Free The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge Page B

where the mossy drive appeared again from beneath the weeds and grasses, and there before them was the Manor. It was an old house built of weathered grey granite with a stone-tiled roof. It was surrounded by unpruned rose bushes and its dormer windows peered like eyes through the hairy creepers that had climbed right up to the roof and even in places to the tall chimneys. From the front there seemed no entrance; briars grew over the pillared porch of the front door and all the downstairs windowshad blind eyes, for their curtains were drawn. There was a stone terrace in front of the house, but the weeds had pushed up the paving stones. Directly behind it Lion Tor towered to the sky and Linden Wood surrounded the house and its ruined garden as a moat surrounds a castle, completely cutting it off from the world beyond. Hot, murmurous with bees, the place cast a spell.
    Turning right, Moses led them to the back of the house where the wood came pressing almost up to the walls. It was full of great linden trees, oaks and beeches all dressed in their bright spring green. There was a cobbled yard behind the house with a tumbledown stable to one side. The back door was open and the monkey was sitting on the doorstep playing cat’s-cradle. He was a sad-eyed grey monkey with an irritable expression, wearing a tattered green livery coat like the one that Moses wore, and when he saw the children he chattered with annoyance and scrambled back into the house.
    ‘Children, do not worrit Abednego,’ cautioned Moses.
    ‘We won’t,’ they said.
    ‘Where be beds?’ asked Ezra.
    ‘In the kitchen,’ said Moses.
    The back door opened straight into the big kitchen. It was a dark dreary place, not at all like the bright happy kitchen at the Vicarage. It had a well in the middle of the floor and a big oak dresser stretched from floor to ceiling. On the top of the dresser was Abednego, still chattering with annoyance. By the well in the middle of the floor there were two truckle-beds, two feather mattresses and two little folded quilts. Moses, Ezra and the boys carried the beds and mattresses out to the cart and Nan followed with the quilts in her arms. They smelt faintly of cedar wood and they were made of hundreds of diamond-shaped patches of silk, satin, velvet, and brocade of all the colours of the rainbow. She was so absorbed in them that she did not notice, as she stepped out into the sunlight, that Betsy had stayed behind in the kitchen.
    Betsy was gazing at Abednego. He was about her own size, but he had the face of a very old man and he was like Absolom. The queer mixture of man, child, and creature fascinated her. And so did his long tail, which hung down over the willow-patterned china on the dresser like a velvet bell-rope. Mechanically rocking Gertrude in her arms, she stared and stared, and Abednego stopped chattering and stared at Gertrude, who was a very beautiful doll with red cheeks, golden hair, a blue silk dress, a lace petticoat , and red shoes. Betsy said afterwards that she did not mean to worrit Abednego and had no intention of pulling his tail. She merely wanted to stroke it to see if it was as velvety as it looked, and standing on tiptoe and stretching up her left hand she did so, and like a snake striking down came Abednego’s long hairy arm and skinny hand and snatched Gertrude from the crook of her right arm. Before she had time even to get her breath he had leapt from the top of the dresser, wrenched open the door beside it and vanished, carrying Gertrude with him. At once Betsy dashed in pursuit, for she was a brave child, and though she was no more than mildly fond of Gertrude, she had a very strong sense of personal property.
    The door closed itself behind her and she was in darkness . She ran and ran, and felt as she ran that the strangedark tunnel was taking her right into the heart of a mountain. She forgot this was a house. Now and then a faint glimmer of light suggested that other tunnels led off to