Knowing this, the villagers began to trample about the bank, pushing each other and shouting incoherently.
Jim Mole drew a revolver and levelled it at one of the fleeing backs.
“You can’t do that!” Greybeard exclaimed, stepping forward with raised hand.
Mole brought the revolver down and pointed it at Greybeard.
“You can’t shoot your own people,” Greybeard said firmly.
“Can’t I?” Mole asked. His eyes were like blisters on his antique skin. Trouter said something, and he lifted his revolver again and fired it into the air. The villagers looked round in startlement; then most of them began running again. Mole laughed.
“Let ’em go,” he said. “They’ll only kill ’emselves.”
“Use reason with them,” Greybeard said, coming closer. “They’re frightened. Firing on them’s no use.
Speak to them.”
“Reason! Get out of my way, Greybeard. They’re mad! They’ll die. We’re all going to die.”
“Are you going to let them go, Jim?” Trouter asked.
“You know the trouble with stoats as well as I do,” Mole said. “If they attack in force, we’ve not got enough ammunition to spare to shoot them. We haven’t got good enough bowmen to stop them with arrows.
So the sensible thing is to get across the river in our boat and stay there till the little vermin have gone.”
“They can swim, you know,” Trouter said.
“I know they can swim. But why should they? They’re after food, not fighting. We’ll be safe on the other side of the river.” He was shivering. “Can you imagine what a stoat attack must be like? You saw those people in that boat. Do you want that to happen to you?”
He was pale now, and looking anxiously about him, as if fearing that the stoats might be arriving already.
“We can shut ourselves in the barns and houses if they come,” Greybeard said. “We can defend ourselves without deserting the village. We’re safer staying put.”
Mole turned at him savagely, baring his teeth in a gaping snarl. “How many stoat-proof buildings have we got? You know they’ll come after the cattle if they’re really hungry, and then they’ll be all over us at the same time. Who gives orders here anyhow? Not you, Greybeard! Come on, Trouter, what are you waiting for?
Let’s get our boat brought out!”
Trouter looked momentarily disposed to argue. Instead, he turned and began shouting orders in his high-pitched voice. He and Mole brushed past Greybeard and ran towards the boathouse, calling, “Keep calm, you bloody cripples, and we’ll ferry you all across.”
The place took on the aspect of a well-stirred anthill. Greybeard noticed that Charley had vanished. The cruiser with the fugitives from Grafton was well down the river now and had negotiated the little weir safely.
As Greybeard stood by the bridge and watched the chaos, Martha came up to him.
His wife was a dignified woman, of medium height though she stooped a little as she clutched a blanket about her shoulders. Her face was slightly puddingy and pale, and wrinkled as if age had bound her skull tightly round the edges; yet because of her fine bone structure, she still retained something of the good looks of her youth, while the dark lashes that fringed her eyes still made them compelling.
She saw his far-away look.
“You can dream just as well at home,” she said.
He took her arm.
“I was wondering what lay at the end of the river. I’d give anything to see what life was like on the coast.
Look at us here – we’re so undignified! We’re just a rabble.”
“Aren’t you afraid of the stoats, Algy?”
“Of course I’m afraid of the stoats.” Then he smiled back at her, a little wearily. “And I’m tired of being afraid. Cooped up in this village for eleven years, we’ve all caught Mole’s sickness.”
They turned back towards their house. For once, Sparcot was alive. They saw men small in the meadowland, with anxious gestures hurrying their few cows in to shelter. It was against just such emergencies, or in case of flood, that the barns had been built on stilts; when the cattle were driven into them and the doors shut, ramps could be removed, leaving the cattle safe above ground.