In a wood of scattered and stunted trees many miles from Banrive, Mother Meldrum was urging on her heavily loaded ass with the assistance of a cudgel. Beside her strode the gigantic form of Golithos, with a big bundle tied to his shoulders and carrying his mighty axe. There was a kind of horrible contentment about the two as they went along in silence only broken by an occasional chuckle from Golithos and the thumping of the cudgel as it came down on the animal’s ribs. Round about them walked seven large black cats.
“We can take it a bit easier now,” said Mother Meldrum at length. She had taken off her cloak and in her man’s dress and with the false beard removed she looked a particularly hideous figure; the beard had at least hidden part of her face. “It’s not far now to the barren rocks and nobody ever comes as near to them as this. Everything’s going very nicely.”
“Yes, isn’t it,” he said. “Do you know I got very worried, waiting outside the town with your bundles and the cats. I thought you’d never come. I was afraid something had happened and you couldn’t find the little ones.”
“That’s because you’re a fool,” she said with her usual candour. “I got them almost at once, as I knew I would. Don’t you start complaining about me!”
“No, of course not. But the cats worried me so much—snarling and rolling about and getting their ropes entangled. And when I tried to sort them out they simply bit pieces out of me. Look at my hands.”
“Glad they did; I wish they’d done more to you. You lost one of my cats, too, you lout! If it doesn’t come along soon, I’ll remember it when we settle up.”
“But it really wasn’t my fault,” he said quickly. “I just untied it a moment to disentangle it and it clawed me and bolted off. It’ll come along all right.”
“There’ll be trouble for you if it doesn’t. Now let’s stop a bit and see how things are.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Golithos eagerly.
“You keep away! No touching.” She lifted up the lid of one of the baskets on the ass and untied the neck of a coarse sack within. “Aha, you’re tired of grizzling now, are you? That’s a good thing for you.”
The head of Joe came out and stared at her, white and horrified.
“Get out and walk!” she ordered. “No, wait a bit: I’ll have to tie your hands behind you.”
She tied him up and lashed the rope to the huge bundle that formed the principal load of the ass. Then she went to the other basket and liberated Sylvia.
Poor Sylvia’s eyes were swollen with weeping and her face showed a stunned horror. She shook with fear as she got out, her pretty silk dress with the golden flowers and bees all crumpled and stained with the filthy sack she had been tied in, and looked up in the old witch’s face.
“Keep apart,” she shouted, for Joe had got close to Sylvia to give her what consolation he could, which was not very much. “One on each side. Now march!”
They started off again, Joe and Sylvia walking in a dazed way on either side of her, Golithos coming behind with his load and leading the ass, and the cats surging about them like a pack of grim black hounds.
“You were clever to get them, the way you did,” said Golithos, to put her in a good humour. “You seem to manage everything the way you want it.”
“Oh, I’m clever enough. I just went in with my half-dozen fat hens and offered them for next to nothing, and I talked to the fat old cook about things in general until I saw these brats coming along and looking for something new. They got something new all right enough. I just gave them good morning and asked them if they knew of a nice quiet place in the garden where I could turn a little rabbit loose, because it was so cruel to keep a rabbit cooped up and it’d be much happier in the garden. And they took me to very nice quiet place, all thick bushes and the like. Ho, ho, ho! I had them twisted up in two sacks before they could begin to think what was happening. And by the time they’d started to yell I had them in the baskets and hopped on top of the ass and started the bagpipes. And some gardeners and people came running up and out but I went a-galloping and blowing the pipes and all they wanted was to see the last of me. And out in the street some stared at me and some pitched carrots and things at me, but I didn’t stop blowing until I was clear out of Banrive. Ho, ho, ho!”
Golithos laughed hideously and the children cowered as they stumbled along. Mother Meldrum jerked furiously at the ropes that held them and told them to step out smartly if they didn’t want some extra trouble.
“Don’t make them walk too fast,” said Golithos. “Poor things, it won’t do to get them too tired! Children do get thin so easily,” he added with a touch of pathos.
“They’ll walk and you’ll walk and I’ll walk just as long as it suits me!” she shouted with one of her sudden changes to fury.
“Oh, yes, of course,” he said hastily. “I was merely suggesting----”
“Well, don’t. You’ve got your job to attend to before you need worry whether they’re thin or fat. As soon as we get beyond the barren rocks you’re finished with them until you’ve done your job.”
“Oh, I’ll do it all right,” he said, twirling his gigantic axe. “The sight of them has done me ever so much good. I’ll go back and just hide near Banrive until I get my chance. It won’t take long because you tell me the King goes out hawking every other day or so and it won’t be at all difficult to creep up when he’s sitting on his fat old horse and staring up in the sky. I’ll have him hacked to bits in no time. And if any twenty of his men come up I’ll cut them all down, as I used to do in the fine old days.” He roared with laughter and made the air whistle as he swung the axe over his head.
“At last I’m getting part of what I want,” said Mother Meldrum as she watched him approvingly. “Only part, because there’s others in the town I’m going to get square with. Wait till we’re comfortably settled beyond the barren rocks and we’ll be able to do quite a nice lot of damage one way and another. When they find their little children disappearing every now and then they’ll wish they’d left me alone in my comfortable little town business and not got the King to turn me out.”
Golithos did an ungainly dance of joy at the mention of a good supply of his natural food. “I suppose,” he said when his transports had calmed down a little, “there’s no chance of their finding the way through the rocks?”
“Not a bit of chance. The way through is by a hole just near the top of the big cliff, and even if they found the hole they’d lose their way in two minutes if they tried to follow the road. There’s fifty little tunnels branching in all directions and I’m the only one who knows the right one. Besides, they wouldn’t dare to follow us in: there’s other things there besides bats and darkness. No, we’ll be comfortable enough. There’s an old tower which you can take for your very own, and there’s a little house in the trees that will just suit me and I’ll settle down very comfortably with my cats.”
They trudged on in contented silence for a time. Sylvia and Joe were, luckily for them in one way, too stupefied with horror to realize the hideous fate that had come upon them and they went on as well as they could, Mother Meldrum occasionally hinting by a ferocious pick at the ropes that they were not walking fast enough.