









                         Chapter XI

               A Stronger Antidote than Reason


Master Nathaniel sat at his old nurse's feet for some
minutes after she had stopped singing.  Both his limbs and
his mind seemed to be bathed in a cool, refreshing pool.
   So Endymion Leer and Hempie had reached by very different
paths the same conclusion -- that, after all, there was
nothing to be frightened about; that, neither in sky, sea,
nor earth was there to be found a cavern dark and sinister
enough to serve as a lair for IT -- his secret fear.
   Yes, but there were facts as well as shadows.  Against
facts Hempie had given him no charm.  Supposing that what
had happened to Prunella should happen to Ranulph?  That he
should vanish for ever across the Debatable Hills.
   But it had not happened yet -- nor should it happen as
long as Ranulph's father had wits and muscles.
   He might be a poor, useless creature when menaced by the
figments of his own fancy.  But, by the Golden Apples of the
West, he would no longer sit there shaking at shadows,
while, perhaps, realities were mustering their battalions
against Ranulph.
   It was for him to see that Dorimare became a country that
his son could live in in security.
   It was as if he had suddenly seen something white and
straight -- a road or a river -- cutting through a sombre,
moonlit landscape.  And the straight, white thing was his
own will to action.
   He sprang to his feet and took two or three paces up and
down the room.
   "But I tell you, Hempie," he cried, as if continuing a
conversation, "they're all against me.  How can I work by
myself!  They're all against me, I say."
   "Get along with you, Master Nat!" jeered Hempie
tenderly.  "You were always one to think folks were against
you.  When you were a little boy it was always, `You're not
cross with me, Hempie, are you?' and peering up at me with
your little anxious eyes -- and there was me with no more
idea of being cross with you than of jumping over the moon!"
   "But, I tell you, they are all against me," he cried
impatiently.  "They blame me for what has happened, and
Ambrose was so insulting that I had to tell him never to put
his foot into my house again." 
   "Well, it isn't the first time you and Master Ambrose
have quarrelled -- and it won't be the first time you make
it up again.  It was, `Hempie, Brosie won't play fair!' or
`Hempie, it's my turn for a ride on the donkey, and Nat
won't let me!'  And then, in a few minutes, it was all over
and forgotten.  So you must just step across to Master
Ambrose's, and walk in as if nothing had happened, and,
you'll see, he'll be as pleased as Punch to see you."
   As he listened, he realized that it would be very
pleasant to put his pride in his pocket and rush off to
Ambrose and say that he was willing to admit anything that
Ambrose chose -- that he was a hopelessly inefficient Mayor,
that his slothfulness during these past months had been
criminal -- even, if Ambrose insisted, that he was an eater
of, and smuggler of, and receiver of, fairy fruit, all
rolled into one -- if only Ambrose would make friends again.
   Pride and resentment are not indigenous to the human
heart; and perhaps it is due to the gardener's innate love
of the exotic that we take such pains to make them thrive.
   But Master Nathaniel was a self-indulgent man, and ever
ready to sacrifice both dignity and expediency to the
pleasure of yielding to a sentimental velleity.
   "By the Golden Apples of the West, Hempie," he cried
joyfully, "you're right!  I'll dash across to Ambrose's
before I'm a minute older," and he made eagerly for the
door.
   On the threshold he suddenly remembered how he had seen
the door of his chapel ajar, and he paused to ask Hempie if
she had been up there recently, and had forgotten to lock
it.
   But she had not been there since early spring.
   "That's odd!" said Master Nathaniel.
   And then he dismissed the matter from his mind, in the
exhilarating prospect of "making up" with Ambrose.
   It is curious what tricks a quarrel, or even a short
absence, can play with our mental picture of even our most
intimate friends.  A few minutes later, as Master Ambrose
looked at his old playmate standing at the door, grinning a
little sheepishly, he felt as if he had just awakened from a
nightmare.  This was not "the most criminally negligent
Mayor with whom the town of Lud-in-the-Mist had ever been
cursed;" still less was it the sinister figure evoked by
Endymion Leer.  It was just queer old Nat, whom he had known
all his life.
   Just as on a map of the country round Lud, in the
zig-zagging lines he could almost see the fish and rushes of
the streams they represented, could almost count the
milestones on the straight lines that stood for roads; so,
with regard to the face of his old friend -- every pucker
and wrinkle was so familiar that he felt he could have told
you every one of the jokes and little worries of which they
were the impress.
   Master Nathaniel, still grinning a little sheepishly,
stuck out his hand.  Master Ambrose frowned, blew his nose,
tried to look severe, and then grasped the hand.  And they
stood there fully two minutes, wringing each other's hand,
and laughing and blinking to keep away the tears. 
   And then Master Ambrose said, "Come into the pipe-room,
Nat, and try a glass of my new flower-in-amber.  You old
rascal, I believe it was that that brought you!" 
   
   A little later when Master Ambrose was conducting Master
Nathaniel back to his house, his arm linked in his, they
happened to pass Endymion Leer.
   For a few seconds he stood staring after them as they
glimmered down the lane beneath the faint moonlight.  And he
did not look overjoyed.
   
   That night was filled to the brim for Master Nathaniel
with sweet, dreamless sleep.  As soon as he laid his head on
the pillow he seemed to dive into some pleasant unknown
element -- fresher than air, more caressing than water; an
element in which he had not bathed since he first heard the
Note, thirty years ago.  And he woke up the next morning
light-hearted and eager; so fine a medicine was the will to
action.
   He had been confirmed in it by his talk the previous
evening with Master Ambrose.  He had found his old friend by
no means crushed by his grief.  In fact, his attitude to the
loss of Moonlove rather shocked Master Nathaniel, for he had
remarked grimly that to have vanished for ever over the
hills was perhaps, considering the vice to which she had
succumbed, the best thing that could have happened to her. 
There had always been something rather brutal about
Ambrose's common sense.
   But he was as anxious as Master Nathaniel himself that
drastic measures should immediately be taken for stopping
the illicit trade and arresting the smugglers.  They had
decided what these measures ought to be, and the following
days were spent in getting them approved and passed by the
Senate.
   Though the name of Master Nathaniel stank in the nostrils
of his colleagues, their respect for the constitution was
too deep seated to permit their opposing the Mayor of
Lud-in-the-Mist and High Seneschal of Dorimare; besides,
Master Ambrose Honeysuckle was a man of considerable weight
in their councils, and they were not uninfluenced by the
fact that he was the seconder of all the Mayor's proposals.
   So a couple of Yeomen were placed at each of the gates of
Lud, with orders to examine not only the baggage of everyone
entering the town, but, as well, to rummage through every
waggon of hay, every sack of flour, every frail of fruit or
vegetables.  As well, the West road was patrolled from Lud
to the confines of the Elfin Marches, where a consignment of
Yeomanry were sent to camp out, with orders day and night to
watch the hills.  And the clerk to the Senate was ordered to
compile a dossier of every inhabitant of Lud.
   The energy displayed by Master Nathaniel in getting these
measures past did a good deal towards restoring his
reputation among the townsfolk.  Nevertheless that social
barometer, Ebeneezor Prim, continued to send his new
apprentice, instead of coming himself, to wind his clocks. 
And the grandfather clock, it would seem, was protesting
against the slight.  For according to the servants, it would
suddenly move its hands rapidly up and down its dial, which
made it look like a face, alternating between a smirk and an
expression of woe.  And one morning Pimple, the little 
indigo page, ran screaming with terror into the kitchen,
for, he vowed, from the orifice at the bottom of the dial,
there had suddenly come shooting out a green tongue like a
lizard's tail.
   As none of Master Nathaniel measures brought to light a
single smuggler or a single consignment of fairy fruit, the
Senate were beginning to congratulate themselves on having
at last destroyed the evil that for centuries had menaced
their country, when Mumchance discovered in one day three
people clearly under the influence of the mysterious drug
and with their mouth and hands stained with strangely
coloured juices.
   One of them was a pigmy pedlar from the North, and as he
scarcely knew a word of Dorimarite no information could be
extracted from him as to how he had procured the fruit. 
Another was a little street urchin who had found some sherds
in a dustbin, but was in too dazed a state to remember
exactly where.  The third was the deaf-mute known as Bawdy
Bess.  And, of course, no information could be got from a
deaf-mute.
   Clearly, then, there was some leakage in the admirable
system of the Senate.
   As a result, rebellious lampoons against the inefficient
Mayor were found nailed to the doors of the Guildhall, and
Master Nathaniel received several anonymous letters of a
vaguely threatening nature, bidding him to cease to meddle
with matters that did not concern him, lest they should
prove to concern him but too much.
   But so well had the antidote of action been agreeing with
his constitution that he merely flung them into the fire
with a grim laugh and a vow to redouble his efforts.
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