and nondescript at that. He had strong forequarters and a very good nose, which were excellent attributes when it came to digging small creatures out of their holes. But he didn’t flatter himself that he might ever wield any significant influence in the wide world of human affairs.

Yes, it would be wonderful indeed if Jeremy could do as he wished and continue with his education. But that would take a miracle. And even Rascal knew that miracles didn’t grow on trees.

11

Ridley Advertises

In the Hill Top attic, the death of Rollo the rat, cruelly and wantonly murdered when he had sallied into the kitchen to fetch a bun, was felt to be a shocking and deeply demoralizing event, all the more because it was so sudden and unexpected. Miss Felicia Frummety had exhibited no interest in policing the place and the incumbent rats were perfectly aware of the Rule that prohibited other cats from poaching. As a result, they had become agreeably accustomed to going wherever and whenever they liked and doing whatever they liked, with the greatest confidence and sang-froid and without a whisker of fear.

The news of Rollo’s death traveled at the speed of lightning through the attic, and was received in varying ways, according to the hearer’s temperament. Some of the rats suddenly found that they were urgently wanted at home—an uncle had died, or a mother had lost her place—and packed their bags to leave. Others stayed, venturing downstairs or out to the barn or the Tower Bank Arms with a considerably heightened caution, warily watching their backs as they went and setting up sentinels with whistles round their necks to keep a lookout while they made free of the cheeses or biscuits or grain. A few of these even armed themselves with cudgels and cleavers, the latter sharpened by a rat from Carlisle who set up his grinding wheel just at the head of the spiral stair, requiring only that the owner of the weapon take a turn at the crank.

It soon became evident, however, that quite a number of the rats were mere unruly ruffians, of that undisciplined and excitable sort of temperament that is stimulated by the prospect of danger. They formed themselves into gangs and held rallies in the Saloon, bold as you please, where they sang war ditties and chanted fight slogans reminiscent of Mr. Churchill’s political campaign and ate quantities of cold beef and drank a great deal of malt ale, vowing that they would rid Hill Top of any cat who had the temerity to threaten one of their race. When they had worked themselves up to a fever pitch of excitement, they would sally down the stairs, clanging and banging and making as much racket as possible, and charge across the kitchen and through the dairy and out to the barns, daring any cat to catch them.

Ridley Rattail, unlike the other rats, felt no sadness when he learned of the murder. He was glad to be rid of Rollo, whose offer to punch him in the nose still rankled. And the death was confirmation of the extraordinary brilliance of his idea: what was needed to rid the Hill Top attic of unwanted rats was a fierce and fearless feline.
Several
fierce felines, in fact. And Ridley thought he knew just how to find them.

On the day following Rollo’s murder, Ridley shut himself up in his apartment with a quantity of paper, a quill pen made from a magpie’s feather, and a bottle of very sooty ink. Within a few hours, he had fashioned several large advertising posters with the following message:

 
Experienced Ratters Required

 
On the next day (which would be Thursday), Ridley stacked the posters one on top of the other, rolled them up very neatly, and secured the roll with a bit of shoelace. Then he took himself off to the Tower Bank Arms, where he waited for the brewer’s dray, which always stopped just after noon. While the drayman was unloading two kegs of ale and six dozen bottles of beer, Ridley found himself a comfortable place in an empty basket. After two more stops (the spirits shop and the Sawrey Hotel, both in Far Sawrey), the dray arrived at the ferry and boarded at the three o’clock departure, the rat still on board.

Having arrived at Bowness, Ridley posted his advertisements in several places along the road where he thought they were likely to be spotted. He returned to the ferry landing in time to catch the five o’clock departure, and was delighted to find when he boarded that someone had spilt a bag of delicious buttered popcorn—exactly the sort of snack he was hoping for. And then, with the wind in his whiskers, the silver waves dancing and shimmering in an exceedingly pleasant way, and the blown spray just dampening his sleek gray fur, he settled back to enjoy the ride with the consciousness of a job well done.

He might not have been so pleased with himself, however, had he suspected the sort of cat who might be enticed by his advertisement. Ridley Rattail might just have posted his own death warrant.

12

Cats with Plain Names

 
It was the morning following Ridley’s posting of his advertisement, which of course Miss Potter knew nothing about. She had just finished writing a short letter to Norman’s sister, Millie Warne, reporting on the plague of rats, the unsettling proposal for villas along the Windermere shoreline, and the reception at Raven Hall on Saturday. She added that she hoped to see Millie soon and sent best wishes to Mrs. Warne. Norman was gone, but the Warnes were her family now, and she was bound to them with a strong bond of love and loss. She signed herself “With love yrs aff.,” and folded the letter into an envelope. She was wondering whether she could catch the morning post when she heard a rap at the door.

“Oh, Miss Potter,” Mrs. Jennings said, “couldst tha come to t’ barn and help me give t’ Galway calf her med’cine? Mr. Jennings has gone off to market, and t’ creature’s turned balky—I doan’t think I can manage her alone.”