The Wonderful Bed Page 12

  CHAPTER XII

  ENTER THE KNIGHT-MARE

  At first it was easy enough for the children to follow the narrowwinding path which the Sandman had pointed out, but soon they came toa part of the wood where the underbrush grew thicker and their pathlost itself in a network of other little paths spread out as if onpurpose to confuse them. Rudolf and Ann hurried along as fast as theycould go, but it was hard work to make their way through the tangledundergrowth where the twisted roots set traps for their feet--andcaught them, too, sometimes--while overhead the tall trees met andmingled their branches. From these hung down great masses of trailingvines and spreading creepers like long, lean, hairy arms stretchedout to bar their way. Rudolf had to stop now and then to hack at thesearms with his sword before he and Ann could pass through. Worst ofall--the thick growth of trees made the wood so dark that they couldnot see more than a few feet ahead of them.

  "Oh, Ruddy, I'm sure we're not on the right path any more," said Annat last. "Peter is so little--he never, never could have pushed hisway through here!"

  "N-no," admitted Rudolf. "Perhaps he couldn't, but maybe he stuck tothe right path, Ann, and if he did he's there by this time."

  "But I don't want him to get there!" poor Ann cried. "That would bemuch worse for him than being lost. If he's just around the woodsomewhere we can find him and bring him back and then coax Sandy tosend us all home by the toboggan-slide to Aunt Jane, but if he's foundthe Bad Dreams or they've found him--Oh, Ruddy, how do we know whatawful things they may be doing to him!"

  "Don't be a goose, Ann," said Rudolf stoutly, though he was reallybeginning to feel worried himself. "You know they are only dreams ifthey _are_ bad. What can a dream do, anyway? They're not real."

  "Oh, they're real enough," sighed little Ann. "Sometimes the things indreams are real-er than real things. I'm 'fraid enough of real cows,but _they_ can't walk up-stairs like the dream cows can--and, oh, Iremember the dream I dreamed about the Dentist-man, after I had mytooth pulled, the one father gave me the dollar for--and--"

  "Bother!" said Rudolf. "I've had lots worse dreams than cows anddentists. P'licemen and Indian chiefs, and--oh, heaps of things, and Ididn't really mind 'em, either, but then I'm braver than--"

  "Sh!" interrupted Ann, stopping and catching at Rudolf's arm. "I hearsomething--something queer. Listen!"

  "I hear something--something queer."]

  Rudolf listened. "I don't hear anything," he said at last. "What wasit like?"

  "Oh, such a creepy, crawly sound, and--Oh, Ruddy--there is a face--seeit? A horrid little face peeping out at us from behind that tree!"

  Rudolf saw the face too, a winking, blinking, leering, little facemuch like the one that had grinned at Ann from the post of the big bednot so very long ago.

  All at once as the children looked about them, they began to see faceseverywhere, faces in the crotches of the trees, faces where thebranches crossed high above their heads, faces even in the undergrowthabout their feet. It reminded Rudolf of the puzzle pictures he and Annwere so fond of studying where you have to look and look before youcan find the hidden people, but when once you have found them youwonder how you could have been so stupid as not to have spied themlong before. He heard distinctly now the noises Ann had heard. It wasas if the hidden places of the wood were full of small live thingswhich were gathering together and coming toward the children fromevery direction, closing them in on every side. Then somebody laughedin a high cracked voice just behind them, one of Ann's curls wassharply pulled, and Rudolf's precious sword was plucked from his handand tossed upon the ground. Still they could see no bodies to whichthe little faces could belong, and they began to feel very queerindeed.

  Then came the laugh again, repeated a number of times and coming nowfrom directly over their heads where the branches of a great beechtree swept almost to the ground. Rudolf and Ann looked up just in timeto catch sight of the queer little creatures who were looking down atthem from between the beech leaves. It was no wonder they had been sohard to see, for they were dressed in tight-fitting suits of furexactly the color of the bark, and had small pointed fur hoods upontheir heads which made them look very much like squirrels. Even nowthat the children had spied them out, it was impossible to examinethem closely for they were never quiet, never in the same place morethan an instant, but swung themselves restlessly from bough to bough,then to the ground and back again in two jumps, peeping, peering,racing each other along the branches, all the time without theslightest noise other than was made by their light feet among theleaves and the two laughs the children had heard.

  Rudolf picked up his sword, and said in as bold a voice as he couldmanage--"Please, could any of you tell us the right path to--"

  A burst of sharp squeals, shrill laughs, and jeering remarksinterrupted his question. The whole company of queer creatures droppedto the ground at the same time, and instantly formed a circle aboutthe children, snapping their little white teeth, and grinning andchattering like monkeys.

  "Are you the Bad Dreams?" asked Rudolf. Then, as a burst of laughtercontradicted this idea--"Who are you, then?"

  "Who are we? Who are we?" mocked the creatures. "O-ho, hear the human!Doesn't know us--never got scolded on _our_ account, did he, did he?_Oh_, no; _oh_, no! Bite him, snatch him, scratch him! _Catch_ him!"

  Closer and closer the horrid little things pressed about the twochildren. "What do you mean, anyway?" cried Rudolf, keeping them backwith his foot as best he could. "Who are you? You're squirrels--that'sall you are!"

  "Squirrels!" The leader of the little wretches seemed furious at theidea. "No, no," he screamed, making a dash at Rudolf's leg with hissharp teeth. "We're Fidgets, Fidgets, Fidgets! Don't you know theFidgets when you see 'em, you great blundering human, you? An old,_old_ family, that's what we are. Guess Methuselah had the Fidgetssometimes, guess he did, did, did!" With every one of the last threewords he made a snatch at Rudolf, trying his best to bite him, and atthe same time dodging cleverly the blows Rudolf was now dealing on allsides with his sword.

  Ann had picked up a little stick and was doing her best to help Rudolfin his battle. "I know you," she cried, turning angrily on theFidgets, "you horrid little things! I've had you often, in school justbefore it's out, and in church, and when mother takes me out to makecalls--you've disgraced her often--" Then she stopped, really afraidof saying too much. The Fidgets, with a wild squeal, now began a madsort of dance round and round the two children, giving them now a nip,now a pinch, now a sharp pull till they were dizzy and frightened andweary of trying to defend themselves against such unequal numbers.

  All at once, above the shrill cries of their enemies, the childrenheard a new sound, a crackling rustling noise in the bushes as if somelarge creature was making its way through the wood. The Fidgets heardit, too, and in a twinkling they had hushed their shrill voices,broken their circle, and completely hidden themselves from sight. Itwas all so sudden that Rudolf and Ann had no time to run, but stoodperfectly still, gazing at the bushes just in front of them from whichthe noises came.

  As they looked the bushes were parted, and a long lean head pokeditself through, a large black head with a white streak down its nose,and two great mournful eyes that stared into theirs. Ann gave a littlescream and shrank closer to Rudolf. The creature opened a wide mouththat showed enormous, ugly, yellow teeth, and said in a rough but notunfriendly voice: "Hullo! Oats-and-Broadswords--if it's not a coupleof lost colts! Where'd you come from, youngsters?"

  Without waiting for them to answer, it crashed through the bushes andstood before them, a curious sight, indeed the strangest they had yetseen in the course of their adventures. What they had thought was ahorse from the sight of its head, was a horse no farther down than theshoulders, all the rest of him was a Knight, a splendid knight in fullarmor of shining steel. He was without weapon of any kind, and evenwhile the children shrank from the sight of his big ugly head with itssad eyes and long yellow teeth, they saw that this was not a creatureto be much afraid of.
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br />   "Well, I scared 'em away, didn't I?" he asked triumphantly, and then,hanging his head a little, he added in rather a humble tone, "It'spretty poor sport hunting Fidgets, I know, but it's about all I canget nowadays. Hope they didn't hurt you?" he added politely.

  "Not a bit," said Rudolf, "but I'm sure I'm glad you came along whenyou did, for I don't know how we ever would have got rid of thebeastly little things. Only when we first saw you, we thought--"

  "Oh, I know," interrupted the stranger hastily--"you thought it wassomething worse. That's it, that's just my luck! I'm the gentlestcreature in the world and everybody's afraid of me. My business," heexplained, turning to Ann, "is to redress wrongs and to see after theladies, but--bless you--they won't let me get near enough to doanything for 'em!" A great tear rolled down his long nose as he spoke,and he looked so silly that Ann and Rudolf could hardly help laughingat him, though they did not in the least want to be rude.

  "And then," continued the creature, sobbing, "I'm so divided in myfeelings. If I were only _all_ Knight, now, or even all Mare, I'd bethankful, but a Knight-mare is an unsatisfactory sort of thing to be."

  "A Knight-mare--Oh, how dreadful!" cried Ann, drawing away from him."Is _that_ what you are?"

  "There! You see how it is!" exclaimed the Knight-mare, tossing hislong black mane. "Nobody's got any sympathy for me. How would _you_like it? Suppose you were a little girl only as far as your shouldersand all the rest of you hippopotamus, eh?"

  "I wouldn't like it at all," said Ann, after thinking a moment.

  "Then no more do I," said the Knight-mare, and sighed a long sad sigh.

  "Would you mind telling us how it happened?" asked Rudolf politely.

  "Not at all," said the Knight-mare. "You see I was a great boy forfighting in the old days--though you mightn't think it to see menow--and I used to ride forth to battle on my coal-black steed, thisvery mare whose head I'm wearing now. Well, of course I was a terrorto my enemies, used to scare 'em into fits, and I suppose it was oneof those very fellows that got me into this fix, dreamed me into itone night, you know, only he got me and my steed mixed. We've stayedmixed ever since, and the worst of it is I oughtn't to be a Bad Dreamat all. I was the nicest kind of a Good Dream once--why I belonged toa lady who lived in a castle, and she thought a lot of me, she did!"

  "It's too bad," said Rudolf sympathetically; "but isn't there anythingyou can do about it?"

  "Nothing," groaned the Knight-mare, "nothing at all. At least not tillI can find a way to get rid of this ugly head of mine. If there wasanybody big enough and brave enough, now, to--" He interrupted hisspeech to stoop down and snatch up something from the grass. It wasRudolf's sword which he had dropped from his hand in his wearinessafter his battle with the Fidgets. "What's this?" the Knight-marecried. "Hurrah, a sword!"

  "My sword," said Rudolf, stretching out his hand for it.

  "Just the thing for cutting heads off!" cried the Knight. "Will youlend it to me, like a good fellow? Mine is lost."

  "What for?" asked Rudolf suspiciously.

  "Why, to cut my head off with, of course, or better yet, perhapsyou'll do it for me. Come, now! Just to oblige me?"

  Rudolf took back his sword, while Ann gave a little scream and seizedboth the Knight's mailed hands in hers. "I'm sorry not to oblige you,"said Rudolf firmly, "but I can't do anything of the sort. I never cutanybody's head off in my life, and the sword's not so awful sharp,you know, and then how can you tell a new head will grow at your timeof life?"

  "Oh, I'd risk that," said the Knight-mare lightly. "I do wish you'dthink it over. If you knew what a life mine is! All my days spentbrowsing round on shoots here in the wood, without a single adventurebecause nobody's willing to be rescued by the likes of me! And thenthe nights! Oh"--groaned the poor fellow--"the nights are the worst ofall!"

  "What do you do then?" asked Rudolf and Ann.

  "Oh, I'm ridden to death," sighed the Knight-mare. "As if it wasn'tbad enough to scare folks all day _not_ meaning to, without being sentout nights to do it on purpose!" He looked over his shoulder as if hewas afraid some one might be listening, and then added in a lowvoice, "And it's not my fault, either, I swear it's not. _They_actually make me do it!"

  The children shivered, for they guessed at once that "they" meant theBad Dreams. Then they suddenly recollected poor little Peter, whomtheir last adventure and the Knight-mare's talk had quite put out oftheir minds.

  "I tell you what," said Rudolf suddenly, "I'll make a bargain withyou. My little brother has run away to find the Bad Dreams, and wehave got to find him and bring him back. If you'll lead us to him andhelp us all you can, why--why--I won't promise--but I'll see what Ican do for you."

  The Knight-mare gave a loud triumphant neigh. "Ods-bodikins and branmash!" he cried. "You're worth rescuing for nothing, the whole lot ofyou! But"--he added mournfully--"I ought to warn you to keep awayfrom that crowd--they're a bad lot. You'd do better to cut alonghome."

  "We can't do that," cried Rudolf and Ann together.

  "Then come with me," said the Knight-mare. "It's only a short wayto--"

  He was suddenly interrupted by a fresh commotion in the wood. Heavybodies were parting the undergrowth back of where they stood. Beforethe children could think of escape, four strange figures sprang onthem from behind, their arms were seized, they were tripped up, andthey landed very hard upon the ground. Both knew in a moment what hadhappened. The Bad Dreams had caught them!