The Picts and the Martyrs Read online

  “Good,” said Dorothea, and, while the train rushed northward, the two of them settled to their books.

  Dick was a slow reader, Dorothea a fast one. Dick read the chapter on the theory of sailing, three careful times, then the chapter on small boats. He had gone back to the chapter on knots and was trying each one of them with a bit of string and being polite but firm to an old man sitting next to him, who knew no more about knots than Dick but kept on wanting to show him how to tie them, when, as the train slowed down for the last time, Dorothea closed The Sea Hawk with a sigh.

  “It all came right in the end,” she said. “The horrid brother had to own up and everybody knew Sir Oliver wasn’t a murderer. Dick! There’s the lake! We’re nearly there.”

  Books were hurriedly stowed. Dorothea wrote “Arrived safely Dick and Dorothea” on the addressed postcard her mother had given her to be sent off from the station. The train jerked to a standstill. The old man said “Good afternoon” and stepped down to the platform, and they saw the red caps of Nancy and Peggy dodging quickly through the crowd.

  “Scarabs, ahoy!” cried Nancy.

  “Hullo!” called Dorothea.

  And then, it was as if Nancy had suddenly remembered something she had forgotten. She became a different Nancy.

  “We are delighted to see you. I do hope you had a pleasant journey.”

  Dorothea stared. “Yes, thank you,” she said. “It was very kind of you to invite us. I am so glad we were able to come.” She had understood that Nancy, who was very good at being a pirate, was now being a hostess instead.

  Nancy laughed. Nobody could keep up that sort of thing for more than a sentence or two.

  “Heave it out,” she said. “And the next.”

  Between them she and Peggy swung the two suitcases down to the platform. “Is this all you’ve got?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Dorothea.

  “Well done. We can manage these easily. Cook thought you’d have a ton of luggage. She wanted to send Billy Lewthwaite with Rattletrap. Come on. Two to a suitcase. We’ve got to lug them to the bus.”

  “We’re going down to the boat landing,” said Peggy.

  “Is Scarab ready?” asked Dick.

  “She must be, pretty nearly,” said Nancy. “We’ll know in a minute. We hadn’t time to stop on the way up. Touch and go getting here to meet the train. Hullo! Here’s Timothy. I thought he’d missed it.”

  “Squashy Hat,” exclaimed Dorothea, who had seen him at the same moment, a tall, thin man, with an old tweed hat, working towards them through the crowd.

  “We don’t call him that now,” said Peggy.

  “We’ve spent the last two holidays breaking him in,” said Nancy.

  “He’s still shy of everybody except us,” said Peggy. “Look at him waiting while those farmers stand jabbering. Captain Flint would have barged through in two jiffs.”

  But the tall man had seen them, waved his hand, and was presently beside them. “Hullo, partners,” he said. “I had a few stores to get, and I thought I might as well see if you’d really arrived. Better let me have those suitcases.”

  “How are you getting on with the mine?” asked Dick.

  “Not so bad. We’ve cut into the vein at eleven places now, and got a lot of samples. Jim tells me you’re going to give me a hand with the assays.”

  “I’d simply love to,” said Dick.

  “Look here,” said Nancy. “You aren’t going to make him do stinks when they’ve got a new boat.”

  “Not unless he wants to. But I’ve promised Jim to get those assays done before he comes back.”

  “We can’t be sailing all the time,” said Dorothea.

  “Nancy would if she could,” laughed Timothy.

  “Qualitative or quantitative analysis?” asked Dick. “I’ve only got as far as qualitative at school.”

  “Quantitative,” said Timothy. “Assays. We know what’s there, but we want to know how much to the ounce.”

  “We’re going to miss that bus,” said Nancy.

  “We’re not,” said Timothy, and, after Dorothea had dropped her postcard into the letter-box by the booking office, the five of them squeezed into the last four seats of the station bus, and the conductor found room for the suitcases. The bus swung out of the station yard, and down through the village on its way to the steamer pier.

  “When are we going to start the assays?” asked Dick.

  “Working in the houseboat tomorrow,” said Timothy. “The day after tomorrow I’m going up to the mine. We might get at the assays the day after that.”

  “Not unless there’s a dead calm,” said Nancy.

  “If you want to have a look at your mine, you could come up to High Topps with me the day after tomorrow. I’ll call for you on the way.”

  “Look here,” protested Nancy. “They’ve got a boat.”

  “They’ve never seen the mine since last summer,” said Peggy.

  “There isn’t much to see,” said Timothy. “The interesting stuff is what Dick and I are going to do in your uncle’s study.”

  “Just stinks,” said Nancy, but Dick and Timothy looked at each other with a private grin.

  *

  At the steamer pier they left the bus, and Timothy carried the suitcases out along one of the small landing stages. Two boats were tied up there. One was the Amazon, with her Jolly Roger fluttering from her masthead. The other was the old grey rowing boat that usually lay against fenders alongside Captain Flint’s houseboat. Her stern was full of parcels, for Timothy Stedding had been buying stores. He now unfastened his painter, stepped in, and put out his oars.

  “See you the day after tomorrow,” he said. “No need to come up to the mine unless you want to, but I’ll look in just in case.”

  “Aren’t you coming to see their boat?” said Nancy.

  “Not now,” said Timothy. “I’m a working man. Busy. I’ll see her soon enough when you come sailing along and fetch up with a bump against Jim’s new paint.”

  “We never do,” said Nancy. “Remember when we came and made you and Uncle Jim walk the plank last summer? We were aboard and rushing the cabin before you knew we were anywhere near.”

  “I’ll look in early the day after tomorrow,” said Timothy. “So long, partners!”

  They said “Goodbye,” and watched him as he laid to his oars and went rowing away between Long Island and the point with the boatbuilders’ sheds, on his way to Houseboat Bay.

  “Boats mean nothing to him at all,” said Nancy. “He always says he’d rather walk. Uncle Jim says he’s first-rate on mountains … Uncle Jim’s too fat … And he says it wouldn’t do for everybody to be web-footed. Come on, Dick. You’ve seen enough of Timothy. Hop in. You sit on the suitcases, Peggy, and Dot in the stern. I’ll row across the bay.”

  Five minutes later Amazon was slipping alongside one of the little landing stages that ran out from the boatbuilders’ sheds. Wherever the new boat was, she was certainly not in the water. The old boatbuilder saw them rowing in, and came out on the stage to meet them.

  “Isn’t she ready?” asked Nancy.

  The old boatbuilder did not even think he needed to say he was sorry. “You’ll be wanting to see her,” he said, making fast Amazon’s painter. “But you must let the varnish dry. And the sail’s been dressed. I’ve got it drying now in the loft.” He led the way into the shed and Dick and Dorothea saw for the first time the first boat they had ever owned. She lay upside down on trestles, her bottom shiny with smooth black varnish, her sides gleaming gold in the sunshine that slanted through the open door.

  “Is she only thirteen feet?” asked Dick. “She looks much bigger.”

  “She’s as near the same as your boat as we could make her,” the old boatbuilder said to Nancy. “That’s what Mr Turner said was wanted. You’ll be racing, I dare say.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Nancy. “But the holidays have begun and they want her now. Uncle Jim’s quite right. You know what he said?”

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sp; “Nay, I don’t.”

  “He said you were bound to be late with her because the only boatbuilder who ever finished a boat on time was Noah, and he only did it because he knew he’d be drowned if he didn’t.”

  “He’s one for joking, is Mr Turner,” said the old man.

  “But when will she be ready?” asked Nancy.

  “Last coat of varnish … trifle of rigging … another coat to the oars … anchor should be here in the morning … You can have her the day after tomorrow. Better say the day after that.”

  Dick knelt on the ground to look up into her from below. Dorothea, hardly believing that she was really looking at their own boat, twisted her head to read the name, SCARAB, upside down on her transom. Dick got to his feet again, saw her rudder leaning against the wall of the shed, and, privately, felt the tiller in his hand.

  “That’s quite all right,” he said. “We don’t want to put her in the water till she’s ready.” He turned to Nancy. “We’ll be able to go to High Topps the day after tomorrow without wasting any time.”

  “We’ll leave her tomorrow and the next day,” said Nancy. “But the day after that we’ll come for her.” She looked hard at the boatbuilder. “She really will be ready for them by then?”

  “She will that.”

  “If she isn’t,” said Nancy, “we can’t raise a flood, but we’ll jolly well burn down the shed.”

  “And welcome,” said the old boatbuilder. “But you won’t need to. She’ll be afloat and waiting for you.”

  *

  With white sail and a southerly wind, the Amazon ran swiftly back across Rio Bay and away on a straight course for the Beckfoot promontory, where a Jolly Roger had been hoisted on the flagstaff in honour of the visitors. Dorothea and Dick took their turns at steering, just to remember what it was like. They had often sailed before, both on the lake and on the Broads, but it felt different to 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 reed-beds 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:

  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 tonight.”

  “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 h
ave 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?”

  A GREAT IMPROVEMENT TO THE HOUSE

  “No,” said Peggy. “It’s for climbing roses. Uncle Jim had it done as a present for Mother.”

  “Jolly useful,” said Nancy. “Of course, when the roses grow up. …”

  “It’ll be lovely,” said Dorothea.

  “It won’t be so much use,” said Nancy. “Too beastly prickly. But now …”

  She put the folded flag between her teeth, ran up the trellis like a monkey, and disappeared into her bedroom window.

  “Uncle Jim says he’s sorry he had it made so strong,” said Peggy.

  From inside the house came the noise of someone coming downstairs in flying leaps, and, a moment later, Nancy was at the garden door. “Pretty good, isn’t it?” she said and then, remembering again her good resolves, she became the hostess once more. “You must be very tired after your journey,” she said. “I should think, for the first night, you ought to go to bed early.”