The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge

Author:Elizabeth Goudge [Elizabeth Goudge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780943350
Publisher: Hesperus Press Ltd.
Published: 2014-09-11T04:00:00+00:00

He stopped and listened intently, and Nan listened too, and she thought she heard a far-away unearthly music as though an army of little people the size of her thumb were singing on the other side of the world. Ezra nodded his head, as though in satisfaction, and taking the bunch of herbs and flowers from Nan he touched each hive once with it, bowed again and turned away down the garden path. Nan curtsied and followed him.

‘Did you hear it?’ she whispered when they were halfway back to the house.

‘What, maid?’ he asked, and he stopped and fixed her with his intensely bright eyes.

‘The far-away music,’ she said.

‘You ’eard it?’ he asked in astonishment. ‘You ’eard the singin’ o’ the bees?’

‘Was it the bees?’ she asked. ‘But they were asleep.’

‘Bees sing in their sleep,’ he said. ‘But ’tis not often mortal ears can ’ear ’em. Maid, you be one of ’em.’

‘What exactly do you mean?’ asked Nan, feeling a little scared.

‘I thought as you ’ad it in your ’eart the moment I set eyes on ee,’ said Ezra. Then, a little shamefaced, he corrected himself. ‘The moment I set eyes on ee an’ me sober.’

They had walked on and reached the well and paused there and Nan asked, ‘What have I in my heart?’

‘The gold, maid,’ he said. He stretched out a horny forefinger and laid it gently on her chest, to the left-hand side. ‘In your ’eart there be a nugget o’ pure gold an’ if you could see it you would see a shinin’ like a flame. There’s not many ’ave it, but them what do ’ave it can ’ear the bees singin’, an’ call the birds to their finger. An’ they can lay down their life for another.’

‘Birds don’t come to my finger,’ said Nan.

‘You must call ’em to ee,’ said Ezra. ‘You call ’em, maid, I reckon they’ll come.’

‘They come to you?’ Nan asked, and then added, ‘But of course they do. You have the gold.’

‘Maybe,’ he said soberly. ‘But maybe ’tis only the silver in my blood. You see, maid, there be three sorts o’ men an’ women in this world, the gold-’earted an’ the black-’earted an’ them what’s descended from the silver ones.’

‘Who are they?’ asked Nan.

‘They lived on this earth before ever the good God thought to make men an’ women, they was the elves an’ the gnomes an’ the giants, the fairy folk. That’s to say that in other countries they were called gods, an’ that the Greeks gave ’em names, Pan, Orpheus, Persephone an’ other names I don’t call to mind. But gods or fairies, maid, ’twas the same breed, an’ all of ’em with silver in their blood. Then, if so be you’ve read your bible, you’ll know there was war in ’eaven, the good angels fightin’ the bad angels. The bad angels was cast down to earth an’ a few o’ the good uns, them that was that angry they couldn’t loose their ’old, fell down to earth too, ’olding to the throats o’ the bad uns.

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