“You can’t hear the mowing machine now,” said Dick.
“No,” said Dorothea, “but I can’t help thinking about it.”
“They’ll finish the lawn today,” said Dick.
“Tomorrow she may go and think of something else,” said Dorothea.
They climbed over a stile into the road and stood on the bridge looking at the river. There could be no doubt about the trout now. Dick counted seven, three in the smooth water close under the bridge, one behind a stone in midstream, another in front of the stone, another in a smooth patch a few yards higher up, and another in some rippled water. This one he could see only when it splashed up after a floating fly. Every now and then the splash came in the same place, and, by keeping his eyes on that place, he saw the trout itself, a head, a flash of silver, and then nothing but rippling water as before.
And then something happened that for the moment put martyrs and Scarab and chemistry and treadmills clean out of their minds.
“Hey!”
They looked up and saw the small boy, Jacky, hurrying towards them with an old rusty tin in his hand.
“Thought you said you couldn’t come today,” he said as he joined them on the ridge.
“We were going to do something else,” said Dorothea, “but it’s been put off.”
“Lucky I happen to see you coming up t’beck.” Jacky crossed to the other side of the bridge and hove himself up so that he lay with his stomach on the parapet.
“There’s a big yin down yonder.”
The other two, who could look over the parapet without having to lie on the top of it, stood on each side of Jacky, watching the water flowing away from under the arch. They saw a sudden ring of ripples that drifted with the stream and was gone.
“That’s him,” said Jacky. He was scratching at the moss between the stones, and they saw him reach out a hand and let something slip from between his fingers.
“You’ll see him now … now … Nay, it’s passed him … See him get ut …” There was a swirl in the water and they had all seen the flash as the big trout turned.
“What did you drop?” asked Dick.
“Wingy ant … Here’s another.”
Again the big trout rose. Dick, too, began hunting.
“Will any insect do?”
“Ay. But ants is best or flies. Bracken clock’s best of all when you can get ’em.”
“What’s a bracken clock?”
“June beetle,” said Jacky. “Here’s an ant. You take ut. You mun drop ut in t’reet spot.”
The ant floated away a bit to the side of the place where the big trout was lying. It was taken by a much smaller one further down the river.
“I don’t see how you can catch them without a fishing rod,” said Dick.
“We’ll not catch yon,” said Jacky. “You come wi’ me. I’ll show you.”
He wriggled down from the parapet and led the way from the bridge along a cart track above the river. They passed a gate where the cart track turned through trees towards the white farm house. They kept on by a footpath close to the water and came to a place where a smaller stream came hurrying down from Kanchenjunga to join the bigger one.
Jacky stopped. He dropped on his stomach and wriggled to the edge of the stream. He pulled up his sleeve and, as it slipped down again, took his coat off and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.
“You aren’t going to catch them in your hands!” said Dick.
“Whisht!” said Jacky, and Dick and Dorothea, Picts with everything to learn, watched in silence.
With his head close to the ground, Jacky was dipping his arm under water. He wriggled a little nearer. His arm went in to the elbow. They saw one of his feet that had been moving stop as if it had been suddenly frozen. Half a minute went by like half an hour. Suddenly Jacky rolled sideways. His arm shot up out of the water and something flew through the air over the heads of the watchers. The next moment Jacky was on his feet searching the brambles where it had fallen. They saw his white arm plunge. They saw him bang something on a stone. He came back to them grinning with a small trout in his hand, and blood trickling from a scratch on his forearm.
“Get ’em away from t’water quick’s you can,” he said. “Or you’ll lose ’em sure.”
“But how did you catch it?” said Dick, looking at the trout.
“You’ve scratched your arm,” said Dorothea.
“That’s nowt,” said Jacky, licked the scratch and began to explain how the thing was done.
“Easy,” he said. “You’ve nobbut to guddle ’em.”
“But how?” said Dick.
“Why don’t they just swim away?” said Dorothea.
Jacky held the dead trout in his left hand as if it was swimming. He brought his right hand towards it, with all his fingers gently moving.
“You mun do it artful,” he murmured. He looked away, as if to show that he could not see the trout that he was holding. The fingers of his right hand were never still for a moment, like weeds stirring in a stream. He shut his eyes. Dick and Dorothea saw the moving fingers coming nearer and nearer to the trout. They touched, but still kept moving till the tips of them had worked up from underneath and round the body of the trout. Suddenly the fingers closed. Jacky’s left hand was empty. His right hand held the trout. He opened his eyes, looked at it as if surprised to see what he had caught, and grinned happily at his pupils.
“Got him!” he said.
“But why doesn’t the trout just bolt?” said Dick.
“It’s the guddling,” said Jacky. “If you go for to take him he’s gone. You mun keep guddling and guddling till you’ve your fingers round the middle of him. He’ll lie quiet. But you mun keep guddling. And you mun keep clear of his tail or he’s off. Let’s see you get yin. There’s aye a good yin under yon stone.”
He put the dead trout in his tin, and warily moved back towards the beck, pointing out the stone he meant.
Dick rolled his shirt sleeves and crawled to the edge of the stream.
“Nay,” squeaked Jacky. “Put your hand in below him. You don’t want to give him your fist to smell. Aye. Yon’s t’place … Is owt there? … Can you feel him?”
One of Dick’s feet waved in the air.
“He’s found one,” said Dorothea.
“Keep guddling,” urged Jacky. “Get your fingers round the thick of him … Eh, but you lost a good yin there.”
Dick’s arm had plunged to the shoulder. A sharp V of ripples shot across the pool.
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Dick.
“I’ll catch another,” said Jacky. “There’s plenty more fish in t’beck.” He pushed his tin at Dorothea, and went quickly up the stream, stooping as he went.
“You’ve got your shirt wet,” said Dorothea.
“Never mind,” said Dick. “I felt him. I felt his fins waving and then I wasn’t sure. I must have let my fingers stop. Come on. Let’s see him catch another.”
Jacky was already down on his stomach, clinging to a tree with his right hand, while his left reached down into the water that ran under it. He had lain there hardly more than a few seconds before he was scrambling to his feet with a small trout.
“Easy, that yin,” he said.
He banged its head on a stone, dropped it into the tin that Dorothea was holding, and darted off to another favourite place. He changed his mind. “Nay, you get this yin,” he said. “Right under t’bank.”
“How do you know?” asked Dorothea.
“I’ve had many a trout from yon spot,” said Jacky. “Catch yin today and there’ll be another in t’same spot in t’morning.”
This time he did not wait to watch, but hurried on up the side of the stream.
“I’m going to get this one,” said Dick, and he did.
“Oh, well done,” cried Dorothea, and Jacky came running back, to bang the trout on the head and put it with the others.
“I felt his fins tickling my hand. At least it wasn’t his fins. It was the stir they
made in the water. It’s quite easy if only you can keep your fingers moving all the time.”
“Plenty more likely spots along here,” said Jacky. “I’m going higher up. See who can catch most.”
FEELING FOR A TROUT
Dick chose what he thought was a good place, but there was no trout in it. He tried again and after long careful tickling caught a small stick that he had made sure was a fish. Then he had two failures with trout that darted away before he had made up his mind that he had worked his fingers into position. “Go on, Dot. You try. We’ve simply got to learn.”
Dorothea, after several tries in places where there were no trout, caught one to her own surprise. “Jacky!” she shouted, and got an answer from much further up the beck. Dick had failed again and yet again, and they hurried along to find Jacky, who was sitting by the stream with a row of seven small trout on the mossy bank beside him.
“Bang ut on t’neb,” said Jacky jumping up when he saw that Dorothea had something leaping in her cupped hands. “You’ll lose ut in t’beck if you don’t look sharp. I telled you,” he added as the little fish fell on the bank, flapped its tail, and, before she could pick it up, had dropped with a splash into the water and was gone.
“Never mind,” said Dorothea. “I say, you have got a lot.”
“Nay, we want more nor that,” said Jacky.
Tickling trout takes longer than telling about it and it was late in the day when they came back to the place where the small beck ran into the Amazon river, and laid out the catch. There were thirteen. “Lisle yins,” said Jacky, “but them’s the sweetest.” Jacky himself had caught all but five, Dick had caught three, and Dorothea two.
“It isn’t only the tickling,” said Dick. “It’s knowing the right places.”
“Nay, you’ve done none so bad for a first asking,” said Jacky. “It’s a gey good supper, but they won’t look so big when you’ve fried ’em.”
Dorothea did not think they looked very big even before frying, but she did not say so.
Jacky began separating them into two lots, but he changed his mind and put them all together.
“I can get plenty more,” he said. “You put ’em in my fry pan wi’ a dollop of butter. Have you got any butter?”
“Yes.”
“Swizzle it round the fry pan,” said Jacky. “Real hot. Lay ’em in and turn ’em after. Turn ’em over when they start curling. Eat ’em as hot as you can lay your tongue to.”
“Put them in just as they are?” asked Dorothea.
“Gut ’em,” said Jacky. “I’ll show you.” He pulled out the huge pocket knife they had found when cleaning out the hut. One by one, he ripped up the little fish and scraped their insides out over the beck. “My mother rolls ’em in flour,” he said. “But there’s no need. Or you can make do wi’ breadcrumbs.”
“Jacky! JACKEE!”
“That’ll be my supper,” said Jacky. “And hens to feed and cows to milk and what all.” He jumped up after putting the last of the little fish into the tin where they were packed like sardines, and gave the tin to Dorothea.
“Thanks most awfully,” said Dorothea.
“Thank you very much,” said Dick.
“Nay, I can do better for you nor that,” said Jacky. “And happen I will before morning.” And he bolted off towards the farm-house.
“They’ll have done the lawn by now,” said Dorothea, and with that they remembered that while they had been learning to tickle trout, Nancy and Peggy had been having a dreadful time.
They crossed the bridge and hurried along the road.
At the gap in the wall they waited and listened. There was no sound of the treadmill.
Dick had a look at the hole in the wall that was to be their letter-box. He knew the postman did not come in the afternoon, so he was not expecting a letter. He was wondering if the postman would find the right hole if there was a letter in the morning. But there was a letter in the hole already. He pulled it out.
“From Nancy,” exclaimed Dorothea, as she saw the skull and crossbones. There was no other address on the envelope. Dick tore it open, and read the note inside.
“Sorry about today. Couldn’t be helped. Better luck tomorrow. Same place. Same time. She got a headache. Serve her right. No hope of getting out this evening. Hope you got your milk.” There was no signature, but there was no need of one.
“Good,” said Dick. “There’s been no message from Timothy.”
“If we’d come back a bit sooner we might have seen them just for a second,” said Dorothea.
“They probably only just had time to jam it in and bolt back,” said Dick.
“It’s simply a miracle,” said Dorothea.
“What is?”
“Three whole days already,” said Dorothea. “And Nancy keeping it up all the time. I thought Peggy might manage, but I never thought Nancy could hold in for half as long. I suppose it’s because she’s made up her mind. I expect the real martyrs were just the same. The more the lions roared the less they let Nero or anybody see they cared.”
“It’s all right so far,” said Dick. “So long as we get the boat before Timothy’s ready to start work.”
*
Things were certainly easier for the Picts. They went up through the wood, to their own house, where there was no Great Aunt to tell them what to do or not to do. They lit their fire and set up their hammocks for the night. Dorothea crumbled some dry bread, got some butter melted and bubbling in Jacky’s frying pan, rolled each little fish in the crumbs and laid it in the pan. Then, shielding her face from the hot fire and the spitting butter, she watched till the trout began to curl. She turned them over to brown them on the other side. There was one bad moment when she remembered that she had forgotten the salt, but it was not too late to put that right, and presently the smell of fried trout was mingling with the smell of the wood fire, and soon after that, the Picts were licking their fingers and dropping fins and backbones to sizzle in the flames.
Dorothea put four of the trout aside. “We’ll have those cold for breakfast,” she said. “I say, Dick, that’s our first real meal.”
“Why our first?”
“Food that we got for ourselves,” said Dorothea. “In my next story I’m going to let the people have no food at all except what they can get in the forest where they live.”
“There’s blackberries,” said Dick. “And nuts.”
“If Jacky was living here instead of us,” said Dorothea, “I’m perfectly sure he’d manage without any bought stuff at all. There were no shops for the Picts. And no things in tins.”
Dick thought for a moment. “They would have used them if they could have got them,” he said.
CHAPTER XIV
“THEY CAN’T BE GOING TO SAIL …”
“WE’LL be sailing today,” said Dick almost before he opened his eyes, and saw that Dorothea was already up and dressed and busy about breakfast.
“Hurry up then,” said Dorothea.
The kettle was boiling when Jacky came stumbling up the path with the milk. He held out the bottle, but kept one hand behind him.
“Told you I could do better for you nor trout,” he said with a wide grin.
“They were awfully good,” said Dorothea. “We had them for supper last night and we’re just going to eat the last four for breakfast.”
“What about yon?” said Jacky, who brought his hand suddenly from behind his back and showed them a rabbit.
“Did you catch it?” said Dick.
“I thought there might be summat doing,” said Jacky. “Fine night and all. I catched three.”
He held out the rabbit to Dorothea, who took it gingerly by its hind legs.
“But don’t you want it yourself?” she said.
“Nay. Mother says she don’t want but two. You’re welcome. And here’s an onion to go with it. My mother says a rabbit’s not worth cooking without.”
“Thank you very much,” said both Dick and Dorothea at once.
; “I’ll show you where to hang ut,” said Jacky, and took them round to the north side of the hut and showed them a big wooden peg driven between the stones of the wall just about as high as he could reach. “Fox won’t get ut there,” he said as he hung up the rabbit by the loop of string he had used to fasten it to the handle-bars of his bicycle. He stood for a moment admiring it. “Have you got a bottle to take back? I mun be getting along. Summer and back end’s our busy time.”
“Whose busy time?” asked Dick.
“Farmers,” said Jacky as if he owned a thousand acres. “Aye busiest when other folk are having holidays. I’se going wi’ dad to market today. We’ve young pigs to sell.” And with that, taking the empty bottle that Dorothea had rinsed in the beck, he hurried away down the wood.
*
The little beck trout were almost better cold than hot, and while they were washing up after breakfast, the Picts planned to go guddling again.
“We’ll get a whole lot,” said Dick. “We know how. It only needs practice. And then we can make a feast for the others.”
“The sort of meal real Picts would give them,” said Dorothea. “Trout, and perhaps Jacky’ll get another rabbit … I’m going to cook this one for dinner … But I don’t suppose the others’ll be able to get away.”
“We needn’t stop being Picts even when she’s gone,” said Dick. “Though there won’t be any need.”
“We could be a whole tribe,” said Dorothea. “If only something doesn’t go wrong while she’s here.”
“We’d better go down the road,” said Dick. “Something may have happened already. There may be a message in the letter-box to say it’s no good again today. …”
They went down to the gap in the wall, but found nothing in the letter-box.
“Let’s hang about a bit. One of them may escape for a moment.”
“Not too near the road,” said Dick.
They were lurking just where the path left the larches and climbed into the thick undergrowth of the coppice, when they heard the rattle of a bicycle.