The Elfin Ship Read Online Free Page A

and there was nothing at all jutting up through the swamp lilies which floated purple and yellow on the surface of the water. The two men probed below the dark surface, but found nothing. Whereupon Mr Flutesnoot, having come so far on a wild goose chase, began to complain.
    First he grumbled that a man had to be a lunatic to journey out after enchanted sailing ships. Then he moaned that he supposed the money Wurzle offered wasn’t half worth the trouble. He had, he said, eight little children, all wearing the same pair of shoes in shifts, and his wife had certain problems with her joints. Finally, he seemed to hint that it would be only fair that the Professor pay him the salary he’d promised the two deserters and, ‘Cut ’em out,’ as he put it.
    Just about then, both men were wading in a shallows several hundred feet below the mouth of the slough when Wurzle saw the flash of green in among the rocks. He plunged in and, after dredging about for a moment, plucked up the emerald eye of the dragon. Two more days of searching and sifting through sand and pebbles, brought forth two strawberry-size rubies and a three-foot-long fragment of one of the carved masts lodged in a stand of rushes plus another curious elf device which was altogether unidentifiable. The Professor gave the two rubies to Mr Flutesnoot, who returned to Willowood and, on the strength of his adventure, was promptly elected mayor.
    Professor Wurzle brought the faceted emerald eye back to Twombly Town where he graciously contributed it to the museum. The section of mast he studied for several years, deciphering runes, puzzling out hieroglyphs. He finally determined that the carvings told the story of an entire nation of piratical elves living on some far distant Oceanic Isle, thousands of leagues from the coast of the field dwarfs. Why their sloop had sailed upriver and why it had been left deserted and how long ago all of this had come to pass were mysteries.
    The meeting took up the better part of the morning. Almost everyone there had something powerfully important to say, or at least thought he did. Beezle had his say; Professor Wurzle had his; then Gilroy Bastable made it clear half a dozen times that
he
couldn’t say one way or another but that everyone, as far as he could see, should do his duty. The high, open-timbered roof of the old Guildhall fairly shook with the tumult while Ahab slept outside, guarding the cheeses and dreaming about roaming through subterranean caverns in pursuit of gingerbread cookies.
    Jonathan remained silent throughout even though broad hints were dropped here and there concerning the necessity of saving the holiday celebrations whether or not there were traders at Willowood Station. In fact, Jonathan had already made up his mind. The previous night while staring into the embers of his fire, he had chosen his course of action. Without question, adventure was on the horizon, gesturing to him like a forest nymph – his fate led downriver to the sea. He had heard stories of the fogbound coast and of the great fish and sea monsters that frolicked in seaweed gardens. Such tales held a certain appeal for him, although he, like most of the people of Twombly Town could be easily satisfied. Though they loved beyond anything to be told tales of travel to distant lands, they rarely, with the possible exception of Professor Wurzle, actually enjoyed the prospects of such travel.
    Jonathan was filled with a sense of adventure though. By the time the meeting wound down he was just a bit puffed up with pride and when it was finally his turn to speak, he came near close to strutting up to the front of the hall. Amid a great deal of applause, he held one hand aloft and began a very pretty speech that, remarkable enough, said exactly what the people of Twombly Town wanted to hear – that theories about Willowood Station were all fine, but it was action, not theories, that was called for in this situation. Someone, he insisted, must sail