03 The Dwarf 03
Like most Dwarfs he was very stocky and deep-chested. He would have been about three feet high if he had been standing up, and an immense beard and whiskers of coarse red hair left little of his face to be seen except a beak-like nose and twinkling black eyes.
“Anyway,”he continued,“ghosts or not, you’ve saved my life and I’m extremely obliged to you.”
“But why should we be ghosts?”asked Lucy.
“I’ve been told all my life,”said the Dwarf,“that these woods along the shore were as full of ghosts as they were of trees. That’s what the story is. And that’s why, when they want to get rid of anyone, they usually bring him down here (like they were doing with me) and say they’ll leave him to the ghosts. But I always wondered if they didn’t really drown‘em or cut their throats. I never quite believed in the ghosts. But those two cowards you’ve just shot believed all right. They were more frightened of taking me to my death than I was of going!”
“Oh,”said Susan.“So that’s why they both ran away.”
“Eh? What’s that?”said the Dwarf.
“They got away,”said Edmund.“To the mainland.”
“I wasn’t shooting to kill, you know,”said Susan. She would not have liked anyone to think she could miss at such a short range.
“Hm,”said the Dwarf.“That’s not so good. That may mean trouble later on. Unless they hold their tongues for their own sake.”
“What were they going to drown you for?”asked Peter.
“Oh, I’m a dangerous criminal, I am,”said the Dwarf cheerfully.“But that’s a long story. Meantime, I was wondering if perhaps you were going to ask me to breakfast? You’ve no idea what an appetite it gives one, being executed.”
“There’s only apples,”said Lucy dolefully.
“Better than nothing, but not so good as fresh fish,”said the Dwarf.“It looks as if I’ll have to ask you to breakfast instead. I saw some fishing tackle in that boat. And anyway, we must take her round to the other side of the island. We don’t want anyone from the mainland coming down and seeing her.”
“I ought to have thought of that myself,”said Peter.
The four children and the Dwarf went down to the water’s edge, pushed off the boat with some difficulty, and scrambled aboard. The Dwarf at once took charge. The oars were of course too big for him to use, so Peter rowed and the Dwarf steered them north along the channel and presently eastward round the tip of the island. From here the children could see right up the river, and all the bays and headlands of the coast beyond it. They thought they could recognize bits of it, but the woods, which had grown up since their time, made everything look very different.
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