Greybeard

He was a lively octogenarian, judging by appearance, a sprightly grotesque with a tatter of red and violet capillaries running from one cheekbone to another over the alp of his nose. His beard and top-knot formed one continuous conflagration of hair, tied bottom and top below jaw and above crown, and dyed a deep tangerine. He danced like a skeleton and motioned to them.

“Are you alone? Can we put in here?” Greybeard called. “I don’t like the look of him — let’s press on,” Jeff Pitt called, labouring his boat up through the panes of ice. “We don’t know what we’re letting ourselves in for.” The skeleton cried something unintelligible, jumping back when Greybeard climbed ashore. He clutched some red and green beads that hung round his neck. “Sirrer vine daver zwimmin,” he said. “Oh — fine day for swimming! You have been swimming? Isn’t it cold? Aren’t you afraid of cutting yourself on the ice?”

“Warreryer zay? Diddy zay zomminer bout thize?”

“He doesn’t seem to understand me any better than I can understand him,” Greybeard remarked to the others in the boats. But with patience, he managed to penetrate the skeleton’s thick accent. His name appeared to be Norsgrey, and he was a traveller. He was staying with his wife, Lita, in the barn they saw through the ash trees. He would welcome the company of Greybeard and his party.

Like Charley’s fox, the sheep were all on tethers. They were made to jump ashore, where they immediately began cropping the harsh grasses. The humans dragged their boats up and secured them. They stood stretching themselves, to force the chill and stiffness from their limbs. Then they made towards the barn, moving their legs painfully. As they became used to the skeleton’s accent, what he had to say became more intelligible, though in content his talk was wild.

His preoccupation was with badgers. Norsgrey believed in the magical power of badgers. He had a daughter, he told them, who would be nearly sixty now, who had run off into the woods (“when they was a-seeding and a-branching themselves up to march forth and strangle down the towns of man”) and she had married a badger. There were badger men in the woods now who were her sons, and badger girls her daughters, black and white in their faces, very lovely to behold.

“Are there stoats round here?” Martha asked, cutting off what threatened to be a long monologue. Old Norsgrey paused outside the barn and pointed into the lower branches of a tree. “There’s one now, a-looking down at us, Mrs. Lady, sitting in its wicked little nest as cute as you like. But he won’t touch us ‘cos he knows as I’m related to the badgers by matterrimony.” They stared and could see only the pale grey twigs of ash thrusting black-capped into the air. Inside the barn, an ancient reindeer lay in the half-dark, its four broad hooves clumped together. Becky gave a shriek of surprise as it turned its ancient sullen face towards them. Hens clucked and scattered at their entrance.

“Don’t make a lot of row,” Norsgrey warned them. “Lita’s asleep, and I don’t want her wakened. I’ll turn you out if you disturb her, but if you’re quiet, and give me a bite of supper, I’ll let you stay here, nice and warm and comfortable — and safe from all those hungry stoats outside.”

“What ails your wife?” Towin asked. “I’m not staying in here if there’s illness.”

”Don’t you insult my wife. She’s never had an illness in her life. Just keep quiet and behave.”

“I’ll go and get our kit from the boat,” Greybeard said. Charley and the fox came back to the river with him. As they loaded themselves, Charley spoke with some show of embarrassment, looking not at Greybeard but at the cool grey landscape.

“Towin and his Becky would have stayed at the place where the dead man sat in his kitchen,” he said. “They didn’t care to come any further, but we persuaded them. That’s right, isn’t it, Greybeard?”

“You know it is.”

“Right. What I want to ask you, then, is this. How far are we going? What are you planning? What have you got in mind?” Greybeard looked at the river. “You’re a religious man, Charley. Don’t you think God might have something in mind for us?” Charley laughed curtly. “That would sound better if you believed in God yourself. But suppose I thought

He had in mind for us to settle down here, what would you do? I don’t see what you are aiming on doing.”

“We’re not far enough from Sparcot to stop yet. They might make an expedition and catch us here.”

“You know that’s nonsense as well as I do. Truth of the matter is, you don’t really know where you want to go, or why, isn’t that it?” Greybeard looked at the solid face of the man he had known for so long. “Each day I become more sure. I want to get to the mouth of the river, to the sea.” Nodding, Charley picked up his equipment and started to trudge back towards the barn. Isaac led the way.