The pile of boxes on the other side fell over with a terrific crash that echoed all round the cellar. The boys stood listening to see if anyone would hear and come. But nobody did. They piled up the boxes again as best they could and crept up the cellar steps and into the moonlit kitchen.
They wondered where Joe was. Was he still waiting for them at the entrance to the caves?
He was not. He had made fast his boat, removed several things from it, and then had climbed the cliff path to the house. He had gone to his bedroom, just off the kitchen, gloating over the thought of the two boys shivering in the caves, when a terrific noise came to his ears.
It was the pile of boxes overturning down in the cellar, but Joe did not know that. He stood in his bedroom, rooted to the ground. What was that noise? He did not dare to go and find out. If he had, he would have seen two figures stealing through the moonlit kitchen towards the hall. He would have seen them scurrying up the stairs as quietly as mice.
Soon the boys were on their mattress, glad to be there safe and sound. They chuckled when they thought of Joe waiting in vain for them. And, down in his bedroom, Joe chuckled to think of how he would wait outside the cave the next morning, armed with a rope, and give those two boys a good hiding.
They all fell asleep at last.
Joe was up first, piling driftwood on the kitchen fire. He did his jobs, and then tied the rope-end round his waist. It was time he went down to the beach and caught those boys. The tide would soon be down low enough for them to come out.
Then he stopped still in the greatest astonishment – for into the kitchen, as bold as brass, came all four children, chattering away loudly.
‘What’s for breakfast? Golly, I’m hungry.’
‘Did you have a good night, boys? We did.’
‘Fine. We must have slept all the night through.’ These words were from Philip. Jack joined in, delighted to see amazement and wonder appear on Joe’s face. ‘Yes, we slept like logs. Even if Kiki had done her imitation of a railway express, I don’t think we’d have woken up.’
‘What’s for breakfast, Joe?’ asked Dinah. Both the girls knew about the boys’ adventure the night before, and were entering into the fun of teasing Joe. He evidently still thought the boys were down in the caves.
‘You two boys been asleep in your room all night?’ asked Joe at last, hardly able to believe his eyes and ears.
‘Where else should we sleep?’ said Philip impudently. ‘On the Isle of Gloom?’
Joe turned away, puzzled and taken aback. It couldn’t have been these two boys last night. It was true he had not seen their faces clearly, but he had felt certain they were Philip and Jack. But now that was plainly impossible. No one could have got out of those caves at high tide – and yet here were the boys. It was disturbing and puzzling. Joe didn’t like it.
‘I’ll go down to those caves now and watch to see who comes out,’ he thought at last. ‘Then I’ll know who it was spying on me last night.’
So down he went – but though he watched for two hours, nobody came from the caves. Which was not very surprising, because there was nobody there.
‘He just simply can’t understand it,’ said Jack, grinning, as he watched the tall man from the cliff path. ‘What a good thing we didn’t tell anyone about the secret passage! It came in mighty useful last night.’
‘He’ll think you and Philip were two of the “things” he’s always trying to frighten us with,’ said Dinah. ‘Silly old Joe! He must think we are babies to be frightened of anything he would say.’
‘What are we going to do today when we’ve finished our jobs?’ asked Lucy-Ann, polishing the lamp she had been cleaning. ‘It’s such a fine day. Can’t we go for a picnic – walk over the cliff and along the coast?’
‘Oh yes – and we’ll see if we can find that man I saw in a boat yesterday,’ said Jack, remembering. ‘That would be fine. Maybe he’ll let us go in his boat. Dinah, ask your Aunt Polly if we can take our dinner with us.’
Aunt Polly said yes, and in about half an hour they set off, passing Joe on the way. He was now working on his allotment, over the edge of the cliff, behind the house.
‘Did you have a good night, Joe?’ yelled Philip. ‘Did you sleep all night long, like a good boy?’
The man scowled and made a threatening noise. Kiki imitated him, and he bent down to pick up a stone to throw at her.
‘Naughty boy!’ screeched Kiki, flying high into the air. ‘Naughty, naughty boy! Go to bed at once, naughty boy!’
11
Bill Smugs
‘Whereabouts did you see the strange boat, Freckles?’ asked Philip, as they went over the cliffs.
‘Over there, beyond those rocks that jut out,’ said Jack, pointing. ‘Quite a big boat, really. I wonder where it’s kept when it’s not in use. Somebody must live fairly near it – but I couldn’t see any houses.’
‘There aren’t any proper houses near,’ said Philip. ‘People used to live about here ages ago, but there was fighting and burning, and now there are only ruined places. But there might be a tumbledown shack of some sort, all right for a man who wants a lonely kind of holiday.’
They walked on over the cliffs, Kiki sailing up into the air every now and again to join a surprised gull, and making noises exactly like the sea-birds, but more piercing.
Philip collected a large and unusual caterpillar from a bush, much to Dinah’s dismay, and put a lizard into his pocket. After that Dinah walked a good distance from him, and even Lucy-Ann was a bit wary. Lucy-Ann did not mind live creatures as Dinah did, but she wasn’t particularly anxious to be asked to carry lizards or caterpillars, as she might quite well be requested to do if Philip decided to take home some other creature that, if put in his pocket, might eat the caterpillar or lizard already there!
They all walked on happily, enjoying the rough sea-breeze, the salty smell of the sea, and the sound of the waves against the rocks below. The grass was springy beneath their feet, and the air was full of gliding birds. This was a lovely holiday, lovely, lovely!
They came to a jutting part of the cliff and walked out almost to the edge. ‘I can’t see signs of any boat on the water at all,’ said Jack.
‘You’re sure you didn’t imagine it?’ said Philip. ‘It’s funny there’s not a thing to be seen today – a boat is not an easy thing to hide.’
‘There’s a sort of cove down there,’ said Lucy-Ann, pointing to where the cliff turned in a little, and there was a small beach of shining sand. ‘Let’s go down and picnic there, shall we? We can bathe first. It’s awfully windy up here; I can hardly get my breath to talk.’
They began to climb down the steep and rocky cliff. The boys went first and the girls followed, slipping a little now and again. But they were all good climbers, and reached the bottom of the cliff in safety.
Here it was sheltered from the rushing wind and was warm and quiet. The children slipped off their jerseys and shorts and went into the water to bathe. Philip, who was a good swimmer, swam right out to some black rocks that stuck out from the water, high and forbidding. He reached them, and climbed up to rest for a while.
And then he suddenly saw a boat, on the other side of the rocks! There was a flat stretch there, and on it, pulled up out of reach of the waves, was the boat that Jack had seen on the sea the day before. No one could possibly see the boat unless he, like Philip, was on those particular rocks, for, from the shore, the high rocks hid the flat stretch facing seawards, where the boat lay.
‘Whew!’ whistled Philip in surprise. He got up and went over to the boat. It was a fine boat with a sail, and was almost as big as Joe’s. It was called The Albatross. There were two pairs of oars in it.
‘Well!’ said Philip, surprised, ‘what a strange place to keep a boat – right out here on these rocks! Whoever owns it would have to swim out whenever he wanted to get it. Funny!’
He shouted to the others. ‘The boat’s here – on these rocks. Come and see it.’
So
on all the children were examining the boat. ‘That’s the one I saw,’ said Jack. ‘But where’s the owner? There’s no sign of him anywhere.’
‘We’ll have our lunch and then we’ll have a good look-see,’ said Philip. ‘Come on – back to the shore we’ll go. Then we’ll separate after our picnic and hunt round properly for the man who owns this boat.’
They swam back to the shore, took off their wet things, set them out to dry in the sun, and put on their dry clothes. Then they sat down to enjoy the sandwiches, chocolate and fruit that Aunt Polly had prepared for them. They lolled in the sun, tired with their swim, hungry and thirsty, enjoying the food immensely.
‘Food’s gorgeous when you’re really hungry,’ said Lucy-Ann, taking a huge bite at her sandwich.
‘I always am hungry,’ said Jack. ‘Shut up, Kiki – that’s the best part of my apple you’ve pecked. I’ve got some sunflower seeds for you in my pocket. Can’t you wait?’
‘What a pity, what a pity!’ said Kiki, imitating Aunt Polly when something went wrong. ‘What a pity, what a pity, what a . . .’
‘Oh, stop her,’ said Dinah, who knew that the parrot was quite capable of repeating a brand-new sentence a hundred times without stopping. ‘Here, Kiki – have a bite of my apple, do.’
That stopped Kiki, and she ran her beak into the apple in delight, pecking out a bit that kept her busy for some time.
A quarrel nearly blew up between Dinah and Philip over the large caterpillar which made its way out of the boy’s pocket, over the sand, towards Dinah. She gave a shriek, and was about to hurl a large shell at Philip when Jack picked up the caterpillar and put it back into Philip’s pocket.
‘No harm done, Dinah,’ he said. ‘Keep your hair on! Don’t let’s start a free fight now. Let’s have a peaceful day.’
They finished up every crumb of the lunch. ‘The gulls won’t get much,’ said Philip lazily, shaking out the papers, then folding them up and putting them into his pocket. ‘Look at that young gull – it’s as tame as anything.’
‘I wish I had my camera here,’ said Jack longingly, watching the enormous young gull walking very near. ‘I could get a marvellous snap of him. I haven’t taken any bird pictures yet. I really must. I’ll find my camera tomorrow.’
‘Come on,’ said Dinah, jumping up. ‘If we’re going to do a spot of man-hunting, we’d better begin. I bet I find the strange boatman first.’
They separated, Jack and Philip going one way and the girls going the other. They walked on the sandy little beach, keeping close to the rocky cliffs. The girls found that they could not get very far, because steep rocks barred their way after a bit, and they had to turn back.
But the boys managed to get past the piece of cliff that jutted out and sheltered the little cove they had been picnicking in. On the other side of the cliff was another cove, with no beach at all, merely flattish rocks that shelved upwards to the cliff. The boys clambered over these rocks, examining the creatures in the pools as they went. Philip added a sea snail to the collection in his pocket.
‘There’s a break in the cliff just over there,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s explore it.’
They made their way towards the gap in the cliff. It was much wider than they expected when they got there. A stream trickled over the rocks towards the sea, running down from somewhere halfway up the cliff.
‘Must be spring water,’ said Jack, and tasted it. ‘Yes, it is. Hallo – look, Tufty!’
Philip looked to where Jack pointed, and saw floating in a pool a cigarette end, almost falling to pieces.
‘Someone’s been here, and quite recently too,’ said Jack, ‘else the tide would have carried that cigarette end away. This is exciting.’
With the cigarette end as a proof of someone’s nearness, the boys went on more eagerly still. They came to the wide crack in the cliff – and there, a little way up, built close against the rocky slope, was a tumbledown hut. The back of it was made of the cliff itself. The roof had been roughly mended. The walls were falling to pieces here and there, and, in winter, it would have been quite impossible to live in it. But someone was certainly living there now, for outside, spread over a stunted bush, was a shirt set out to dry.
‘Look,’ said Jack, in a whisper. ‘That’s where our boatman lives. What a lovely hidiehole he’s found!’
The boys went quietly up to the tumbledown hut. It was very, very old, and had probably once belonged to a lonely fisherman. A whistling came from inside the hut.
‘Do we knock at the door?’ said Philip, with a nervous giggle. But at that moment someone came out of the open doorway and caught sight of the boys. He stood gaping in great surprise.
The boys stared back without a word. They rather liked the look of the stranger. He wore shorts and a rough shirt, open at the neck. He had a red, jolly face, twinkling eyes, and a head that was bald on the top, but had plenty of hair round the sides. He was tall and strong-looking, and his chin jutted out below his cleanshaven mouth.
‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘Coming visiting? How nice!’
‘I saw you out in your boat yesterday,’ said Jack. ‘So we came to see if we could find you.’
‘Very friendly of you,’ said the man. ‘Who are you?’
‘We’re from Craggy-Tops, the house about a mile and a half away,’ said Philip. ‘I don’t expect you know it.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said the man unexpectedly. ‘But I thought only grown-ups lived there – a man and a woman – and an odd-job man.’
‘Well, usually only grown-ups do live there,’ said Philip. ‘But in the hols my sister and I come there too, to stay with our Aunt Polly and Uncle Jocelyn. And these hols two friends of ours came too. This is one of them – Jack Trent. His sister Lucy-Ann is somewhere about. I’m Philip Mannering and my sister is Dinah – she’s with Lucy-Ann.’
‘I’m Bill Smugs,’ said the man, smiling at all this sudden information. ‘And I live here alone.’
‘Have you just suddenly come here?’ asked Jack, in curiosity.
‘Quite suddenly,’ said the man. ‘Just an idea of mine, you know.’
‘Not much to come for here,’ said Philip. ‘Why did you come?’
The man hesitated for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m a bird-watcher. Interested in birds, you know. And there are a great many unusual birds here.’
‘Oh!’ cried Jack, in the greatest delight. ‘Do you like birds too? I’m mad on them. Always have been. I’ve seen crowds here that I’ve only seen in books before.’
And then the boy plunged into a list of the unusual birds he had seen, making Philip yawn. Bill Smugs listened, but did not say very much. He seemed amused at Jack’s enthusiasm.
‘What particular bird did you hope to see here, Mr Smugs?’ asked Jack, stopping at last.
Bill Smugs seemed to consider. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I rather hoped I might see a Great Auk.’
Jack looked at him in astonished silence that changed to awe. ‘The Great Auk!’ he said, in a voice mixed with surprise and wonder. ‘But – but isn’t it extinct? Surely there are no Great Auks left now? Golly – did you really think you might see one?’
‘You never know,’ said Bill Smugs. ‘There might be one or two left somewhere – and think what a scoop it would be to discover them!’
Jack went brick-red with excitement. He looked out over the sea towards the west, where the Isle of Gloom lay hidden in a haze.
‘I bet you thought there might be a chance of them on a desolate island like that,’ he said, pointing to the west. ‘You know – the Isle of Gloom. You’ve heard about it, I expect.’
‘Yes, I have,’ said Bill Smugs. ‘I certainly have. I’d like to go there. But it’s impossible, I believe.’
‘Would you take us out in your boat sometimes?’ asked Philip. ‘Joe, the odd-job man, has a fine boat, but he won’t let us use it, and we’d love to go fishing sometimes, and sailing too. Do you think it’s awful cheek to ask you? But I expect you find it a bit lonely here, don’t you
?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Bill Smugs. ‘Yes, we’ll go fishing and sailing together – you and your sisters too. It would be fun. We’ll see how near we can go to the Isle of Gloom too, shall we?’
The boys were thrilled. At last they could sail a boat. They went off to call the girls.
‘Hi, Dinah! Hi, Lucy-Ann!’ yelled Jack. ‘Come and be introduced to our new friend – Bill Smugs!’
12
A treat – and a surprise for Joe
Bill Smugs proved to be a fine friend. He was a jolly fellow, always ready for a joke, patient with Kiki, and even more patient with Philip’s ever-changing collection of strange pets. He did not even say anything when Philip’s latest possession, an extra large spider, ran up the leg of his shorts. He merely put his hand up, took hold of the wriggling spider, and deposited it on Philip’s knee.
Dinah, of course, was nearly in hysterics, but mercifully the spider decided that captivity was boring, ran into a rock crevice and disappeared.
The children visited Bill Smugs nearly every day. They went fishing in his boat and brought home marvellous catches that made Joe’s mouth fall open in amazement. Bill showed them how to sail the boat too, and soon the four children could manage it perfectly well themselves. It was great fun sailing about in a good strong breeze.
‘Almost as fast as a motor-boat,’ said Philip in glee. ‘Bill, I am glad we found you.’
To Jack’s disappointment Bill Smugs did not seem to want to talk endlessly about birds, nor did he want to go off with Jack and watch the birds on the cliffs or on the sea. He was quite willing to listen to Jack raving about birds, though, and produced many fine new bird books for him, which he said Jack could keep for himself.
‘But they’re new,’ protested Jack. ‘Look, the pages of this one haven’t even been cut – you’ve not read them yourself, sir. You read them first.’
‘No, you can have them,’ said Bill Smugs, lighting his cigarette. ‘There’s a bit about the Great Auk in one of them. I’m afraid we shall never find that bird after all. No one has seen it for about a hundred years.’