“Postman,” whispered Dick. “Lie low. Let’s see if he puts a letter in our box.”
“We’d better stop him and make sure,” said Dorothea. “It would be too awful if he went and took another to the Great Aunt.”
But, before they had time to move, they heard his feet on the road as he got off his bicycle. Looking down through the trunks of the trees they saw him come into the gap, swing his bag round, dip into it and take out a bundle of letters. They saw him take one letter from the bundle. He stopped and poked it into the wall.
“He’s done it all right,” said Dick.
“Wait just a minute,” said Dorothea. “If he’s like the doctor he’d much rather not see us. And there’s no need now.”
They waited till the postman had had time to go on to Beckfoot, and then ran down to the wall.
“It’s for you,” said Dick, pulling the letter from its hole.
“From Mother,” said Dorothea.
“Is there one for me too?”
“It’s to both of us. Don’t let’s stay by the road. Come back out of sight.”
In the shelter of the hazels where nobody on the road could see them, they read the letter together.
My very dear Dot and Dick,
We were glad to hear that you had got safely to the end of your journey. It must have been great fun doing the last bit of it by water. I expect by now you are already sailing in your new boat. Do be careful. It would be a dreadful pity and most annoying for us if you both got drowned before you have had a chance of teaching us to sail. Father is still snowed under with examination papers, but he seems to spend quite a lot of time looking at a catalogue of boats for hire on the Broads, and the red and blue pencils he uses for marking the examination papers are quite useful for putting crosses against the boats the look of which he likes. I think something may come of it. I have had a very nice letter from your friend Mrs Barrable who is at Horning and says her brother will be there and sailing with her some time in September. She asked me to give the Coot Club’s best wishes as well as her own. Now about your Picts. Your father says that in a way you are right and in a way you are wrong. There used to be a theory among folklorists that the origin of the belief in fairies and such was the half secret presence in remote places of original inhabitants of the country who had been for the most part driven out by conquering tribes. I think I have remembered his exact words. He says it is an exploded theory, but he also says that most theories get exploded sooner or later. While father is doing his examination papers, with the help of a red and blue pencil and the catalogue with pictures of boats, I have been turning out the whole house … “Oh, I say, not my room,” exclaimed Dick … I am not touching Dick’s Museum … “That’s all right,” said Dick with a sigh of relief … It must be great fun having a house of your own. Have Peggy and Nancy got one too? Remember to give my love to Mrs Dixon if you see her. Goodbye for now. Love from both of us to both of you.
Mother
P.S. Mind! No getting drowned. We want to learn to sail.
“It’s no good trying to explain about Nancy and Peggy and the Great Aunt in a letter,” said Dorothea. “Anyhow, we’re doing the best we can to make sure Mrs Blackett isn’t sorry she invited us. What does it mean when a theory’s exploded?”
“Just that somebody’s invented another,” said Dick. “Like in chemistry. Once people believed in stuff called phlogiston, and then in atoms, and now it’s all mixed up with radium and electricity.”
“So the Picts are all right.”
“Until we can think of something better,” said Dick.
“We’re going on being Picts,” said Dorothea.
“With us the theory won’t really be exploded unless the Great Aunt finds out.”
“She mustn’t,” said Dorothea.
After the disappointment of the day before, Dick hardly dared to let himself believe that nothing would stop them from fetching Scarab.
“I’m going to stop here and keep a look out,” he said. “Just in case one of them brings a message. Anything may have happened since last night.”
“All right,” said Dorothea. “I’ve a lot to do about the house.”
Two hours, three hours went by. Dick lay in hiding, looking down from the hazel bushes, watching the road through the rough scaled trunks of the larches. He had Knight’s Sailing with him, and he caught a glimpse of a woodpecker and had a good view of three kinds of tits, a jay and a couple of magpies. A red squirrel came leaping and swinging through the feathery branches of larch trees, saw Dick, and kept taking a look at him first round one side of the trunk and then round the other, and then chattered at him as if asking what business he had in the wood. Any of these things on ordinary days would have been enough to make Dick forget the time and everything else. Today he kept looking at his watch, and at last began to worry not because time was going too slowly but because it was going too fast. How long did it take to cook a rabbit? Hadn’t he better remind Dot that whatever happened they must be ready and waiting on the promontory the moment Nancy and Peggy managed to get away?
He found Dorothea outside the hut, looking at the rabbit still hanging from its peg in the wall.
“How long does it take to cook?” he asked.
“It looks awfully dead,” said Dorothea.
“But it is,” said Dick.
“I wonder how I ought to begin.”
“There’s probably a scientific way,” said Dick. “Of getting the skin off, I mean.”
Dorothea took the rabbit from the peg. Its eyes were dull, and its fur felt cold to her unwilling touch.
“They’re a lot nicer running about.”
“I know,” said Dick. “So is everything. Even tinned pemmican was running about once, and sardines were swimming and bananas were growing on trees. But we eat them just the same.”
“Picts wouldn’t think twice about it. Jacky didn’t. Look at those trout. And we ate them. And they were good. I know it’s no good thinking about it … But I wish I’d asked Jacky how to take the skin off.”
“Ask him tomorrow,” said Dick. “Don’t bother about it now. Let’s have something that’s ready to eat as it is. We ought to be down on the promontory early in case they get an extra minute.”
“Perhaps I’ll be able to get a cookery book in Rio,” said Dorothea. “Yes. I’ll do that. We oughtn’t to have to ask people everything. Can you do for now with pemmican and bread and cheese and oranges and some of the Beckfoot grog?”
“It doesn’t matter what we have,” said Dick. “So long as we’re not late.”
“We’ll cook the rabbit for supper tonight,” said Dorothea. “Or dinner tomorrow. If I can get a cookery book it’s sure to tell us all about it.”
Half an hour later, after a meal a good deal easier to make ready than the rabbit stew she had been thinking of, Dorothea had tidied up, Dick had put the plates to rinse under the waterfall, and the two of them were on the way, Dick with telescope and Knight, Dorothea with the scarab flag for the new boat. They were very early, and for fear luncheon might not have begun at Beckfoot, they worked their way round through the wood till they came down on the road well beyond the house, crossed it after careful scouting, and were presently looking down from the ridge on Beckfoot lawn.
“It’s going to be all right today, I know it is,” said Dorothea at last.
“Two and a half more minutes to two o’clock,” said Dick.
Suddenly their hearts fell, as two prim figures came out of the house.
“Something’s gone wrong again,” whispered Dorothea.
“They can’t be going to sail after all,” said Dick.
“Not dressed like that,” said Dorothea.
White frocks, pink sashes, shady white hats … if they had not known who was wearing these things, they never would have guessed.
“They’re coming across the lawn,” said Dick. “Perhaps it’s to tell us it’s no go again.”
“Don’t shout,” whispered Dorothea. “She m
ay be watching from her bedroom window and if she saw them look up. …”
“Quick. Quick,” said Dick, wriggling backwards. “We’ll have to hurry to get down there or they may think we haven’t come.”
Safely below the skyline they stood up and raced down the ridge. They waited at the edge of the river. They could see the roof of the boathouse over the reeds, and through a gap in the reed-beds they could see the smooth waters of the Amazon flowing out into the lake.
For some minutes nothing happened. Then they heard the noise of oars working in rowlocks. Then, close by, the loud impatient quacking of a duck. A moment later the boat was in sight. A miracle had happened. White frocks and shady hats were gone. Two sturdy pirates in shirts and shorts, with red stocking caps on their heads, were in the boat, Nancy at the oars, Peggy standing in the stern, anxiously searching the banks. She quacked again, and the same instant saw them.
Nancy backwatered with her left, pulled with her right, and swung the boat’s nose round into the gap between the reed-beds.
“Giminy,” she said. “We were afraid you never got my despatch. We thought you hadn’t come. Hop in. Have you been waiting long?”
“We saw you come across the lawn,” said Dorothea. “We thought it meant ‘No Go’ again.”
Nancy laughed. “We’ve left all that in the boathouse. Peggy nipped out last night with our comfortables hidden in a watering can while I held the G.A. in polite talk. Get right down in the bottom of the boat. Under the sail as much as you can. She was in her bedroom when we left but you can’t count on her to stay there. I thought of locking her in, but it seemed better not. If she does come out she’s as likely to mouch along the lake road as anywhere. So jolly well keep your heads below the gunwhale. We’ll be in full view from the road till we get to Rio Bay.”
“But won’t she see your red caps?”
“We could explain them,” said Nancy. “But we couldn’t explain you. She probably isn’t there. She went to lie down all right. But we won’t take any risks. Here, Peggy. You take one oar and I’ll take the other and we’ll fairly bucket across.”
“Aren’t you going to sail?” asked Dick.
“We’d have to tack,” said Nancy. “Rowing’s faster when there’s so little wind. And we want every minute we can with the new boat. And don’t shout too loud. Sound carries like anything over water. No. We’re going to row there, and then we’ll have a bit of time to watch you sailing.”
Dick, lying in the bottom of the Amazon, took off his spectacles and wiped them.
Dorothea knew the signs. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered. “You’ve sailed Titmouse. And Teasel. It’ll be just the same.”
“I know,” said Dick, putting his spectacles on again, and thinking of the diagrams in his book. Privately he wished very much that he and Dorothea were going to sail their new boat for the first time without anybody to look on.
“What’s all that?” said Nancy, but rowing hard, did not wait for an answer. “Trim the boat, Dot. Shift your weight a bit nearer the side. No. Not you, Dick. I say, are you getting your milk all right?”
“Yes,” said Dorothea. “And Jacky’s given us a rabbit. And yesterday while you were being prisoners he taught us how to catch trout with our fingers.”
“Good for Jacky,” said Nancy.
“But that’s not all,” said Dorothea. “It’s his hut we’ve taken.”
“Jacky’s?”
“We never knew that,” said Peggy.
“He says nobody knew. He’s a better Pict than we are,” said Dorothea. “He’s got his own cupboard there, and cooking things. And that was his saw we found. And his knife.”
“I say,” said Nancy … “If he talks too much.”
“He won’t,” said Dorothea. “He’s lent us everything, and he says he doesn’t want it just now because he’s too busy.”
“Well done, Jacky,” said Nancy. “Think of him being up there and us not having the slightest idea.”
“Do you think I’ll be able to get a cookery book in Rio?”
“I expect so,” said Nancy. “What do you want it for?”
“That rabbit,” said Dorothea.
“Smuggle it down to us and we’ll get old Cooky to do it.”
“I think I ought to learn,” said Dorothea.
“Jolly useful,” said Nancy. “Keep time, Peggy. In … out … in …”
“I say,” said Dick. “What do we do about bringing Scarab home?”
“You’ll manage all right,” said Nancy. “Only put it off till pretty late. Don’t come back with us. She mustn’t see two boats arriving together. And don’t try sailing up the river. It isn’t deep enough to use the centreboard, and if you got blown into the bank just in front of the house … Get the centreboard up outside. Lower sail and row quietly up …”
“Without ever looking at the house.”
“That’s the idea,” said Nancy. “Just row right past, and when you get to the lagoon and work her into the harbour she’ll be as snug as anything and you can sneak away. What are you going to call the harbour?”
“Picthaven,” said Dorothea.
“Right. What’s the matter, Dick?”
“Only a crick in my neck.”
“You can come up now. Easy, Peggy.”
The two pirates stopped rowing, and the boat slid on while the stowaways put their heads above the gunwhale, scrambled up, one at a time, took their places in the stern and looked about them.
Already the Beckfoot promontory was far astern. Close ahead was Rio Bay with its crowds of rowing boats, its moored yachts, its boat landings, the steamer pier and, beyond it, the big sheds of the boatbuilders.
The pirates rowed on.
“Hen and chicken,” said Peggy, nodding as they passed at the two big buoys that marked the rocks that the steamers had to avoid.
“I remember,” said Dorothea, thinking of Rio Bay all ice and thick with skating Eskimos on that winter day when she and Dick had sailed a sledge in a blizzard and found the North Pole. That had been one kind of adventure. This, she thought, was quite another. Riskier, too. Rather like it in a way … like skating on thin ice that might break at any moment. She looked at the visitors, using their oars like windmills and splashing noisily to and fro in the hired boats. They were not like Dick and herself, outlaws whose very existence was a secret. She thought of her old story of the Outlaw of the Broads, always in flight from his enemies. At least his enemies knew he existed. That was almost homely and comfortable. This was much more difficult. She planned that her next story should be about a Pict, the very last of his race, living his life out to the end in a country whose people never even knew that he was there. Her father would be able to tell her all about Picts. Were there rabbits in England then? Did the last of the Picts catch them and cook them? Did he, like a fox, come creeping to his neighbours’ farmyards, and race back to his hills in the moonlight with a fat duck clutched in his sinewy hands? Her mind was far away when Nancy called, “Easy, Peggy! … Good. They’ve got her in the water. There she is. By the third boatshed. …”
CHAPTER XV
LAUNCHING THE SCARAB
A NARROW landing stage ran down into the water from the big grey shed. Beside it, Dick and Dorothea could see the golden flash of newly varnished wood. Scarab was waiting for them, tied to the stage.
Nancy, who had taken both oars, was bringing Amazon in. Peggy, painter in hand, was ready in the bows. With every moment Dick and Dorothea could see more of the first ship they had ever owned. She was right way up now and floating, alive, no longer a mere piece of carpentry as she had been when they had seen her upside down on trestles in the shed. Her mast, pale yellow, was lying in her, with two oars also bright with varnish, and a new red sail, neatly stowed along its spars.
“SIT DOWN, Dick,” said Nancy, startling Dick, who had not known that he was standing up.
“The sail’s a lovely colour,” said Dorothea.
“It won’t mildew anyhow,” said Nancy.
“Another thing is that our sail’s white, and Swallow’s is brown and with yours red, when we’re all sailing we’ll be able to tell which is which a hundred miles away.”
The boatbuilder, working in the shed, had seen them through the open doors. He came out on the stage to meet them and put a hand down to Amazon’s gunwale, though, with Nancy at the oars, there was no need to save a bump.
“So you’ve come for her,” he said. “We had her ready for you yesterday.”
“Something happened and we couldn’t come,” said Nancy.
“We were thinking of bringing her across to Beckfoot this morning but summat got in t’road and we were kept busy till dinner-time.”
Nancy gasped. Dorothea’s face whitened. What would have happened if the boatbuilder had turned up at Beckfoot with a boat for the people who did not exist? Again she had that dreadful feeling that they were all skating on thin and cracking ice. The danger was as much from those who did not know what was going on as from those who had become allies in the cause. But the boatbuilder did not notice and Dick and Peggy, already on the stage, were looking down into the new boat.
Nancy pulled herself together. “Glad you didn’t,” she said. “We wanted to fetch her ourselves.” The next moment she was in Scarab and busy stepping the mast.
“Better let me,” she said. “Just to save time.” The mast went up, and she cast loose the halliards. “Good. Flag halliards ready too. Where’s the flag, Dot? Let Dick have it. Two clove hitches, one half way up the flagstaff and one at the very bottom. … Look here. Never forget to mouse the sister-hooks when you fasten the main halliard to the yard … Like this … They always shake loose if you don’t … No. Don’t hoist the flag yet. Half a minute … Giminy! (She slapped the pocket of her shorts.) No, it’s all right. I thought I’d forgotten it … Now. …”
“Forgotten what?” Dick’s mind was in a whirl. Things were going too fast. Peggy was fitting the rudder. Nancy was busy with half a dozen things at once. Would he ever remember how to do everything when he and Dot had their boat to themselves?