Read Eulalia! for Free Online

snout respectfully. “Zurr, marm, you’m axcuse oi furr not coomin’ up thurr, oi’m gurtly afeared o’ tall places!”
    Knowing the moles were soildiggers, and afraid of heights, Daucus smiled understandingly. “I’m not too fussy on them myself, Burff. Did I hear you say that you’d caught Orkwil? Where is he now?”
    Foremole Burff pointed a hefty digging claw in a downward motion. “H’in ee gate’ouse, zurr, an’ he’m gurtly well guarded, burr aye!”
    As the trio trooped downstairs, Granspike shook her head. “In the gatehouse, I might’ve knowed it. Father Abbot, we should’ve searched from the outside and worked inward, ‘stead o’ doin’ it the other way about.”
    Daucus heaved a long sigh. “Not to worry, the main thing is that young Prink has been caught.”
    By the time they had reached ground level, and were crossing Great Hall, others were hastening to join them, everybeast speculating.
    â€œHas he been apprehended, the villain?”
    â€œAye, Skipper’s holding Orkwil in the gatehouse!”
    â€œSo that’s where he was hiding?”
    â€œNo, they just took him there so he couldn’t escape.”
    â€œWell, where was his secret hiding place, d’you know?”
    â€œNo, but we’ll soon find out, come on!”
    Out the Abbey door they paraded, down the front steps onto the gravelled path between flower beds and lawns. A high sandstone outer wall ran foursquare around the Abbey grounds; it had a walkway on top, and battlements. Each section of the wall had a small wicker gate built into it, with the exception of the main threshold gate. This was the western ramparts, containing the big oaken main gate; it had a gatekeeper’s lodge built against the wall. Either side of the gate, two flights of stone steps ran up to the threshold walkway. More Redwallers had congregated around the gatehouse area.
    Abbot Daucus paused at the gatehouse door, surveying the crowd who were gathered there. He frowned. “Have you nothing else to do but hang about here? Friar Chondrus, no meals to prepare, Sister Atrata, no patients to attend in sickbay? Please disperse and go about your chores. The Elders and I can deal with this matter. You will all get your goods back, I assure you.”
    A group of Dibbuns, Redwall’s Abbeybabes, was seated on the bottom of the wallstairs. Daucus cautioned them, “I hope you little ones aren’t thinking of climbing those steps to the walkway?”
    A tiny squirrel named Dimp shook his head severely at the Father Abbot, answering for his companions. “We all be h’Elders, us goin’ inna gate’ouse, an’ ’ave a word wiv naughty Orkwilt!”
    Granspike shooed them off with her apron waving. “Ho no yore not, liddle sir, time for you lot t’get washed up for dinner. Folura, Glingal, tend to these Dibbuns will ye.”
    The two identical otter sisters began herding the Dibbuns to the Abbey pond. The babes squealed and ran off, in an attempt to escape. They stood little chance against the swift ottermaids. The Redwallers around the gatehouse had duly dispersed.
    Daucus smiled approvingly at his companions. “Good. Shall we go in now?”
    Orkwil Prink’s usually sunny disposition had deserted him. He sat on the floor of the gatehouse with Rorc, Skipper of Otters, and Benjo Tipps, the big hedgehog who was Redwall’s Cellar Keeper, standing either side of him. There was a rope tied about Orkwil’s waist, each of his custodians held an end. Also in attendance were Fenn Bluepaw, the Abbey’s squirrel Recorder, and an old watervole lady, Marja Dubbidge, Redwall’s official Bellringer. The hubbub from outside had ceased, creating a silence inside the little gatehouse, which was heavy with foreboding. The young hedgehog’s head drooped miserably, he stared at the floor, not daring to raise his eyes as