[Êàðòèíêà: i_033.jpg]
It was the ear of the little wooden horse!
And then he became aware of the young bat still murmuring and hissing in his ear, and repeating the words: “Bless it! Bless it! Bless it!” over and over again.
The priest was none the wiser, nor was he at all comforted by the bat’s instructions. Yet after all, if his good little friend were dead it was only right and proper to bury his ear with a suitable blessing. He went into the churchyard, still carrying the wooden ear, to get a spade from the toolshed and to find a quiet corner where he might bury it and say a blessing over his humble grave.
The bat became extremely agitated and even aggressive. When the priest tried to brush it away it beat his cheeks with its small wings and even bit the lobe of his ear till blood appeared. All the while it kept up its excited twittering: “Bless it! Bless it! Bless it!” till it became clear enough to the old priest that it did not intend him to bury the ear first.
Wiping the blood from his own ear he half turned his head towards the little bat and inquired mildly:
“And why are you asking me to bless it?”
This time the bat had some difficulty in getting out the words he wanted to say. After several attempts it stammered:
“Gobbolino!”
Then, delighted at mastering the name, it left his shoulder and flew back into the church, twittering:
“Gobbolino! Gobbolino! Gobbolino!.”
The priest followed it, carrying the wooden ear in his hand.
Standing in the nave, he sprinkled the ear with holy water and blessed it, first once, and then twice more, praying that its brave owner might be safe and sound, and find his way home from the witch’s territory without harm. The little bat perched on a choir stall, and seemed to take a deep interest in the proceedings.
The priest did not know what to do next. He walked to the door and looked out across the plain. It was past midday, and if Sootica’s word could be trusted the little wooden horse and Gobbolino ought to have passed through the village by now. No doubt she herself had already crossed the stream and was well on her way to the forest, or wherever she intended to look for a home. The priest did not think she would find it very easy to get one.
Perhaps the bat would take the ear back to its owner the way it had come? But the young bat seemed coy, and by its twitterings and mutterings he slowly made out its explanation that it was forbidden to go into the caves on the Hurricane Mountains where its elders had found new homes. It had to be content with living in a rabbit burrow at the foot of the mountain, and it did not want to return there at all. It had decided, it said, to go back to living in the bell tower, where at least it was warm and dry, and it did not get cold and wet at night.
Saying this, it flew swiftly round the church and disappeared above his head into the belfry, through the hole where the ropes hung down.
The priest did not feel inclined to climb the belfry stairs and chase it out. He guessed that, if he did, the bat would simply fly round and round the church and hide somewhere else.
Rather than waste his time on such a wild goose chase he thought it better to go himself to the Hurricane Mountains and find out what was happening, and why it was so important to bless the little wooden ear.
He waited all the afternoon for Gobbolino and the little wooden horse to appear, but when they did not, he carefully locked up the church for the night, and set out across the plain. The housekeeper’s brother-in-law, who had seen no sign of the bat in the house, stayed on to keep her company while the priest was out.
The young bat was frightened and lonely, but it hung itself up in a corner of the church and went to sleep.
17 THE MAGIC CIRCLE [Êàðòèíêà: i_034.jpg]
Gobbolino and the little wooden horse waited only long enough to hear the first snore from the sleeping witch. Then they fled from the cavern down the mountainside in the first rays of the sun, their hearts throbbing with anxiety.
They fully expected to arrive too late, and to find the good priest had been frizzled up in trying to cross the circle of magic fire. As they ran they met a few late bats, making their way home, and sure enough, some of them flying high had seen the old man advancing across the plain, and these were triumphantly certain that this must have been his fate.
“Yes! We saw him coming! And, yes, it was the priest from the church and none other! And, yes, if he has arrived he has probably been frizzled up by now! And serve him right, the horrid old man! Why couldn’t he let us alone? He can’t complain about us any morel We aren’t going back to his old church ever again! We don’t want to! We are quite comfortable where we are, with nobody flapping cloths at us, or shooting us with pellets if we dare to fly about outside! And those horrid, noisy old bells? We couldn’t move without their jangling, and whoever wants to hear them again?
“The young ones? Yes, they are grumbling and complaining outside the magic ring, but there aren’t many of them, and they ought to have come in with the rest of us. As far as we can tell they are making themselves some kind of homes in the rabbit burrows. Serve the priest right, we say, if he has met with the fate he deserves! The witch isn’t such a tiresome hag as she might seem!”
Gobbolino and the little wooden horse did not stop to listen to them. They were feeling more and more concerned for the old priest, and fairly galloped down the last part of the track, cutting and bruising themselves on the rough stones, and looking always ahead of them, where the pink flames of the magic fire had faded into the daylight and could no longer be seen.
And as they rounded the last corner before the mountain merged into the plain they came suddenly upon the old priest, not fifty yards beyond the rocks; his kind face broke into smiles as he saw them, and he held out his hands in delight at finding them safe and sound.
He was hurrying towards them when Gobbolino and the little wooden horse stopped short in their tracks and screamed at him to stop too, but a crowd of young bats flocked out of the rabbit burrows and twittered round his head.
It seemed at first as if they were warning him of the secret danger lying between him and the mountain, but soon it became apparent that on the contrary they were deafening his ears to the cries of Gobbolino and the little wooden horse. With shrill screams they were reproaching him, and blaming him for their exclusion from the mountain caves, and the homeless plight in which they found themselves. He struggled on, brushing them good-humouredly from his face and head.
“No! No!” Gobbolino cried out to him. “Don’t come any nearer! You will be burned alive!”
“There is a magic circle round the mountain!” the little wooden horse said. “The witch made it! You mustn’t come any closer!”
The priest could hardly hear their warning for the bats that were buzzing around his head.
“Throw us the blessing! Throw us the blessing!” Gobbolino urged. He knew by the warmth under their feet that they were very close to the edge of the spell.
“Throw it high in the air! Throw it very high!” the little wooden horse directed him, as the priest took the ear out of his pocket. He took a step or two forward in order to hurl it towards them.
“No! No!” cried Gobbolino. “Go back! Go back! You will be frizzled to pieces if you come any nearer! Throw it as high as you can!”
They danced on the edge of the spell while the priest, raising his arm to throw the little wooden ear, brushed away the swarming bats.
A small morning breeze came gusting across the plain, picking up sand and the odd leaf and tossing the priest’s cassock about his legs.
He shook his right arm free of the bats.
“Higher! Throw it higher!” called Gobbolino and the little wooden horse.