Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

Author:Hope Mirrlees
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, Masterwork
Published: 2011-10-11T15:40:20+00:00

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

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