The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge Page B

asked the astonished Robert.
    ‘Only at night, young master,’ said Moses pensively.
    ‘Why does she only go out at night?’
    Moses smiled and shook his head and gave no answer. Timothy thought that he was not a very communicative person. He spoke slowly, as though he were not used to talking, and his deep soft voice would begin a sentence with power and then die sadly away to a mere breath of sound. Yet he did not seem a dying sortof person, for somewhere at the back of his dark eyes there was fire. Robert did not notice these things about Moses because he was a practical person, always much occupied in telling people what they ought to do, but Timothy was not practical and following where Robert led he was able to notice things. As Moses led them silently through the tall grass that bordered the terrace in front of the house he noticed three things. There was an uncurtained window upstairs and it was a little open, and three bees flew out of it as he watched. Those were two things. The third was the great wisteria vine that grew up the side of the house and had such thick branches that it would be possible to climb it.
    They came round to the west side of the house and through an archway into a small garden entirely enclosed by yew hedges. In the middle of it was a fountain with a statue in the centre, and there were winding grass paths and flowerbeds full of dark red wallflowers, southern-wood , lemon verbena, and thyme. And there were hedges of lavender and sweet briar, rosemary bushes grown almost as large as trees and an arbour grown over with honeysuckle. There was nothing growing here that was not sweet-smelling and the little place was most lovingly taken care of.
    ‘Do you take care of it?’ Timothy asked Moses.
    Moses smiled and nodded. ‘Moses is gardener to milady,’ he said. ‘And chef to milady. And butler to milady and once he was coachman. But the horses are dead now and the rats have eaten holes in the seats of the carriage. No more horses.’ He had began to speak with a sort of forlorn pride, but now his deep voicesank away into inaudible sorrow and Timothy wanted to cry.
    Robert didn’t because he was not listening; being practical he was looking for Betsy. ‘She’s not in the arbour,’ he called out. ‘Let’s look behind all the bushes.’
    Moses joined him in the search, but Timothy felt quite sure that Betsy was not here. If she had been she would have heard their voices and called out to them. He wandered off by himself to the centre of the garden where the fountain was. There was no longer any water in the marble basin and the man sitting on the rock in the centre of it had moss growing on him and he looked heavy and weary. Yet he wasn’t old because the beard that flowed over his chest was crisply curly, and his hair, bound with a fillet, was curly too. And the muscles of his back and bare arms were so strong that one expected him to be holding a sword or spear. But he wasn’t; he was holding in his left hand some queer sort of musical instrument made of reeds, the hand raised as though he had only just taken it from his lips, and his right hand was lifted too, as though he was calling to someone to listen to the echo of his vanished music. His face was strong and sad and two strange little horns grew out of his head. Timothy had not noticed the horns at first because they were almost hidden in the curly hair, and when he did notice them he began to feel a little scared. Then he looked down at the rock on which the man was sitting and had the shock of his life, because he saw suddenly that the man was only a man as far as the waist. Below the waist he was an animal, with hairy goat-shaped legs and hooves instead of feet. Panic seized Timothy and withone part of himself he wanted to scream and run away, yet with the other part of himself he wanted to look again at the listening face and because he was a plucky child he stayed where he was and lifted his eyes. Looking up, he was not