There was a shrill chattering sound, like a flock of disturbed starlings, and all the brown and gold and silver faces were turned up to him, and everyone froze motionless.
Then a slender man, one of the gold people, with a gold jerkin, and pointed gold shoes, came to the foot of the tunnel, down which Pig was peering. He wore a most lovely cloak, made of the soft blue and soot- black and lemon-yellow feathers of blue-tits and great-tits, and a kind of high-crowned hat, with a feather in its ribbon.
“You can come in,” he said. “You are welcome.”
“I am too big,” said Pig, who had always been too small for anything he tried to do.
“You must eat fernseed,” said the little man. “Do you know where it is to be found?”
“Underneath the leaves’ fingers,” said Pig, who was observant. He looked about him, and there were pale ferns, glimmering in the shadow of the thornbush. He was an impulsive child. He did not think, is this safe? Or, how will I get back if this works? He picked a fernleaf, and scratched the seeds from underneath the fronds, and put two or three on his tongue, and swallowed them. Then he turned back to the tunnel under the roots and picked up his stone and looked through.
It is very difficult to describe his sensations during the next few moments. He was, at exactly the same time, looking at a small mousehole, or wormhole, into which two of his plump fingers might have fitted with difficulty, and balancing himself on a kind of ledge above a broad, deep, rough stairway with huge steps cut in mud and leading steeply down. Worse, his lovely stone was at the same time fitted as it always was into his little fist, and become as heavy as a tombstone.
“Courage, Pucan,” said the voice of the little man, whom he could not see, for the tunnel had grown very long and was full of a kind of mist.
“My name is Perkin,” said Pig.
“Amongst us, it will be Pucan. Everything is different here.”
There was a moment when Pig, or Pucan, thought of drawing back.
But his body felt full of the mist which was in the earthy hole, and he could hear the little voices calling through the mist, and the fair folk leaping and singing, like tiny musical hammers on glass. So he lifted a foot, which was at the same time as heavy as lead and as light as a feather, and dragged it over the rim of the hole. And when that was done, there he was, a tiny manikin, lithe and wiry, running easily down and down into the hall. And when he made his way into it, there was the golden man, now taller than Pucan was, and a silver lady, and they welcomed him ceremoniously and with laughter. They said they were the king and queen of the Portunes, Huron and Ailsa, and he was welcome to their midst. And everyone joined in a circular, mazy dance, capering and pointing their toes, and Pig found that he knew the step as well as the next dancer, and that he could sing the tunes with the best of them.
In the world outside it was getting dark, and Mother Goose had tidied her kitchen, put away the marbles and put the pie in the oven, where it was giving out a tasty smell. She had washed and dressed her wound and brushed and knotted her hair. And for a time she had enjoyed the silence. It was quiet and orderly. And then, because she was a mother, she had begun to wonder what had happened to Pig. So she went to the door and called him, softly, in the evening air, and then louder, with a note of irritation and alarm in her voice. But everywhere was silent. There were none of the usual noises, no owl screeching, no wing flapping on its way to a roost. The air felt thick, like jelly setting. She thought Pig must be hiding to annoy her, but she wasn’t sure she believed herself. She caught up her shawl and went out to look for him. By then, all the other children were back in the kitchen, so she told them to look after each other, and to look out for Pig, and shout to her, if he came back.
And then she walked, in the dusk, hurrying and calling, like a hen whose chicks had wandered away. She walked faster and faster, in wider and wider circles, and the silence thickened round her voice. At first she called, Pig, Piggy, and then, to make it more enticing, Little Pig, and finally, because Pig sounded suddenly bad in her ears, in the dark, she called Perkin, Perkin. But there was no answer and darkness fell, and the giant silver- gold moon rose over the shrubbery, shining blindly, making different shadows. And she had to go in again, for she had many many children to feed and put to bed, and it was late, and Perkin-Pig did not answer.
The next day, he had not come back, and she resumed her search. She searched, and kept the house distractedly, and searched again, day after day, her voice more and more weary and forlorn. She ranged widely, in lanes and fields where Pig had never been. She went through and through the shrubbery, which had resumed its usual life and noises, birds, mice, snail-shells under her feet. And one day—after a long time—she noticed little Pig’s self-bored stone, shining whitely, half-buried under a root. And she picked it up and began to cry, and put the stone’s opening to her weeping eye.
She was simply looking around, not searching for anything, when she saw the opening of the hole, or tunnel. And for some reason she felt she must look into the hole through the stone—reminding herself as she did so of Pig’s irritating little ways, which seemed more charming with hindsight. And she saw the warm brown hall, and the gold, silver and brown people, all at their work, weaving and stitching, polishing and broiling, and a gathering sitting at table, amongst whom she saw Pig-Perkin, comfortably clothed in a nut-coloured jerkin and leggings.
She tried to speak but could only make little wailing sounds.
Pig looked up. What he saw was a huge single eye, veined with red, brimming with salt water, surrounded by long wet hairs, blocking the way out through the tunnel. He dropped the gold beaker he was drinking from. Then she heard her voice, as she found it, and said “Pig, little Pig, where are you?”
“You can see,” he said. “I’m on a visit. To my friends the Portunes. I have a new name. I have work to do, down here, and I shall go out and look after growing things, with the others—”
He was swimming around in front of her tear-filled eyes. She thought he seemed to have become ageless, neither boy nor man. She said
“Come home.”
He replied that she had told him not to. “You know I didn’t mean it,” she said.
“Words have their own life,” said King Huron, coming to the foot of the tunnel. “Go home, woman. Pucan is in a good place here.”
She said something about getting a spade, about digging them out, like ants.
There was a terrible buzzing in the hall, then, more like angry hornets. The King
