The Whispering Mountain by Joan Aiken Page B

fowl, bless me!” the man remarked, trying very hard to see what was written on the paper. Arabis slipped it quickly into her glove but not before she had had time to read the printed words:

    The Infatiable gluttony of the Peacock tends to alienate our attachment from it, while the harfh fcream of its voice diminifhes the pleafure received from its Brilliancy.

    A page from Owen’s precious little book! But how curious! How had Hawc come by it? And where could Owen be?
    â€œEr—excuse me, sir,” she murmured hastily. “Leave you I must, now, I am afraid. No trouble at all to find the Devil’s Leap you will have; anyone in the town will be
telling you. My dada is wanting his breakfast now, just, see.”
    In fact, as she well knew, this last was hardly true. She reached the caravan to find Tom Dando wreathed in paper and streaked with ink, scribbling away at his poem; verses poured out of him like water from a spring. One or two people were waiting to buy medicine or have their hair cut; luckily they seemed in no hurry and kept respectfully silent, sitting in the sun on the steps outside the van as the sheets of paper piled up higher and higher inside. Arabis glanced in, to make sure Owen was not there—which he was not—and then whispered,
    â€œDown the town I am going, Dada. Back home in time to make your dinner!”
    Her father nodded abstractedly; his right hand with the quill never for a moment stopped its gallop across the paper. Arabis left him and threaded her way through the fair; a number of people were stirring now, fetching water, blowing on the ashes of last night’s fire, grilling bacon. Before entering the town she made sure that the foreign gentleman was not following her.
    Just before she reached the first houses, Arabis loosened a long tress of her fine black hair and held it up for the falcon to take in his beak.
    â€œEasy now with the pulling, Hawc, my little one,” she said. “Remember hair will come clean out if you will be tugging too hard.”
    Keeping his beak firmly clenched on the strand, Hawc flew slowly off, with long easy flaps of his wings, and Arabis followed him at her swiftest walking pace, sometimes breaking into a run.

    Right down the cobbled street and through the little town of Nant Agerddau they went—bakers, butchers, and grocers were still shuttered, and the whisper of Fig-hat Ben, up above the rooftops, was the only sound to be heard. Midway along stood the new town hall, backed against the cliff, and by it, with pillars and a portico, very grand, was the entrance to the big cave, a long, high tunnel leading into the mountain. Arabis thought, as she sped past, that she caught a glimpse of a fat, fur-coated figure standing a short way inside the tunnel. He had his back turned and did not seem to notice her.
    Hawc, eager to reach his objective, flapped along faster and faster, giving Arabis some terrible tweaks; she could run like a deer but there was no possible hope of keeping pace with him when he flew at top speed.
    â€œWait you now, you old mule of a bird, os gwelwch yn dda!” she panted. “Will you be having the scalp off me?”
    He gave an apologetic croak, “Hek, hek, hek!” and slowed down a little, but soon forgot and began going faster again.
    â€œWchw!” Arabis gasped. “I have a stitch on me that could have been made by Cleopatra’s Needle, indeed!”
    But catching Hawc’s anxiety she ran as fast as she could; in little more than ten minutes they had left the town behind them and entered the stretch of narrower gorge below.
    â€œTaking me to those empty houses, are you?” Arabis said, much puzzled. “Are you sure the sense is not clean gone from you, you old gwalch?”
    But the falcon drew her on steadily, though now more slowly; it was plain he disliked the neighbourhood, and
Arabis could see why, for the whole overhang of cliff above seemed likely to topple