Mary Norton - Bed-Knob and Broomstick

"Such a time getting here," she complained testily. "Asking, asking. And such rudeness." Still Emelius did not speak. He was shivering as if, suddenly, he had come alive to the cold.

"Not a soul that seems to understand the king's English," went on the angry voice. She was panting slightly as if she held herself up by her own efforts. "I don't see how you've stood it. And the dirt, the untidiness, the smells . . . but we won't go into that now-" She slipped out of sight with a sharp exclamation. Then, after a moment, she appeared again. ."Lost my foothold," she explained. "I'm in a very awkward position. But you're locked in, and there's no room for the bed." Emelius moistened his lips with his tongue. His eyes were fixed on the face at the window.

"They swam me in the horsepond," he moaned, as if he were talking to himself. "In the horsepond-" "Well, never mind," said Miss Price briskly. "Don't dwell on it!" She looked down, and Emelius heard her say indistinctly: "Well, move your finger, Carey. It's your own fault. I didn't mean to tread on it." There was a pause, then he heard Miss Price say: "Yes, he's all right. Very wet. But the cell's too small for the bed." She peered in at him. "Just a minute," she said, and disappeared.

He heard the gentle sound of voices. He lay back. Thankfulness^ crept up from his toes, up and up, until his heart swelled from it, and it forced tears from his eyes-hot painful tears that squeezed out from between his closed lids. Miss Price was here. She would save him. Miss Price never undertook a thing she did not finish, and Miss Price did everything so well.

After a while she appeared again. "Now," she said, "you must pull yourself together. We're not going to let you be burned, but we can't stay here. It's broad daylight, and I'm standing on the bed rail-" "Don't go!" begged Emelius.

"I must go, for the moment, and find a place for the bed. There's going to be a storm. And it was such nice weather when we left home." "What shall I do?" gasped Emelius.

"There's nothing for you to do at the moment, and there are two men at the main door playing dice. You must keep calm and try not to fuss." She looked at him speculatively. "Tidy yourself up a bit and you'll feel better." Then, once more, she disappeared.

This time she did not come back, and, after a while, Emelius, because Miss Price had told him to, began picking long strands of green slime off his furred-trimmed robe. He found a water beetle up his sleeve, and his shoes were full of mud. Yes, she would save him, but how? It was not going to be easy. The barred window, sunk deep in the wall, was only a foot square, and the locked door was made of iron.

9 AND YET SO FAR "She's an awful long time coming," said Carey.

The three children sat on the bed in a disused cow-byre. The ground was trodden and dusty, and a pile of grayish hay rotted in the corner. Through the broken door they could see a bleak field below a dark and lowering sky. It was a dismal place but, as Miss Price had pointed out, a secluded one in which to hide the bed. She had gone off, wrapped in her black cloak, broomstick in one hand and sword in the other, to see what could be done for Emelius.

"She's been gone an hour, about," said Charles, walking to the door. The dark sky had a whitish streak in it, which shed an unreal, livid light on the trees and hedges. There was a sudden quivering brightness. Charles dodged back as a rumbling arch of thunder unrolled itself above the roof. "It startled me," he said.

"Do you think we ought to go and look for her?" asked Carey.

"What about the bed? Someone ought to stay and watch it." "Nobody will come here," said Carey. "They're all gone to the burning. I think that we ought all to go or all to stay. Not split up." Charles looked thoughtfully across the field toward the gate that led into the road. "Let's all go then," he said.

At the doorway Carey glanced back at the bed. It stood incongruously bright, with its legs sunk deep in dust and broken straw. I wonder if we shall see it again, she thought to herself. I wonder what we are letting ourselves in for.

As they walked along, in the gloomy light, between the uneven houses and their deserted gardens, they looked around them curiously. It was not very different from parts of England they knew. New houses squatted beside old ones. An inn sign creaked in a sudden gust of wind, but the inn was deserted. Everyone had gone to the burning.

"Smithfield," said Charles, "where the meat market is. It's really part of London, but it looks like country." Horses and carts were tethered to posts. There were a great many half-starved cats about and rough-coated, mangy-looking dogs, which ran slyly down the alleyways, but there were no people. Old bones and rags and broken pan-lids lay in the gutters, and there was a strong smell of tanning. ~As they walked, they began to hear the murmur of a crowd.

"Look!" said Carey in a low voice.

A richly dressed man was leading a horse out of a stable yard. He wore leather boots or leggings, which came up to his thighs, and a skirted coat. Lace fell over his wrists as far as his knuckle bones, and a great dark wig moved heavily on his shoulders. As they came abreast of him, they smelt his perfume, a strange, rich, spicy smell, which mingled oddly with the stench of the tannery. Preparing to mount, he stared at them wonderingly. His pale face was full of disapproval. Carey nervously put up her hand to cover her safety pin, but he was not looking at their clothes. Something deeper seemed to worry him. "A poor wretch burned at the stake," he said as they passed close beside him, "a fine sight for children!" Carey stared back at him with frightened eyes. She felt as you always feel when a complete stranger speaks to you angrily. As the clatter of his hoofs died away behind them, the children walked in silence. They felt guilty, as if it were their fault that Emelius was to be burned alive.

Then suddenly the road opened into a square, or green, and they came upon the crowd. It was like a painting Carey had seen somewhere, or like a historical film, except it was more colorful than a painting and dirtier than a historical film. Boys had climbed trees and railings; every window was full of people. Above the babble of talk certain voices were heard calling some indistinct, monotonous phrase. Carey jumped when just behind her a woman yodeled: "Fair lemons and oranges. Oranges and citrons." They could get in no closer. They were jammed close beside a fat woman with three children and what seemed to be the railings of a cattle pen. The fat woman, who wore a white cap round her red face, with a hat on top of it, was breaking a cake for her children. It smelt of cinnamon and made Carey feel hungry.

Carey put her foot on the bottom rail of the cattle pen and pushed herself up between the knees of the boys who sat on top of it. Ah, now she could see the stake! It was raised only a little above the crowd. Two men with muskets slung on their backs were busy with ropes. When they moved aside, she saw Emelius, a limp, sagged figure. He was tied round the chest. She could not see any lower than his knees. She could not see the fagots. There was no sign of Miss Price.

Charles climbed up beside her. She heard him exclaim when he saw Emelius, and then Paul was pulling at the skirt of her dressing gown.

"Could I have a toffee apple?" he said.

Carey stepped down. Paul was too young to see Emelius burn, or even be told about it. "We haven't any money, Paul," Carey explained kindly, "to buy toffee apples," but she looked round and there indeed was a woman with a tray slung round her neck selling toffee apples right and left-toffee apples and lollipops on sticks. The woman with the three children gave Paul a piece of cinnamon cake. She stared at them curiously. "She notices our clothes," thought Carey.