









                        Chapter XIII

          What Master Nathaniel and Master Ambrose
                   Found in the Guildhall


Master Nathaniel was much too restless and anxious to
explore the Guildhall until the groom returned whom he had
sent with the letter to Luke Hempen.
   But he must have taken the order to ride night and day
literally -- in so short a time was he back again in Lud. 
Master Nathaniel was, of course, enchanted by his despatch,
though he was unable to elicit from him any detailed answers
to his eager questions about Ranulph.  But it was everything
to know that the boy was well and happy, and it was but
natural that the fellow should be bashful and tongue-tied in
the presence of his master.
   But the groom had not, as a matter of fact, come within
twenty miles of the widow Gibberty's farm.
   In a road-side tavern he had fallen in with a red-haired
youth, who had treated him to glass upon glass of an
extremely intoxicating wine; and, in consequence, he had
spent the night and a considerable portion of the following
morning sound asleep on the floor of the tavern.
   When he awoke, he was horrified to discover how much time
he had wasted.  But his mind was set at rest on the
innkeeper's giving him a letter from the red-haired youth,
to say that he deeply regretted having been the indirect
cause of delaying a messenger sent on pressing business by
the High Seneschal (in his cup the groom had boasted of the
importance of his errand), and had, in consequence, ventured
to possess himself of the letter, which he guaranteed to
deliver at the address on the wrapper as soon, or sooner, as
the messenger could have done himself.
   The groom was greatly relieved.  He had not been long in
Master Nathaniel's service.  It was *after* Yuletide he had
entered it.
   
   So it was with a heart relieved from all fears for
Ranulph and free to throb like a schoolboy's with the lust
of adventure that Master Nathaniel met Master Ambrose on the
night of the full moon at the splendid carved doors of the
Guildhall.
   "I say, Ambrose," he whispered, "I feel as if we were
lads again, and off to rob an orchard!"
   Master Ambrose snorted.  He was determined, at all costs,
to do his duty, but it annoyed him that his duty should be
regarded in the light of a boyish escapade. 
   The great doors creaked back on their hinges.  Shutting
them as quietly as they could, they tip-toed up the spiral
staircase and along the corridor described by Dame Marigold:
whenever a board creaked under their heavy steps, one
inwardly cursing the other for daring to be so stout and
unwieldy.
   All round them was darkness, except for the little
trickles of light cast before them by their two lanthorns.
   A house with old furniture has no need of guests to be
haunted.  As we have seen, Master Nathaniel was very
sensitive to the silent things -- stars, houses, trees; and
often in his pipe-room, after the candles had been lit, he
would sit staring at the bookshelves, the chairs, his
father's portrait -- even at his red umbrella standing up in
the corner, with as great a sense of awe as if he had been a
star-gazer.
   But that night, the brooding invisible presences of the
carved panels, the storied tapestries, affected even the
hard-headed Master Ambrose.  It was as if that silent
population was drawing him, by an irresistible magnetism,
into the zone of its influence.
   If only they would speak, or begin to move about -- those
silent rooted things!  It was like walking through a wood by
moonlight.
   Then Master Nathaniel stood still.
   "This, I think, must roughly be the spot where Marigold
found the hollow panel," he whispered, and began tapping
cautiously along the wainscotting.
   A few minutes later, he said in an excited whisper,
"Ambrose!  Ambrose!  I've got it.  Hark!  You can hear,
can't you?  It's as hollow as a drum."
   "Suffering Cats!  I believe you're right," whispered back
Master Ambrose, beginning, in spite of himself, to be a
little infected with Nat's absurd excitement.
   And then, yielding to pressure, the panel slid back, and
by the light of their lanthorns they could see a twisting
staircase.
   For a few seconds they gazed at each other in silent
triumph.  Then Master Nathaniel chuckled, and said, "Well,
here goes -- down with our buckets into the well!  And may
we draw up something better than an old shoe or a rotten
walnut!" and straightway he began to descend the stairs,
Master Ambrose valiantly following him.
   The stairs went twisting down, down -- into the very
bowels of the earth, it seemed.  But at long last they found
themselves in what looked like a long tunnel.
   "Tally ho!  Tally ho!" whispered Master Nathaniel,
laughing for sheer joy of adventure, "take it at a gallop,
Brosie; it may lead to an open glade... and the deer at
bay!"
   And digging him in the ribs, he added, "Better sport than
moth hunting, eh?" which showed the completeness of their
reconciliation.
   Nevertheless, it was very slowly, and feeling each step,
that they groped their way along the tunnel.
   After what seemed a very long time Master Nathaniel
halted, and whispered over his shoulder, "Here we are. 
There's a door... Oh, thunder and confusion on it for ever! 
*It's locked*." 
   And, beside himself with irritation at this unlooked-for
obstacle, he began to batter and kick at the door, like one
demented.
   He paused a minute for breath, and from the inside could
be heard a shrill female voice demanding the pass-word.
   "Pass-word?" bellowed back Master Nathaniel, "by the Sun,
Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West, what..."
   But before he could finish his sentence, the door was
opened from the other side, and they marched into a low,
square room, which was lit by one lamp swinging by a chain
from the ceiling -- for which there seemed but little need,
for a light more brilliant than that of any lamp, and yet as
soft as moonlight, seemed to issue from the marvelous
tapestries that hung on the walls.
   They were dumb with amazement.  This was as different
from all the other tapestry they had ever seen as is an
apple-tree in full blossom against a turquoise sky in May to
the same tree in November, when only a few red leaves still
cling to its branches, and the sky is leaden.  Oh, those
blues, and pinks, and brilliant greens!  In what miraculous
dyes had the silks been dipped?
   As to the subjects, they were those familiar to every
Dorimarite -- hunting scenes, fugitives chased by the moon,
shepherds and shepherdesses tending their azure sheep.  But,
depicted in these brilliant hues, they were like the ashes
of the past, suddenly, under one's very eyes, breaking into
flame.  Heigh-presto!  The men and women of a vanished age,
noisy, gaudy, dominant, are flooding the streets, and
driving the living before them like dead leaves.
   And what was this lying in heaps on the floor?  Pearls
and sapphires, and monstrous rubies?  Or windfalls of fruit,
marvellous fruit, fallen from the trees depicted on the
tapestry?
   Then, as their eyes grew accustomed to all the
brilliance, the two friends began to get their bearings;
there could be no doubt as to the nature of that fruit lying
on the floor -- it was fairy fruit, or their names were not
respectively Chanticleer and Honeysuckle.
   And, to their amazement, the guardian of this strange
treasure was none other than their old acquaintance Mother
Tibbs.
   Her clear, child-like eyes that shone like lamps out of
her seared weather-beaten face, were gazing at them in a
sort of mild surprise.
   "If it isn't Master Hyacinth and Master Josiah!" she
exclaimed, adding, with her gay, young laugh, "to think of
*their* knowing the pass-word!"
   Then she peered anxiously into their faces: "Are your
stockings wearing well yonder?  The last pair I washed for
you didn't take the soap as they should.  Marching down the
Milky Way, and tripping it beyond the moon, is hard on
stockings."
   Clearly she took them for their own fathers.
   Meanwhile, Master Ambrose was drawing in his breath, with
a noise as if he were eating soup, and creasing his double
chins -- sure signs, to anyone who had seen him on the
Bench, that he was getting ready to hector. 
   But Master Nathaniel gave him a little warning nudge, and
said cordially to their hostess, "Why, our stockings, and
boots too, are doing very nicely, thank you.  So you didn't
expect us to know the pass-word, eh?   Well, well, perhaps
we know more than you think," then, under his breath to
Master Ambrose, "By my Great-aunt's Rump, Ambrose, what
*was* the pass-word?"
   Then turning again to Mother Tibbs, who was slightly
swaying from her hips, as if in time to some jig, which she
alone could hear, he said, "You've got some fine tapestry. 
I don't believe I've ever seen finer!"
   She smiled, and then coming close up to him, said in a
low voice, "Does your Worship know what makes it so fine? 
No?  Why, *it's the fairy fruit!*" and she nodded her head
mysteriously, several times.
   Master Ambrose gave a sort of low growl of rage, but
again Master Nathaniel shot him a warning look, and said in
a voice of polite interest, "Indeed!   Indeed!  And where,
may I ask, does the... er... *fruit* come from?"
   She laughed merrily, "Why, the gentlemen bring it!  All
the pretty gentlemen, dressed in green, with their knots of
ribands, crowding down in the sunrise from their ships with
the scarlet sails to suck the golden apricocks, when all in
Lud are fast asleep!  And then the cock says
*Cockadoodledoo!* Cockadoodledooooo!" and her voice trailed
off, far-away and lonely, suggesting, somehow, the first
glimmer of dawn on ghostly hayricks.
   "And I'll tell you something, Master Nat Cock o' the
Roost," she went on, smiling mysteriously, and coming close
up to him, "*you'll soon be dead!*"
   Then she stepped back, smiling and nodding encouragingly,
as if to say, "*There's* a pretty present I've given you! 
Take care of it."
   "And as for Mother Tibbs," she went on triumphantly,
"she'll soon be a fine lady, like the wives of the Senators,
dancing all night under the moon!  The gentlemen have
promised."
   Master Ambrose gave a snort of impatience, but Master
Nathaniel said with a good-humoured laugh, "So that's how
you think the wives of the Senators spend their time, eh? 
I'm afraid they've other things to do.  And as to yourself,
aren't you getting too old for dancing?"
   A slight shadow passed across her clear eyes.  Then she
tossed her head with the noble gesture of a wild creature,
and cried, "No!  No!  As long as my heart dances my feet
will too.  And nobody will grow old when the Duke comes
back."
   But Master Ambrose could contain himself no longer.  He
knew only too well Nat's love of listening to long rambling
talk -- especially when there happened to be some serous
business on hand.
   "Come, come," he cried in a stern voice, "in spite of
being crack-brained, my good woman, you may soon find
yourself dancing to another tune.  Unless you tell us in
double quick time who exactly these *gentlemen* are, and who
it was that put you on guard here, and who brings that
filthy fruit, and who takes it away, we will... why, we will
cut the fiddle strings that you dance to!" 
   This threat was a subconscious echo of the last words he
had heard spoken by Moonlove.  Its effect was instantaneous.
   "Cut the fiddle strings!  Cut the fiddle strings!" she
wailed; adding coaxingly, "No, no, pretty master, you would
never do that!  Would he now?" and she turned appealingly to
Master Nathaniel.  "It would be like taking away the poor
man's strawberries.  The Senator has peaches and roasted
swans and peacock's hearts, and a fine coach to drive in,
and a feather bed to lie late in of a morning.  And the poor
man has black bread and baked haws, and work... but in the
summer he has strawberries and tunes to dance to.  No, no,
you would never cut the fiddle strings!"
   Master Nathaniel felt a lump in his throat.  But Master
Ambrose was inexorable: "Yes, of course I would!" he
blustered; "I'd cut the strings of every fiddle in Lud.  And
I will, too, unless you tell us what we want to know.  Come,
Mother Tibbs, speak out -- I'm a man of my word."
   She gazed at him beseechingly, and then a look of
innocent cunning crept into her candid eyes and she placed a
finger on her lips, then nodded her head several times and
said in a mysterious whisper, "If you'll promise not to cut
the fiddle strings I'll show you the prettiest sight in the
world -- the sturdy dead lads in the Fields of Grammary
hoisting their own coffins on their shoulders, and tripping
it over the daisies.  Come!" and she darted to the side of
the wall, drew aside the tapestry and revealed to them
another secret door.  She pressed some spring, it flew open
disclosing another dark tunnel.
   "Follow me, pretty masters," she cried.
   "There's nothing to be done," whispered Master Nathaniel,
"but to humour her.  She may have something of real value to
show us."
   Master Ambrose muttered something about a couple of
lunatics and not having left his fireside to waste the night
in indulging their fantasies; but all the same he followed
Master Nathaniel, and the second secret door shut behind
them with a sharp click.
   "Phew!" said Master Nathaniel: "Phew!" puffed Master
Ambrose, as they pounded laboriously along the passage
behind their light-footed guide.
   Then they began to ascend a flight of stairs, which
seemed interminable, and finally fell forward with a lurch
on to their knees, and again there was a click of something
shutting behind them.
   They groaned and cursed and rubbed their knees and
demanded angrily to what unholy place she had been pleased
to lead them.
   But she clapped her hands gleefully, "Don't you know,
pretty masters?  Why, you're where the dead cocks roost! 
You've come back to your own snug cottage, Master Josiah
Chanticleer.  Take your lanthorn and look round you."
   This Master Nathaniel proceeded to do, and slowly it
dawned on him where they were.
   "By the Golden Apples of the West, Ambrose!" he
exclaimed, "if we're not in my own chapel!" 
   And, sure enough, the rays of the lanthorn revealed the
shelves lined with porphyry coffins, the richly wrought
marble ceiling, and the mosaic floor of the home of the dead
Chanticleers.
   "Toasted Cheese!" muttered Master Ambrose in amazement.
   "It must have two doors, though I never knew it," said
Master Nathaniel.  "A secret door opening on to that hidden
flight of steps.  There are evidently people who know more
about my chapel than I do myself," and suddenly he
remembered how the other day he had found its door ajar.
   Mother Tibbs laughed gleefully at their surprise, and
then, placing one finger on her lips, she beckoned them to
follow her; and they tiptoed after her out into the moonlit
Fields of Grammary, where she signed to them to hide
themselves from view behind the big trunk of a sycamore.
   The dew, like lunar daisies, lay thickly on the grassy
graves.  The marble statues of the departed seemed to
flicker into smiles under the rays of the full moon; and,
not far from the sycamore, two men were digging up a
newly-made grave.  One of them was a brawny fellow with the
gold rings in his ears worn by sailors, the other was --
Endymion Leer.
   Master Nathaniel shot a look of triumph at Master
Ambrose, and whispered, "A cask of flower-in-amber, Brosie!"
   For some time the two men dug on in silence, and then
they pulled out three large coffins and laid them on the
grass.
   "We'd better have a peep, Sebastian," said Endymion Leer,
"to see that the goods have been delivered all right.  We're
dealing with tricky customers."
   The young man, addressed as Sebastian, grinned, and
taking a clasp knife from his belt, began to prise open one
of the coffins.
   As he inserted the blade into the lid, our two friends
behind the sycamore could not help shuddering; nor was their
horror lessened by the demeanor of Mother Tibbs, for she
half closed her eyes, and drew the air in sharply through
her nostrils, as if in expectation of some delicious
perfume.
   But when the lid was finally opened and the contents of
the coffin exposed to view, they proved not to be cere
cloths and hideousness, but -- closely packed fairy fruit.
   "Toasted Cheese!" muttered Master Ambrose; "Busty
Bridget!" muttered Master Nathaniel.
   "Yes, that's the goods all right," said Endymion Leer,
"and we'll take the other two on trust.  Shut it up again,
and help to hoist it on to my shoulder, and do you follow
with the other two -- we'll take them right away to the
tapestry-room.  We're having a council there at midnight,
and it's getting on for that now."
   Choosing a moment when the backs of the two smugglers
were turned, Mother Tibbs darted out from behind the
sycamore, and shot back into the chapel, evidently afraid of
not being found at her post.  And she was shortly followed
by Endymion Leer and his companion. 
   At first, the sensations of Master Nathaniel and Master
Ambrose were too complicated to be expressed in words, and
they merely stared at each other, with round eyes.  Then a
slow smile broke over Master Nathaniel's face, "No Moongrass
cheese for you this time, Brosie," he said.  "Who was right,
you or me?"
   "By the Milky Way, it was you, Nat!" cried Master
Ambrose, for once, in a voice of real excitement.  "The
rascal!  The unmigitated rogue!  So it's him, is it, we
parents have to thank for what has happened!  But he'll hang
for it,  he'll hang for it -- though we have to change the
whole constitution of Dorimare!  The *blackguard!*"
   "Into the town probably as a hearse," Master Nathaniel
was saying thoughtfully, "then buried here, then down
through my chapel into the secret room in the Guildhall,
whence, I suppose, they distribute it by degrees.  It's
quite clear now how the stuff gets into Lud.  All that
remains to clear up is how is gets past our Yeomen on the
border... but what's taken you, Ambrose?"
   For Master Ambrose was simply shaking with laughter; and
he did not laugh easily.
   "Do the dead bleed?" he was repeating between his
guffaws; "why, Nat, it's the best joke I've heard these
twenty years!"
   And when he had sufficiently recovered he told Master
Nathaniel about the red juice oozing out of the coffin,
which he had taken for blood, and how he had frightened
Endymion Leer out of his wits by asking him about it.
   "When, of course, it was a bogus funeral, and what I had
seen was the juice of that damned fruit!" and again he was
seized with paroxysms of laughter.
   But Master Nathaniel merely gave an absent smile; there
was something vaguely reminiscent in that idea of the dead
bleeding -- something he had recently read or heard; but,
for the moment, he could not remember where.
   In the meantime, Master Ambrose had recovered his
gravity.  "Come, come," he cried briskly, "we've not a
moment to lose.  We must be off at once to Mumchance, rouse
him and a couple of his men, and be back in a twinkling to
that tapestry-room, to take them red-handed.
   "You're right, Ambrose!  You're right!" cried Master
Nathaniel.  And off they went at a sharp jog trot, out at
the gate, down the hill, and into the sleeping town.
   They had no difficulty in rousing Mumchance and in firing
him with their own enthusiasm.  As they told him in a few
hurried words what they had discovered, his respect for the
Senate went up in leaps and bounds -- though he could
scarcely credit his ears when he learned of the part played
in the evening's transactions by Endymion Leer.
   "To think of that!  To think of that!" he kept repeating,
"and me who's always been so friendly with the Doctor, too!"
   As a matter of fact, Endymion Leer had for some months
been the recipient of Mumchance's complaints with regard to
the slackness and inefficiency of the Senate; and, in his
turn, had succeeded in infecting the good Captain's mind 
with sinister suspicions against Master Nathaniel.  And
there was a twinge of conscience for disloyalty to his
master, the Mayor, behind the respectful heartiness of his
tones as he cried, "Very good, your Worship.  It's Green and
Juniper what are on duty to-night.  I'll go and fetch them
from the guard-room, and we should be able to settle the
rascals nicely."
   As the clocks in Lud-in-the-Mist were striking midnight
the five of them were stepping cautiously along the
corridors of the Guildhall.  They had no difficulty in
finding the hollow panel, and having pressed the spring,
they made their way along the secret passage.
   "Ambrose!" whispered Master Nathaniel flurriedly, "what
was it exactly that I said that turned out to be the
pass-word?  What with the excitement and all I've clean
forgotten it."
   Master Ambrose shook his head.  "I haven't the slightest
idea," he whispered back.  "To tell you the truth, I
couldn't make out what she meant about your having used a
pass-word.  All *I* can remember your saying was `Toasted
Cheese!' or `Busty Bridget!' -- or something equally
elegant."
   Now they had got to the door, locked from the inside as
before.
   "Look here, Mumchance," said Master Nathaniel, ruefully,
"we can't remember the pass-word, and they won't open
without it."
   Mumchance smiled indulgently, "Your Worship need not
worry about the pass-word," he said.  "I expect we'll be
able to find another that will do as well... eh, Green and
Juniper?  But perhaps first -- just to be in order -- your
Worship would knock and command them to open."
   Master Nathaniel felt absurdly disappointed.  For one
thing, it shocked his sense of dramatic economy that they
should have to resort to violence when the same result could
have been obtained by a minimum expenditure of energy. 
Besides, he had so looked forward to showing off his new
little trick!
   So it was with a rueful sigh that he gave a loud
rat-a-tat-tat on the door, calling out, "Open in the name of
the Law!"
   These words, of course, produced no response, and
Mumchance, with the help of the other four, proceeded to put
into effect his own pass-word, which was to shove with all
their might against the door, two of the hinges of which he
had noticed looked rusty.
   It began to creak, and then to crack, and finally they
burst into... an empty room.  No strange fruit lay heaped on
the floor; nothing hung on the walls but a few pieces of
faded moth-eaten tapestry.  It looked like a room that had
not been entered for centuries.
   When they had recovered from their first surprise, Master
Nathaniel cried fiercely, "They must have got wind that we
were after them, and given us the slip, taking their loads
of filthy fruits with them, I'll..." 
   "There's been no fruit here, your Worship," said
Mumchance in a voice that he was trying hard to keep
respectful; "it always leaves stains, and there ain't any
stains here."
   And he couldn't resist adding, with a wink to Juniper and
Green, "I daresay it's your Worship's having forgotten the
pass-word that's done it!"  And Juniper and Green grinned
from ear to ear.
   Master Nathaniel was too chagrined to heed this
insolence; but Master Ambrose -- ever the champion of
dignity in distress -- gave Mumchance such a look that he
hung his head and humbly hoped that his Worship would
forgive his little joke.
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