The Picts & the Martyrs. Arthur Ransome
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be sailing now when in only two days’ time they were going to have a boat of their own. And for nearly a year they had not been in the north. There were the hills, with patches of purple heather, glowing in the evening sun. There were other boats. A steamer came out of Rio Bay, and shook them with its wash, as it churned past on the way to the head of the lake. There was the distant peak of Kanchenjunga. Somewhere behind the nearer hills to the south of the great peak lay High Topps where they had been prospectors, found copper, and ended by fighting a fell fire. Looking astern over Rio Bay, they could see High Greenland on the skyline. No matter where they looked, there was always something to remind them of the adventures of the past.
Nancy seemed to know what they were thinking. “Look here,” she said. “There’ll be no adventures this time, not until Mother and Uncle Jim get back. We’ve promised. But they’ll be back in eleven days and after that the Swallows are coming and, with three boats and all our tents, we’ll work out something really splendid. But till then we’ve jolly well got to see that nothing happens at all.”
“Just being here’s lovely,” said Dorothea.
“There’ll be sailing, of course,” said Nancy.
“We won’t have time for adventures,” said Dick. “There’ll be Scarab. And the work I’ve got to do with Timothy. And the heather’s out. I promised another man I’d try to get him a fox moth caterpillar. There’s always a chance of finding them on the heather. And I’ve got a list of birds to make. Hullo. There’s the first of them anyway. I’ve been hoping we’d see one.” He pulled out his pocket-book, wrote “Cormorant,” and, until he lost sight of it in the shadow of the western hills, watched the big black bird flying close above the water.
“There’s lots and lots to do without adventures,” said Dorothea.
“That’s all right,” said Nancy.
“We knew you wouldn’t mind,” said Peggy. “So long as you know what to expect.”
They rounded the point and turned in between the reedbeds at the mouth of the Amazon River. The ridge of the promontory cut off the wind. They lowered the sail, pulled up the centreboard, and rowed slowly upstream to the old Beckfoot boathouse, with its skull and crossbones fading now but still to be seen, painted over the entry.
“It could do with a lick of paint,” said Nancy when she saw what the visitors were looking at.
“Where’s the launch?” asked Dick as soon as he could see into the boathouse.
“Having a new plank put in,” said Peggy.
“Good thing, too,” said Nancy. “Scarab’s going to have her place. We’ve got it all ready. Look out for heads while I lower the mast….”
“She’s going to lie against those fenders,” said Peggy, and Dick and Dorothea, looking at the rope fenders, saw in their minds’ eyes their ship already in her private dock.
Amazon was tied up and the four of them carried the two suitcases across the lawn to the house.
“Here they are!” shouted Nancy, and old Cook came out from her kitchen to meet them and ask if they had had a good journey, tell them they’d grown since last year, and remind Dick of all the plates she had broken when, a year ago, he had startled her by making the homing pigeons ring a bell.
Dick had a queer feeling that they had never gone away. Over the telephone in the hall, just where it had been last year, was Colonel Jolys’s card, giving his telephone number in case of fires on the fells. He pointed it out to Dorothea.
| DROUGHT | FELL FIRES |
IN CASE OF FIRE RING FELLSIDE 75
T. E. JOLYS (LT.-COL.)
Nancy laughed. “Nothing for him to do this year,” she said. “Too much rain. I bet he’s simply praying for somebody to light a fire on purpose … No more telegrams?” she asked, turning to Cook.
“No,” said Cook. “One’s enough.”
“Good,” said Nancy, and explained to Dorothea. “It’s only our Great Aunt. She found out somehow that Mother was away and sent a telegram. I squashed her all right. Come along upstairs and look at your rooms.”
“What do you think of it?” said Nancy, as she flung open the door.
There was a moment of startled silence.
“We’ll have them death’s heads down in two shakes, if you like,” said Cook. “I wouldn’t care to sleep with them myself.”
“But they’re simply splendid,” said Dorothea.
“Just to remind us that piracy and all that’s only put off for a bit,” said Nancy.
And then Dorothea saw the beetle flag.
“Dick! Dick!” she cried. “They’ve made the flag for Scarab. I’d been thinking about it at school but I wasn’t sure how it ought to be made.”
“Peggy made it,” said Nancy. “I only made the flagstaff.”
“Thanks most awfully,” said Dick and Dorothea together.
“Is it the right kind of beetle?” asked Peggy.
“I’m not sure about the legs,” said Dick. “Scarabs are mostly made of clay or stone, and I think their legs are tucked up against their bodies.”
“But our scarab’s alive,” said Dorothea.
“Of course it is … she is … ,” said Dick. “The legs are just right.”
Then there was Dick’s room to see, but, though he admired the skulls, he admired still more the big telescope that made his own look small. “I say,” he said. “You can see a lot of sky from here. I’ll look at stars to-night.”
“You’ll be asleep before it’s all that dark,” said Cook from the doorway. “And now, Miss Nancy, I’ve supper ready, and they’ll be wanting it.”
“All right,” said Nancy, remembering that she was in charge. “I dare say you’ll want to wash your hands after the journey. Come down as soon as you can.”
At supper, in the Beckfoot dining-room, Nancy sat at the head of the table, Peggy at the foot, their guests on either side. As Dorothea said to Dick afterwards, “No one ever would have thought that Nancy could be so polite.” It was clear that, in spite of skulls and crossbones, plans, for the present, were for a quiet house-party, with reformed pirates entertaining the most civilized of visitors.
After supper, however, memories of the past kept crowding in. Dick, thinking of the work he was going to do with Timothy, wanted to have a look into Captain Flint’s study. Their hosts took them in and, remembering the tall, lean man who had met them at the station, they laughed at seeing the hutch that had been made for him when they had thought that he was probably an armadillo. The hutch was now used as a boot-cupboard, but it still had Timothy’s name painted on its door. That, of course, reminded them of their pigeon post, and they went out into the yard to see the pigeons. Dick climbed the steps to the loft to find out if his bell was still working. He set the gate with the swinging wires but found that nothing happened when he pushed his hand through.
“It’s not broken,” said Nancy. “We undid the wire from the battery. We’ll use it again this summer when Uncle Jim and Mother come back and we start stirring things up.”
As it was growing dusk, they went out over the ridge to the end of the promontory, and hauled down the skull and crossbones. Just for a moment, on their way back into the house, they had a glimpse of the old Nancy.
“There’s something different about the house,” said Dorothea. “It wasn’t quite like that. Was that trelliswork there last year?”
“No,” said Peggy. “It’s for climbing roses. Uncle Jim had it done for a present