There have been lots of adventures you will want to hear about. It all began with the funny noises underground which started in the summer and got worse and worse. I was afraid an earthquake might happen. The North Polar Bear says he suspected what was wrong from the beginning. I only wish he had said something to me; and anyway it can't be quite true, as he was fast asleep when it began, and did not wake up till about Michael's birthday.* However, he went off for a walk one day, at the end of November, I think, and never came back! About a fortnight ago I began to be really worried, for after all the dear old thing is really a lot of help, in spite of accidents, and very amusing. One Friday evening (December 9th), there was a bumping at the front door and a snuffling. I thought he had come back, and lost his key (as often before); but when I opened the door there was another very old bear there, a very fat and funny-shaped one. Actually it was the eldest of the few remaining Cave-bears. (I had not seen him for centuries.)
'Do you want your North Polar Bear?' he said. 'lf you do, you had better come and get him!'
It turned out he was lost in the caves (belonging to Cave-Bear, or so he says) not far from the ruins of my old house. He says he found a hole in the side of a hill and went inside because it was snowing. He slipped down a long slope, and lots of rock fell after him, and he found he could not climb up or get out again. But almost at once he smelt GOBLIN! and became interested and started to explore. Not very wise, for of course Goblins can't hurt him, but their caves are very dangerous. Naturally he soon got quite lost, and the Goblins shut off all their lights, and made queer noises and false echoes.
Goblins are to us very much what rats are to you, only worse, because they are very clever, and only better because there are, in these parts, very few. We thought there were none left. Long ago we had great trouble with them, that was about 1453}, I believe, but we got the help of the Gnomes, who are their greatest enemies, and cleared them out. Anyway, there was poor old Polar Bear lost in the dark all among them, and alone until he 'met Cave-Bear, who lives there. Cave-Bear can see pretty well in the dark, and he offered to take Polar Bear to his private back door. So they set off together, but the Goblins were very excited and angry (Polar Bear had boxed one or two flat that came and poked him in the dark, and had said some very nasty things to them all), and they enticed him away by imitating Cave-Bear's voice, which of course they know very well. So Polar Bear got into a frightful dark part, all full of different passages, and he lost Cave-Bear, and Cave-Bear lost him.
'Light is what we need,' said Cave-Bear to me. So I got some of my special sparkling torches - which I sometimes use in my deepest cellars - and we set off that night. The caves are wonderful. I knew they were there, but not how many or how big they were. Of course the Goblins went off into the deepest holes and corners, and we soon found Polar Bear. He was getting quite long and thin with hunger, as he had been in the caves about a fortnight. He said, 'l should soon have been able to squeeze through a Goblin crack.'
Polar Bear himself was astonished when I brought light; for the most remarkable thing is that the walls of these caves are all covered with pictures, cut into the rock or painted on in red and brown and black. Some of them are very good (mostly of animals) and some are queer, and some bad, and there are many strange marks, signs and scribbles, some of which have a nasty look, and I am sure have something to do with black magic. Cave-Bear says these caves belong to him, and have belonged to him or his family since the days of his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great (multiplied by ten) grandfather; and the bears first had the idea of decorating the walls, and used to scratch pictures on them in soft parts - it was useful for sharpening the claws. Then MEN came along - imagine it! Cave-Bear says there were lots about at one time, long ago, when the North Pole was somewhere else. (That was long before my time, and I have never heard old Grandfather Yule mention it, even, so I don't know if he's talking nonsense or not.) Many of the pictures were done by these Cave-men - the best ones, especially the big ones (almost life-size) of animals, some of which have since disappeared: there are dragons and quite a lot of mammoths. Men also put some of the black marks and pictures there, but the Goblins have scribbled all over the place. They can't draw well, and anyway they like nasty queer shapes best.
I have copied a whole page from the wall of the chief central cave. It is not, perhaps, quite as well drawn as the originals (which are very much larger) except the Goblin parts, which are easy. At the bottom of the page you will see a whole row of Goblin pictures - they must be very old, because the Goblin fighters are sitting on drasils: a very queer sort of dwarf 'dachshund' horse creature they used to use, but they have died out long ago. I believe the Red Gnomes finished them off, somewhere about Edward the Fourth's time. You will see some more on the pillar in my picture of the caves.
Doesn't the hairy rhinoceros look wicked? There is also a nasty look in the mammoth's eyes. You will also see an ox, a stag, a boar, a cave-bear (portrait of our Cave-Bear's seventy-first ancestor, he says) and some other kind of polarish but not quite polar bear. North Polar Bear would like to believe it is a portrait of one of his ancestors. Just under the bears you can see what is the best a Goblin can do at drawing reindeer!!!
But when I rescued Polar Bear we hadn't finished the adventures. At the beginning of last week we went into the cellars to get up the stuff for England. I said to Polar Bear, Somebody has been disarranging things here!'
'Paksu and Valkotukka, I expect,' he said. But it wasn't. Then last Saturday we went down and found nearly everything had disappeared out of the main cellar! Imagine my state of mind! Nothing hardly to send to anybody, and too little time to get or make enough new stuff.
Polar Bear said, 'I smell Goblin strong'. Eventually we found a large hole (but not big enough for us) leading to a tunnel, behind some packing-cases in the West Cellar. As you will expect, we rushed off to find Cave-Bear and we went back to the caves. We soon understood the queer noises. It was plain the Goblins long ago had burrowed a tunnel from the caves to my old home (which was not so far from the end of their hills) and had stolen a good many things. We found some things more than a hundred years old, even a few parcels still addressed to your great-grand-people! But they had been very clever, and not too greedy, and I had not found out. Ever since I moved they must have been busy burrowing all the way to my cliff, boring, banging and blasting (as quietly as they could). At last they had reached my new cellars, and the sight of all the toys together was too much for them: they took all they could. I daresay they were also still angry with the Polar Bear. Also they thought we couldn't get at them.
But I sent my patent green luminous smoke down the tunnel, and Polar Bear blew and blew it with our enormous kitchen bellows. They simply shrieked and rushed out the other (cave) end. But there were Red Gnomes there. I had specially sent for them - a few of the real old families are still in Norway. They captured hundreds of Goblins, and chased many more out into the snow (which they hate). We made them show us where they had hidden things, or bring them all back again, and by Monday we had got practically everything back. The Gnomes are still dealing with 'the Goblins, and promise there won't be one left by New Year - but I am not so sure - they will crop up again in a century or so, I expect.
* 22 October.
