2025/030: The Runaways — Elizabeth Goudge

They had the charming surname of Linnet, and it was a pity it did not suit them. [p. 19]

First published in 1964 as Linnets and Valerians, those being the surnames of two entwined families: reissued as the winner of Hesperus Press's 'Uncover a Children's Classic Competition'. Four children, sent to stay with their autocratic grandmother while their father is soldiering in Egypt, flee her draconian rules. They find an unattended pony and trap outside a pub, plunder the bags of shopping therein, and climb in -- only to find that the pony knows its way home. Arriving after dark at a house they've never visited, they are greeted by an elderly gentleman who gives them beds for the night. He turns out to be their Uncle Ambrose, and sends a note to their grandmother to let her know where they are: she's quite happy for him to take charge of and educate them.

And life with Uncle Ambrose is quite idyllic. His employee Ezra (who had to walk all the way back from the pub on his wooden leg) takes to the children; Uncle Ambrose's reclusive neighbour Lady Alicia regards them as 'inevitable as the sun and rain' and her servant Moses Glory Glory Alleluja befriends them -- as do the bees. Not everyone in the village is wholesome, though. Emma Cobley, who runs the village shop, possibly sets her possibly-monstrous cat Frederick on them. (‘A sweet cat. A dear, pretty, loving, gentle cat,’ she insists, though Timothy, the younger boy, is still smarting from the scratches of a tiger-sized beast.) And there's a man known as 'Daft Davie' living in a cave under the tor (this is Devon) and a spell-book full of nastiness and a missing child and a lost husband and a publican who's up to no good...

I wish I'd read this as a child: I'd have loved it. It's very traditionally English, and feels Edwardian. Each child has a different and decided character: Robert who has all the ideas, Nan who deals with the aftermath of those ideas, Timothy who is frail but determined, and Betsy whose curiosity is matched by her kindness. There's a definite threat, which has blighted the village: there are adults behaving like adults, several unexpected reunions, and happy endings for all. And the writing is delightful, never too scary but sometimes quite dark, and peppered with mythological references.

Poor Frederick, though...

Bought in 2014, only just read!