Harriet Hitchcock and the Stolen Christchild

Christmas can be a dangerous and tricky time, as I'm sure you know. I've told you before now of some of the ways that various animals in the Woodlands have tried to spoil Christmas, or even to stop it happening altogether. And even when there aren't any villains or scrooges about, trying to ruin it for others, there are all sorts of other ways in which Christmas can go wrong through mishap or design.

And it's just the same for the human beings too - I mean, the ones who are neighbours to Harriet Hitchcock and all her Woodland friends. In the little village church near to the Woodlands, the people love to celebrate Christmas (just like we do). And in their church, they have a very special, very precious Christmas crib, which they bring out each year, on the last Sunday in Advent, and place at the front of the church as the centre piece of their Christmas decorations. It is very old, with lovingly carved and painted wooden figures: of Mary, and Joseph, and the tiny, smiling Christchild, the shepherds, the wise men, and even an angel with shining wings, bending over the scene. In fact (though not many people know it) it was made more than 400 years ago by the German sculptor Hans Holzbein. How it got into the possession of that little village church, no one knows; but they wouldn't part with it for the world. Even when they needed thousands of pounds to restore the church tower, and an expert from the V & A told them he thought their crib would fetch something like that amount at auction, they all agreed they would never sell it. Christmas just wouldn't be the same without it. The crib was even too valuable to insure; so instead the Vicar and the PCC decided they would just keep quiet about it, and not tell anyone how much it was really worth, and try to make sure that at Christmas time there was always someone in the church to keep an eye on it, and - well, to hope for the best.

But a Big Secret like that can never be kept completely secret. There will always be someone who lets its slip by a stray remark, or just simply blabs; and then there will be someone who passes it on to the listening ears in the big City. And that's how it was that the London Mob got to know about it, and came down to the village to try and steal the Holzbein Christmas Crib.

It was two nights before Christmas, and all the human beings (and most of the animals too) were sound asleep in their beds. Including Harriet Hitchcock and her assistant, who as you know was a reformed weasel named Popgoes. Because of all the extra visitors to the Woodland - because animals have their Christmas visitors too - they had given up their own beds and were camping out in the offices of the Harriet Hitchcock Investigation Bureau. Suddenly, right in the darkest middle of the darkest night of the year, there was a great thunderous knocking on the door and Harriet nearly jumped out of her skin. It was one of the owls, called Carew, and he looked a frightful sight: he was out of breath, he looked as if he'd flown through a hedge, his feathers were sticking out all over, and Harriet remembered the nickname the younger animals gave him. They called him Mad Carew - and it was no wonder!

"Harriet, come quickly!" said Mad Carew. "There are intruders at the church! Big men in a van from London, and I think they're up to no good. They've broken a window and they're inside with flashlights."

Well, there was obviously no time to lose. Harriet hurried after Mad Carew, while Popgoes went off to rouse as many of the other animals as they could get out of their beds. When they got to the church, they found it was just as bad as the owls had thought. The gang had stuffed the priceless Holzbein crib into their swag bags, and were already climbing out of the window, ready to get back into the van and make their getaway.

"We've got to stop them!" thought Harriet. "But how?"

Fortunately just then, the animals started to arrive. As the thieves came out of the church, one of them said to another, "Cor, I don't like this. It's too quiet out âÄòere in the country. It's spooky, wiv all these old tombs an' stuff."

And that gave Harriet and the animals an idea. As the robbers crept through the dark churchyard, slinking among the gravestones, the animals began to make as many rustling and swishing and crashing noises as they could. And then with one accord the owls began to shriek and hoot, and Mad Carew led the noise in full voice Hoo-oo-oo. "Who are you-oo? What are you trying to do-oo?" And most scary of all, Arnold the donkey had somehow managed to cover himself with white dust, and he stuck his great head over the top of a tombstone and brayed.

The robbers didn't wait to see who this terrible apparition was the ghost of. With great shrieks and cries, they took off in all directions. Hearing the shouting, the van driver put his foot on the accelerator, and didn't stop till he was far down the M40, the other side of High Wycombe. That left the rest of the gang stranded, and by now lights were starting to come on in the village. "Leg it!" they shouted, and they legged it. All the animals went off in pursuit, the owls still hooting, the donkey still braying, the rest squeaking and making all their other noises; you can imagine the panic and the excitement. Sacks of swag were tossed away and just lay where they fell, and the gang made good their escape, vowing that from now on they wouldn't venture into the countryside again. It was too frightening, too dangerous, from now on they were going to stay in the safety of the City.

When the human beings woke up in the morning, they didn't know what had happened. All they could tell was that the church had been broken into, and some person or persons unknown had tried to steal the Crib, but that the robbers had taken fright and fled, leaving their haul behind them.

And so it was all recovered and put back in its place in the church; except for the most precious piece of all, and that was the little carved figure of the Christchild. The chief of the Gang had had it in his hand instead of putting it in a sack, and so when he ran off he kept hold of it for quite a long way, and it was only when he was almost into the next parish, and could still hear the ghostly pursuit and the terrifying cries of Mad Carew, that he had thrown it away in a hedge.

The people were grief-stricken. The Holzbein Crib just wouldn't be the same without the Christchild, and Christmas wouldn't be the same without the Crib. What were they to do?

The animals were perplexed too. They knew where the Christchild had been thrown, but they couldn't take him back to the church, and how could they tell the human beings where he was? What a quandary! But as they thought and thought and wondered, Harriet suddenly had an idea. She had been doing some reading up at the Vicarage; but only, you understand, when the Vicar was out visiting. And in one of those dusty old tomes, she couldn't remember whether it was Plotinus, or Augustine, or maybe C.S.Lewis, she had read that there were some human beings - very holy ones like St Francis or St Anthony, or very young and innocent ones, like small children - who could actually talk to animals and understand what the animals were saying to them. So Harriet decided there was nothing for it but to give it a try.

She and Popgoes went up to the Vicarage, to see what would happen. But Popgoes wasn't happy. "I don't fink the Vicar's a St Francis - or any sort of saint, come to that. You should have heard the things he was saying about Mrs Boreham-Silly the other day, when he'd been to have tea with her and her friends."

As it happened, they never found out if the Vicar was a saint or not - and I, of course, couldn't possibly comment. Because who should happen to be in the garden, but the Vicar's three-year old granddaughter Emily, who had come with her parents to stay for Christmas. She was wandering about while the grown-ups were talking their usual boring stuff (which actually wasn't boring for them, because the Vicar was telling his daughter and son-in-law all about the theft of the Holzbein Crib). When she saw Harriet, the little girl said, "Hello, Hedgehog. Are you Mrs Tiggy Winkle?"

Harriet decided to take her chance, and she replied. "No I'm not, though she is a distant cousin on my maternal grandfather's side. I'm Harriet Hitchcock, and I've come to tell you where the stolen Christchild is." And she described the place, down past the bottom corner of Arnold the donkey's field, over the brook, past the spinney, and just before you get to the parish boundary, in the hedge under the third big oak tree on the right. "Will you remember that?" said Harriet. "You have to go and tell it to your granddad and mummy, just as I've told you."

So that was what Emily did. "Mummy, Mummy," she said. "I've got to tell you and Granddad just what Harriet the hedgehog told me. She says the animals know where the Christchild is."

Well, Mummy reacted just like a grown-up. First she said, "Yes dear, that's nice" and took no notice. Then when Emily still went on, she said, "It's a lovely story, but don't interrupt just now, dear, Granddad's talking." Then when Emily said it wasn't a story, it was true, she said, "Emily, it's not nice to tell lies. How could a hedgehog talk to you?" Then Emily said she wasn't lying and burst into tears, and was sent into the house to calm down.

But the Vicar wasn't so sure. He realised he hadn't even got to the part of his story about how the Christchild was still missing. He also remembered how one day, not long before, he had come home to find one of his dusty old books open at a page which described how some people could talk to animals. So he took Emily aside, and asked her what exactly the hedgehog had said, and just before Evening Prayer he went down to the place, past the bottom corner of Arnold the donkey's field, over the brook, past the spinney, and just before the parish boundary, in the hedge under the third big oak tree on the right ... and lo and behold, there was the little Christchild, wrapped in a handkerchief, but quite safe.

When he brought it back to the church, what excitement, what joy there was! Everyone thought the Vicar was a wonder-worker, and the Vicar didn't want to take all the credit, but he didn't actually like to say that a hedgehog had told his granddaughter, and she had told him, where to find the Christchild. So he just called it "A wonderful stroke of luck - you might even call it Providential."

But he did, in fact, preach a very good sermon that Christmas Day. Everyone said it was one of the best sermons he had ever preached, except for Brigadier Winstandley Balderdash who said with a snort it was about the only decent sermon he'd ever preached. It was all about how Christmas hadn't been complete, so long as the Christchild was missing; how Christmas wouldn't be complete, so long as the Christchild was missing; and how our lives are not complete, unless there is a place for Jesus at the centre of our lives, and until we find Jesus, and he is actually there in the centre of our lives.

And that's what I say too. Whether you're a human being or a Woodland animal, and whether or not you believe that human beings and animals can talk to each other, your Christmas and the whole of your life won't be complete, unless Jesus is there at the heart of them. He was born as a Baby at Christmas time, but he grew up and lived as a man, and died on the cross, and rose again, so that he can be our Friend and Companion and Lord - not just at Christmas, but all the year.