I was especially looking forward to this fifth and final volume in the 'Borrowers' series because the book before it, 'The Borrowers Aloft', was easily my favourite thus far and because this one came a couple of decades later than the others. I wanted to see how far Mary Norton's literary powers had increased over that time. Well, 'The Borrowers Aloft' remains my favourite and Norton wrote this in the same smooth style as the earlier four, but it's a worthy wrap-up to the series, especially because of its ending.

We're still in Little Fordham, as we were last time out, but Pod Clock knows that they can't stay in their neatly customised house in Mr. Pott's model village for long. They successfully escaped from the Platters but there's little doubt that their former captors are going to do whatever they can to get them back. They move out in the nick of time, via Spiller's knife box boat, and the Platters actually row past them without seeing them in the dark. Pod's got his eye on the Old Rectory next to the church, where Spiller says some of the Hendrearys are now living, and, sure enough, that's where they soon end up.

Like the fourth book, Norton starts out in the human world. In that one, she spent quite a while in it, so we could get to know Mr. Pott, Miss Menzies and the Platters, Sidney and Mabel, before the latter steal the borrowers for profit and the Clocks could construct their glorious escape. Here, it lasts for three chapters, starting with a fantastic scene in which Miss Menzies visits Mr. Pomfret, the village constable, to report a loss/theft/missing persons/kidnapping, because she doesn't yet know that the borrowers had returned, albeit briefly.

Then we go to church to meet Lady Beatrice Mullings and Mrs. Whitlace. The former is known as a faith healer and a finder, her latter talent immediately prompts ideas of how this story is going to unfold. The latter used to be Kitty O'Donovan, the kitchen maid at Firbank House, taking over as cook after Mrs. Driver. Maybe because she lived in that old manor that used to contain so many Borrowers, including the Clocks, she hears little voices in the vestry, but that's just a tease. There isn't a heck of a lot of interaction between humans and borrowers in this one.

Instead, there's a lot more interaction between borrowers, something that I realise now has been sorely lacking within this series. Borrowers live in the same family structures that we do, so there has to be some sort of intermingling, but it's often hard to see where that might happen, outside of the heyday of Firbank House when there seemed to be borrowers behind every bit of furniture. The Clocks tended to keep away from other borrowers in the first book, Spiller being the only real friend they have outside their own family unit, and, after finding their relatives, the Hendrearys, in the gamekeeper's cottage in 'The Borrowers Afloat', didn't seem to enjoy their company much.

In this book, there are many scenes that cross family lines. Pod, Homily and Arrietty Clock remain our focus, but Spiller memorably helps them move into the Old Rectory and so does Peagreen. He lived there already and Arrietty found him raiding the larder but he's happy for them to take his old digs under a window seat because he's shifting into the priory. His name is Peregrine but he's adamant that it's pronounced Peagreen, so that's who he becomes to us. While the Clocks do visit the Hendrearys in the church, it's really only young Timmus who joins the story. Some of the most memorable scenes here involve him showing Arrietty around the church.

Given all the tension and threat in the fourth book, it's easy to wonder where that went this time out. 'The Borrowers Avenged' is easily the longest volume in the series at close to three hundred pages; but, while we fully expect the Platters to find the Clocks at some point, that moment takes its sweet time in manifesting. By the time we reach what would have been the end of each of the previous volumes, they still haven't figured out where the borrowers are, let alone had a decent shot of stealing them away. Even the plot point we knew would come ends up coming to naught, at least for them. It's a hilarious moment for us.

Instead, we enjoy a sustained period of peace and quiet with most chapters dedicated only to the day-to-day lives of the Clocks as they settle into their new home. For excitement, we get a section in which Peagreen introduces Arrietty to the ghosts who haunt the Old Rectory, and another with Timmus and Arrietty enjoying church architecture. As you might imagine, the latter counts as an awfully subdued sort of excitement. However, Norton clearly had a good visualisation of what she was doing with this book and a lot of what seem like throwaway moments become important later on, when the Platters finally make their breakthrough.

I can't talk about that much because it comes so late in the book that everything about it counts as a spoiler, but I will say that it brings us to what feels like a real ending. I have no idea if Norton initially expected 'The Borrowers' to be a one-off story, but she left it open for an obvious sequel. In fact, she ended it with what could almost count as a cliffhanger, and each of the earlier books, published from 1952 to 1961, followed suit. Whatever threats existed still existed at the end, with the Clocks on the move once more, their future far from set. That isn't the case here.

In fact, this is the only book of the five to actually address the threat itself. I'm not going to spoil how, but the final few chapters constitute a very careful and very deliberate end for the bad guys and a very positive fresh start for the good guys. Of course, the series remained open for further stories, but, as far as I'm aware, Norton never went there, even in draught form. This came out in 1982 and she lived for a decade longer, but her only return was the novelette 'Poor Stainless' that first saw print in 1994 and which I covered in my review of 'The Borrowers Aloft'. Maybe she felt it was enough that the Clocks had a home and a future without a threat hanging over it. We can do the rest in our own heads.

And that's all well and good. I thoroughly approve of this ending, which I'd argue is by far the best and most cleverly constructed sequence in the series, outside of the construction of the balloon in 'The Borrowers Aloft'. I enjoyed it thoroughly with a broad grin on my face the whole way. I didn't dislike anything that came before it either, but I did want much more suspense than it was willing to provide. Between the Clocks leaving the model village and the grand finalé, there's really only one scene of suspense, when Arrietty and Peagreen find themselves stranded in the middle of the floor when the Whitlaces return to the Old Rectory. I wanted the Platters up close and personal.

All in all, though, this has been a wonderful series. It starts well and it ends well, with its best and least in between but the least, 'The Borrowers Afield', still being worthy. Norton, of course, wrote other fantasies for children, most notably 'The Magic Bedknob' and 'Bonfires and Broomsticks', a duology that's much better known in combined form as 'Bedknob and Broomsticks', and after the Disney adaptation, 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks'. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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