Swallowdale. Arthur Ransome
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(crossed out) Our Dearest Mother,
Good morning. Everybody slept very well. Everybody is very well. We hope you are very well. Love to the ship’s Baby, and Nurse and Mrs. Jackson. We’ve just bathed. No Amazons yet. Wind south. Light. Sky clear. Now we are going to get the milk.
Much love from
John, Susan, Titty, Roger.
P.S. – Love from Polly.
She addressed the envelope to Mrs. Walker, Holly Howe, and wrote “Native Post” in very small letters in the top left-hand corner.
While the others were putting their names to the letter and Titty was doing the envelope, John went off to the harbour to fetch Swallow. He paddled her out through the rocks and round to the landing-place where the others came aboard. It was not really far to row, but with such a friendly wind blowing, making it an easy reach both ways, it seemed silly not to sail, even across Shark Bay to the landing-place for Dixon’s farm.
“They were geese,” said Roger, as soon as they had climbed up the steep field and come through the damson trees to the farm. “I knew they were.”
“Aye,” said Mrs. Dixon, coming to the door. “Geese they are, but don’t you be afraid of them.”
“We’re not,” said Roger. “At least (as the old gander stretched its neck towards him and hissed) not really.”
“Shoo,” said Mrs. Dixon. “Shoo,” and the geese went off to the other end of the yard. “Just you say ‘Shoo’ to them and make as if you’d give them what for if they didn’t shift, and they’ll not trouble you. Well, and I’m rare and pleased to be seeing you all again. Many’s the laugh I’ve had, thinking how I had to come down to you with a bucket of porridge after the storm, and you taking your breakfast out of the bucket. You won’t be seeing so much of Miss Ruth and Miss Peggy just now. Nor their Uncle Jim neither.”
(Ruth was Nancy’s real name, but she liked being Nancy better.)
“They’re coming,” said Titty.
“I was thinking that with old Miss Turner staying at Beckfoot they’ll maybe be wanted at home. She’s terrible stiff is Miss Turner, and always was. She never did hold with their rampaging around in a boat. Well, Miss Susan, and where’s your can? Quite like old times, it is, to be having you coming for milk in the mornings.”
In a few minutes she came hustling back with the milk-can full to the brim.
“Deary me,” she said, just as they were going, “and where are the toffees I laid out for you?”
She went back into the kitchen and the explorers outside could hear her say, “Go on now. There’s nowt to be feared of. They’re nobbut childer.” And then there was the noise of iron-shod boots scraping on the slate floor, and Mr. Dixon came to the doorway wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“It bids fair to be a grand day,” he said.
“How do you do?” said the explorers.
“Champion,” said Mr. Dixon, “and – and I’m right glad to see you.” He went back into the kitchen.
“He means that,” said Mrs. Dixon, coming to the door again with a bag of toffees. “Dixon never was a one for talking.”
And then the explorers thanked her and went down the field to their ship and sailed back to the island.
*
For a long time after breakfast was over and washing-up done they kept watch on Look Out Point for the coming of the Amazon. Again and again they dumped armfuls of damp leaves on the fire. But they looked in vain for the little white sail. The early steamers passed the island on their way up and down the lake. Launches began to run to and fro. Here and there a rowing boat drifted along the edge of the lake while a fisherman, seated in it, searched the shallows with his flies. Two or three of the larger yachts came out to air their sails. All the life of the lake seemed to be astir in the sunshine and still there was no sign of the Amazon pirates whose arrow with its green feathers had been waiting for them in the camp.
“It’s very funny about their not coming,” said John.
“I wonder what Mrs. Dixon meant,” said Titty.
“Perhaps they’re not coming till to-morrow,” said Susan.
DIXON’S FARM
“Let’s begin exploring without waiting for them,” said Roger.
“Where?” said John.
“Where we left off last year,” said Titty eagerly. “Let’s go to Horseshoe Cove. It’s a lovely place. We had no time really to look at it. We don’t know what there is if you go up the beck. Let’s go up the beck to its source and put it on our map.”
“Horseshoe Cove is a good harbour,” said John, “and it’s in sight of the island. We could see if they came here after we’d gone. What about rations, Mister Mate?”
“It’s nearly dinner-time,” said Susan.
“Let’s have dinner in the cove,” said Titty.
“Why not?” said John. “Let’s have pemmican, Mister Mate. We haven’t had any since last year.”
“Come along then, you fo’c’sle hands,” said Susan.
Half an hour later the camp on Wild Cat Island was deserted except for the parrot, who was left on guard in his cage with a good store of sugar to keep him happy. The fire had been put out, for the mate did not like to leave it burning with nobody but the parrot to look after it. A knapsack full of bunloaf and apples and tea and sugar and chocolate, a jar of marmalade, the paper bag of Mrs. Dixon’s toffees (molasses), a tin of pressed beef (pemmican), a bottle of milk, one spoon and enough mugs to go round had been loaded into Swallow and she was pushed off from the landing-place.
The captain hoisted sail, the mate steered, the able-seaman took care that the cargo did not shift or spill or break, and the boy kept a look-out before the mast. They sailed first with the wind to have a look into Houseboat Bay, thinking that perhaps Captain Flint was back in the houseboat and his nieces with him. But the houseboat looked as dreary as ever, with its tarpaulin over the foredeck, and white curtains drawn across the cabin windows. Then they beat down the lake, past Wild Cat Island to Horseshoe Cove.
Horseshoe Cove owed its name to its shape. It was a little bay, shaped like a horseshoe, shut in between two rocky headlands on the western side of the lake. It lay just about south-west from the southern end of Wild Cat Island. There were woods that came down to the water’s edge there, though a little farther south there were green fields. Some way behind the cove the woods climbed steeply up the hillside towards the heather and bracken of the fells. Three or four tacks brought the Swallow to the entrance so that the mate could sail straight in between the headlands.
“Rock on the port bow,” sang out Roger, just as they turned in.
“A beast, too,” said John. “I don’t remember seeing it last year.”
“It’s all right with this wind,” said the mate, “but I wouldn’t like to run on it in the dark.”
“The day we were here was the day after the storm when the lake was very high. It must be much lower to-day.”
They looked at the waves breaking on a sharp-pointed rock that showed, awash, opposite the southern headland of the little cove.
In another moment they had left the open lake. Swallow, her pennant drooping, her mainsheet slack, was slipping across the smooth water of the sheltered cove towards a beach of white shingle below thick green trees.
“Don’t steer for the mouth of the stream,” said John. “There’s a bit of a bar there made by the stuff the stream brings down. Nancy showed