The People that Lived in Hiding
S O L E M N - pronunciation (soul + m) [ADJECTIVE] formal or dignified in a manner where a character commits to keep promises, "a quiet sedate nature."
Now began the happiest times that Caspian had ever known. On a fine summer morning when the dew lay on the grass he ser off with the Badger and the two Dwarfs, up through the forest to a high saddle in the mountains and down on to their sunny southern slopes where one looked across the green folds of Archer Land.
"We will go first to the Three Bulgy Bears," said Trumpkin leading the way.
They came in a glade to an old hollow oak tree covered with moss, and Truffle Hunter tapped with his paw three times on the trunk and there was no answer.
Then he tapped again and a woolly sort of voice from inside said, "Go away. It's not time to get up yet." Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. But when he tapped the third time there was a noise like a small earthquake from inside and a sort of door opened and out came three brown bears very bulgy indeed and blinking their little eyes.
And when everything has been explained to them (which took a long time because they were so sleepy) they said, just as Truffle Hunter had said, that a Son of Adam ought to be King of Narnia and all kissed Caspian - very wet, snugly kisses they were - and offered him so honey. Caspian did not really want honey, without bread, at that time in the morning, but he thought it polite to accept. It took him a long time afterwards to get un sticky.
After that they went on till they came among tall beech trees, and Truffle Hunter called out, "Patter Twig!" Patter Twig! Patter Twig!" and almost at once, bounding down from branch to branch till he was just above their heads, came the most magnificent red Squirrel that Caspian had ever seen.
He was far bigger than the ordinary dumb squirrels which he had sometimes seen in the castle gardens; indeed he was nearly the size of a terrier and the moment you looked in his face you saw that he could talk. Indeed the difficulty was to get him to stop talking, for, like all squirrels, he was a chatterer. He welcomed Caspian at once and asked if he would like a nut and Caspian said thanks, he would.
But as Patter Twig went bounding away to fetch it, Truffle Hunter whispered in Caspian's ear," Don't look. Look the other way. It's very bad manners among squirrels to watch anyone going to his store or to look as if you wanted to know where it was."
Then Patter Twig came back with a nut and Caspian ate it and after that Patter Twig asked if he could take any messages to other friends. "For I can go nearly everywhere without setting foot to ground," he said.
Truffle Hunter and the Dwarfs thought this a very good idea and gave Patter Twig messages to all sorts of people with queer names telling them all to come to a feast and council on Dancing Lawn at midnight three nights ahead.
"And you'd better tell the Three Bulgy Bears too," added Trumpkin. "We forgot to mention it to them."
Their next visit was to the Seven Brothers of Shuddering Wood. Trumpkin pointed the way back to the saddle and then down eastward on the northern slope of the mountains till they came to a very solemn place among rocks and fir trees. They went very quietly and presently Caspian could feel the ground shake under his feet as if someone were hammering down below. Trumpkin went to a flat stone about the size of the top of a water - butt.
Then he stamped on it with his foot. After a long pause it was moved away by someone or something underneath, and there was a dark, round hole with a good deal of heat and steam coming out of it and in the middle of the hole the head of a Dwarf very like Trumpkin himself. There was a long talk here and the Dwarf seemed more suspicious than the Squirrel or the Bulgy Bears had been, but in the end the whole party was invited to come down.
Caspian found himself descending a dark stairway into the earth, but when he came to the bottom he saw firelight. It was the light of a furnace. The whole place was a smithy. A subterranean stream ran past on one side of it. Two Dwarfs were at the bellows, another was holding a piece of red - hot metal on the anvil with a pair of tongs, a fourth was hammering on it, and two, wiping their horny little hands on a greasy cloth.
Now were coming forward to meet the visitors. It took some time to satisfy them that Caspian was a friend and not an enemy, but when they did, they all cried, "Long live the King," and their gifts were noble - mail shirts and helmets and swords for Caspian and Trumpkin and Nika Brick. The Badger could have had the same if he had liked, but he said he was a beast, he was, and if if his claws and teeth could not keep his skin whole, it wasn't worth keeping.
The workmanship of the arms was far finer than any Caspian had ever seen, and he gladly accepted the Dwarf - made sword instead of his own, which looked, in comparison, as feeble as a toy and as clumsy as a stick. The seven brothers (who were all Red Dwarfs) promised to come to the feast at Dancing Lawn. A little farther on, in a dry, rocky ravine, they reached the cave of five Black Dwarfs.
They looked suspiciously at Caspian, but in the end the eldest of them said, "If he is against Milan, we'll have him for King."
And the next oldest said, "Shall we go father up for you, up to the crags? There's an Ogre or two and a Hag that we could introduce you to, up there."
"Certainly not," responded Caspian.
"I should think not, indeed," said Truffle Hunter.
"We want none of that sort on our side." Nika Brick disagreed with this, but Trumpkin and the Badger overruled him.
It gave Caspian a shock to realize that the horrible creatures out of the old stories, as well as the nice ones, had some descendants in Narnia still.
"We should not have a Aslan for a friend if we brought in that rabble," said Truffle Hunter as they came away from the cave of the Black Dwarfs.
"Oh, Aslan!" said Trumpkin, cheerily but contemptuously. "What matters much more is that you wouldn't have me."
"Do you believe in Aslan?" said Caspian to Nika Brick.
"I'll believe in anyone or anything," said Nika Brick, "that'll batter these cursed Tel marines barbarians to pieces or drive them out of Narnia. Anyone or anything, Aslan or the White Witch, do you understand?"
"Silence, silence," Truffle Hunter commands. "You do not know what you are saying. She was a worse enemy than Milan and all his race."
"Not to Dwarfs, she wasn't," said Nika Brick.
Their next visit was a pleasanter one. As they came lower down, the mountains opened out into a great glen or wooded forge with a swift river running at the bottom. The open places near the river's edge were a mass of fox gloved and wild roses and the air was buzzing with bees.
Here Truffle Hunter called again, "Glen Storm! Glen Storm!" and after a pause Caspian heard the sound of hoofs.
It grew louder till the valley trembled and at last, breaking and trampling the thickets, there came in sight the noblest creatures that Caspian had yet seen, the great Centaur Glen Storm and his three sons. His flanks were glossy chestnut and the beard that covered his broad chest was golden - red. He was a prophet and a star - gazer and knew what they had come about.
"Long live the King," he cried. "I and my sons are ready for war. When is the battle to be joined?"
Up till now neither Caspian nor the others had really been thinking of a war. They had some vague idea, perhaps, of an occasional raid on some Human farmstead or of attacking a party of hunters, if it ventured too far into these southern wilds. But, in the main, they had thought only of living to themselves in woods and caves and building up an attempt at Old Narnia in hiding. As soon as Glen Storm had spoken everyone felt much more serious.
"Do you mean a real war to drive Milan out of Narnia?" asked Caspian.
"What else?" said the Centaur. "Why else does your Majesty go clad in mail and girt with sword?"
"Is it possible, Glen Storm?" said the Badger.
"The time is ripe," said Glen Storm. "I watch the skies, Badger, for it is mine to watch, as it is yours to remember. Tari and Albus have met in the halls of high heaven, and on earth a Son of Adam had once more arisen to rule and name the creatures. The hour has struck. Our council at the Dancing Lawn must be a council of war."
He spoke in such a voice that neither Caspian nor the others hesitated for a moment: it now seemed to them quite possible that they might win a war and quiet certain that they must wage one. As it was now past the middle of the day, they rested with the Centaurs and ate such food as the Centaurs provided - cakes of oaten meal, and plums, and herbs, and wine, and cheese.
The next place they were to visit was quite near at hand, but they had to go a long way round in order to avoid region in which Men lived. It was well into the afternoon before they found themselves in level fields, warm between hedgerows. There Truffle Hunter called at the mouth of a little hole in a green bank and out popped the last thing Caspian expected - a talking mouse.
He was of course bigger than a common mouse, well over a foot high when he stood on his hind legs, and with ears nearly as long as (through broader than) a rabbit's. His name was Rich Cheep and he was a gay and martial mouse. He wore a tiny little rapier at his side and twirled his long whiskers as if they were a moustache.
"There are twelve of us, Sire," he said with a dashing and graceful bow, "and I place all the resources of my people unreservedly at your Majesty's disposal."
Caspian tried hard (and successfully) not to laugh, but he couldn't help thinking that Rich Cheep and all his people could very easily be put in a washing basket and carried home on one's back. It would take too long to mention all the creatures whom Caspian met that day - Clod Slay Shovel the Mole, the three Hard biters (who were badgers like Truffle Hunter), Camillo the Hare, and Higgle Stock the Hedgehog.
They rested at last beside a well at the edge of a wide and level circle of grass, bordered with tall elms which now threw long shadows across it, for the sun was setting, the daisies closing, and the rooks flying home to bed, Here they supped on food they had brought with them and Trumpkin lit his pipe (Nika Brick was not a smoker).
"Now," said Badger, "if only we could wake the spirits of these trees and this well, we should have done a good day's work."
"Can't we?" said Caspian.
"No," said Truffle Hunter, "We have no power over them. Since the Humans came into the land, felling forests and defiling streams, the Dryads and Naiads have sunk into a deep sleep. Who knows if ever they will stir again? And that is a great loss to our side. The Tel marines are horribly afraid of the woods, and once the Trees moved in anger, our enemies would go mad with fright and be chased out of Narnia as quick as their legs could carry them."
"What imaginations you Animals have!" said Trumpkin, who didn't believe in such things. "But why stop at Trees and Waters? Wouldn't it be nicer if the stones started throwing themselves at old Milan?"
The Badger only grunted at this, and after that there was such a silence that Caspian had nearly dropped off to sleep when he thought he heard a faint musical sound from the depth of the woods at his back. Then he thought it was only a dream and turned over again, but as soon as his ear touched the ground he felt or heard (it was hard to tell which) a faint beating or drumming. He raised his head.
The beating noise at once became fainter, but the music returned, clearer this time. It was like flutes. He saw that Truffle Hunter was sitting up staring into the wood. The moon was bright; Caspian had been asleep longer than he thought. Nearer and nearer came the music, a tune wild and yet dreamy, and the noise of many light feet, till at last, out from the woods into the moonlight, came dancing shapes such as Caspian had been thinking of all his life.
They were not much taller than Dwarfs, but far slighter and more graceful. Their curly heads had little horns, the upper part of their bodies gleamed naked in the pale night, but their legs and feet were those of goats.
"Fauns!" cried Caspian, jumping up, and in a moment they were all round him.
It took next to no time to explain the whole situation to them and they accepted Caspian at once. Before he knew what he was doing he found himself joining in the dance. Trumpkin, with heavier and jerkier movements, did likewise and even Truffle Hunter hopped and lumbered about as best he could. Only Nika Brick stayed where he was, looking on in silence.
The Fauns, Lentil and Odin and Dumb Nus and Venus, Velma, Germany, Neptune, Nauseous, and Oscars. Patter Twig had send them all. When Caspian awoke next morning he could hardly believe that it had not all been a dream; but the grass was covered with little cloven hoof - marks.
Edited
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Thank you for reading Chapter 6 of Prince Caspian! Make sure to vote and comment for the next one to come out... This is going to be a humungous journey in the Narnia series, and I can't wait till I release the whole book. Do you enjoy dancing with friends? I love you guys so much <3
Please 'comment ' if there are any mistakes or spelling I need to fix in the story, I'd love to hear all your suggestions and theories in the comments. Just a quick reminder; this is not the actual author of the book but it is being written by me. Have a great day. ⮢