“Are you going up the lake?”
“I’ve plenty of time,” said Mary. “I’m going on my holiday,” she explained. “It won’t take me more than a minute or two to put you across to the island.”
“I shall be glad if you will,” said Miss Turner, so grimly that Mary wondered for a moment if she had done right and if Miss Turner’s nieces would be glad to see Miss Turner.
She led the way along the path through the coppice. Who would have thought of old Miss Turner walking all this way by herself? Mary decided that it was much better for her to go home in one of the children’s boats instead of traipsing that long road a second time in one day.
They came to the edge of the lake, and Mary unfastened the chain of her boat, put her basket in the bottom, helped Miss Turner in, pushed off and was presently rowing sturdily for the island.
“It’s not like them to be without a fire,” she said, when they were halfway across.
Miss Turner, watching the island, said nothing.
Mary rowed to the south end of the island, to look in through the rocks to the little harbour that was used by Nancy and Peggy and their friends. The harbour was empty. She rowed on. “There’s a place on the other side,” she said, but, as she rowed along the further shore of the island it was soon clear that no boats were there at all.
“Nay, if there are no boats, they can’t be here,” she said. “They’ll be on the houseboat.”
“But my nephew is away,” said Miss Turner.
“There’ll be his friend,” said Mary. “There was somebody on the deck when I went by the other day.”
“Someone living there now?”
“I did hear it was Mr Stedding, who’s working with Mr Turner away mining up at High Topps. But I’ll take you there, Miss Turner. It’s nobbut a yard or two out of my way, and if they’re not there you can come on with me, and one of the boatmen from the village’ll put you across to Beckfoot. It’s a hot day and all to be walking.”
“I shall be glad if you will,” said Miss Turner, and Mary stretched to her oars again and rowed steadily on with the easy, quiet stroke that comes natural to lake-country folk who have used the water all their lives. Miss Turner sat very straight in the stern of the boat, looking this way and that along the shores.
“Nay, there’s nobody on the houseboat neither,” said Mary, as she turned into the bay where the old blue houseboat lay to its mooring buoy. “No bairns, anyway. They’ve a flag they have up when any of them are there. Mr Turner puts it up when he’s expecting them, and likely the other gentleman would do the same.”
“I think we will go and see,” said Miss Turner.
“Yes, Miss Turner,” said Mary, and, beginning now to be afraid of missing her bus to the station, rowed a little faster and soon brought her boat alongside.
“Nay, there’s nobody here,” she said, standing up and looking in through the cabin windows.
“Very strange,” said Miss Turner. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”
Mary had worked her boat towards the houseboat’s stern, and was just going to sit down and take to her oars again when she saw something white.
“There’s a bit of paper on the cabin door, Miss Turner,” she said. “Maybe they’ve left a message for you.”
“Will you see what it is,” said Miss Turner, and Mary, taking her painter in one hand, climbed up the little ladder, looked at the paper and read it aloud to Miss Turner, who was still sitting in the boat.
“Make yourselves at home till I get back. Timothy.”
“They’re expected anyhow,” said Mary. “He’s left t’key in t’door.”
Miss Turner thrust her parasol towards Mary, who took it and gave her a hand as she climbed aboard.
“I will wait for them.”
“Aye, that’ll be best. You might easy miss them coming past the islands, and they’d be sorry for that.”
“I am much obliged to you, Mary,” said Miss Turner.
“That’s all right,” said Mary. “I’d best be going now.”
“Not late, I hope,” said Miss Turner.
“Nay, I’ll do it right enough,” said Mary, but for all that knew she had now no time to spare, and rowed fast out of the bay. For some minutes, she saw Miss Turner standing on the deck. She saw her disappear into the cabin. The houseboat looked as deserted as before. “Gone in to have a good sit down,” thought Mary. “And no wonder, poor old body,” and with that she saw the steamer coming from the foot of the lake, and knew that if she did not get to the pier before it she would miss her bus, which was timed to meet the steamer and take its passengers to the station.
It was a near thing and Mary was hotter than she liked as she came to the landing-stage. The steamer, with a great flurry of reversed propellers, was coming alongside the pier. There was the bus, ready to start. Mary pushed her painter into the hand of the old boatman who knew her well, asked him to mind her boat for her, told him she would be back in a week’s time, ran along the pier with her basket and took her seat in the bus just as it moved off. That was all right. It would have been a bad beginning to her holiday to miss the bus and miss the train. Then, at the station, there was her ticket to buy and a place to find in one of the through carriages. And Mary was off for her holiday and never thought of Miss Turner again until she came back a week later.
CHAPTER XXIV
CARE-FREE HOLIDAY
“IT’S almost too good to be true,” said Nancy, taking a long breath and looking back down the valley from half way up the steep slope of Greenbanks, where the expedition had halted for a rest.
“What is?” asked Peggy.
“This, of course. Don’t you realize it’s still morning? And we’re not doing holiday tasks. We’re not mowing the lawn. We’re not weeding. We’re not winding wool. We’re not arranging flowers. We’re not dusting the drawing-room ornaments. We’re not thumping the beastly piano. We’re not reciting sloppy poems. We can shiver our timbers without catching a glassy eye. And we haven’t got to be back till supper-time. It’s as good as if she didn’t exist at all.”
“Let’s pretend she’s a Pict,” said Dorothea, “for a change.”
“And tomorrow she goes, and if she isn’t pleased with us she ought to be. Nine days. Ten counting tomorrow. And there hasn’t been a single real row, except for Cook giving notice. And we’ve managed to do all the really important things in spite of her being here.”
Timothy was lying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head. “It was a pretty near shave with the burglary,” he said, “but I blame myself a bit for that.”
“Well, you had to have the things,” said Dick.
“It’ll feel very funny when she’s gone,” said Dorothea, “not being Picts any more.”
“And not being a suspicious character,” said Timothy. “I don’t really like feeling shy of policemen.”
“And not being angels,” said Nancy. “It’s been jolly hard work being angels for nine whole days on end.”
Timothy looked queerly at Nancy. He sat up. “Let’s look at your shoulders,” he said. “You’ve had Dick and Dorothea in hiding for all this time. You’ve roped in the postman and the milkboy and the cook and me and the police and the doctor and tied us all up into knots, and … let’s see those shoulders.”
“What’s the matter with them?” said Nancy.
“I can’t see any wings on them anyhow,” said Timothy, “but I wouldn’t be surprised to find you had hoofs and a tail. Jim warned me. He told me to keep an eye on you and look out for squalls. I asked him what you were likely to do and he said it was no good telling me what you’d done already because the thing you’d do next would be sure to be different and worse.”
“Uncle Jim’s a pig,” said Nancy. “What is it, Dot?”
“I was wondering what’s happening at Beckfoot now.”
“She’s solemnly packing,” said Nancy. “Cook, my black dress, please. Cook, that’s not quite the way to fold it. Now my shoes. No. No. Heel to toe.
No, Cook, I think it will be better if the dresses lie flat on the top. And, Cook, I shall need those shoes this evening.’ And poor old Cook’s holding in and holding in until she’s fit to bust. She’s given notice, so she doesn’t see why she shouldn’t let fly. I told her she’s simply got to hold in just for one more day.”
“I expect that’s where the wings are,” said Timothy.
Dick stared at him, and then suddenly laughed, at the thought of a fluttering cook.
“I don’t care what you say,” said Nancy. “We’ve never been so good for so long at a time, in all our lives.”
“Let’s try to forget her just for a bit,” said Dorothea.
“Good idea,” said Nancy. “Forgotten. Wiped it out. Done with. Gone … Shiver my timbers. Let’s get on. The S.A. and D. Mining Expedition treks to the Gulch.”
*
They climbed on and came to the edge of High Topps. Green was showing here and there on the earth that had been blackened by the great fire. They reminded each other of that dreadful day, and of how Nancy, Peggy, John and Susan had sheltered with Timothy in the mine while the fire raged past, and then had raced over the ashes to the rescue of the others. They looked away to the right to Kanchenjunga. They spoke of the moles finding their way through the old working to Slater Bob’s quarry. They laughed over the way they had fended off Timothy when as “Squashy Hat” he had seemed to be a rival prospector. They told him how, secretly, at night, they had watched him through the farmhouse window.
THEIR OWN MINE
Dick, alone, had other things to think of. “I’d forgotten there’d be no heather,” he said. “I’ll have to climb up on the other side where it didn’t get burnt.”
“What for?” asked Timothy.
“Fox Moth caterpillar,” said Dick.
“What do you want it for?”
“It’s not quite as interesting as the Vapourer,” said Dick. “But I’ve never had one. It feeds on heather and then goes to sleep for the winter and doesn’t turn into a chrysalis till next spring.”
“What does it look like?” asked Nancy.
“Brown and black velvet,” said Dick.
“Right,” said Nancy, “we’ll all hunt.”
“Thank you very much,” said Dick. “I’ve brought a box for it.”
“Good,” said Nancy. “Burglar one day, professor the next.”
“And wasn’t it you who found the mine?” said Timothy.
“It was Roger,” said Dick.
“Thanks to being a lazy little beast,” said Nancy. “Giminy, I wish the Great Aunt was right and the Swallows were here now.”
“Good thing they’re not,” said Timothy.
“You couldn’t have turned them all into Picts,” said Dorothea. “Not Roger anyway.”
“We couldn’t have done it if there’d been more of us,” said Dick. “With Picts all over the place, somebody would have been sure to get caught.”
“Oh well,” said Nancy, “they’ll be here soon, and something’s sure to happen. It always does. It won’t be like this when the main object is for nothing to happen at all.”
“Only burglary,” said Timothy quietly.
“That couldn’t be helped,” said Nancy. “And nobody was caught. And nobody’s going to be.”
“She hasn’t gone yet,” said Timothy.
“She’s packing,” said Nancy.
“Do let’s try to forget her,” said Dorothea.
*
After that, for quite a long time, no one mentioned the Great Aunt. No one mentioned Picts. Martyrs and Picts alike were prospectors again, crossing the blackened desert of High Topps to the mine they had themselves discovered.
“You’ve never seen the mine since Slater Bob and Timothy and Captain Flint really got working at it,” said Peggy. “We haven’t seen it ourselves since the Easter holidays.”
“It’s come on a lot since then,” said Timothy. “That old man’s a demon for work.”
They came at last to the edge of the Gulch. It was no longer the ravine of last summer that, but for the old working half hidden by heather so that anybody might miss it if he did not know where it was, had looked as if no human being had ever explored it. The heather had been burnt by the fire, of course. But the entry was hidden now by huge piles of broken stones. Other smaller heaps of stone lay about. There were well-trodden paths from heap to heap. There was a wheelbarrow and some sort of a stone-crusher.
“Have you got all that out of it?” exclaimed Dick.
“There’ll be a lot more to come,” said Timothy. “And we’ve begun driving shafts down from above.”
Up on the hillside, where last summer had been Timothy’s white spots painted on the rocks, were small grey piles of broken stone.
An old man, with very long arms, came out from between the heaps in front of the entry, and blinked in the sunshine.
“Hullo!” shouted Nancy, “there’s Slater Bob.” The prospectors charged down into the Gulch.
The old man waved them back. “You can’t go in now,” he said. “I’m firing.”
“Hang on a minute,” said Timothy.
Perhaps twenty seconds later there was a loud boom from the inside of the hill and a cloud of smoke and grey dust, stirred by the explosion, blew out of the entry to the mine.
“Blasting,” said Dick. “Can we go in now?”
“Best let it settle,” said Slater Bob.
“What about food?” said Timothy. “I don’t want to mix copper ore with my grub and I’ll be wanting to use my knapsack.”
“Let’s get it over and then go in,” said Nancy.
“Have you had your dinner, Bob?” Timothy asked the old man.
“I was coming out for it now.”
“I’ve a bottle of beer to help it,” said Timothy.
“I generally what drink cold tea,” said the old man, “but I don’t mind a sup o’ beer.”
“He means he jolly well likes it,” Nancy explained privately to Dorothea.
Knapsacks were emptied and parcels opened. There were the sandwiches Cook had made for Nancy and Peggy and an astonishing lot of food brought by Timothy … a parcel of cherry pies, a cold chicken, a bag of oranges, four bottles of lemonade, two bottles of beer, and a cake. When the knapsacks were emptied and everything spread on the ground, it looked a feast almost too good for miners and prospectors.
“But you didn’t cook that chicken in the houseboat, or those pies,” said Dorothea, remembering the state of the galley even after she had done her best with it.
“I didn’t,” said Timothy. “Eggs and bacon are my line. I ordered a few things the day I sent off those pigeons, thinking I’d be having visitors. I’ve a friend in the hotel by the pier. You’d have had some of these things yesterday but they didn’t turn up till late last night, and I very nearly didn’t get them even then. I was working, you know, and the boy who brought them said he’d been shouting from the shore for half an hour.”
“Good thing you heard him in the end,” said Nancy.
Timothy was opening the outer pocket of his knapsack. He brought out two big slabs of chocolate. “I was forgetting Roger wasn’t with us,” he said.
“We won’t bother to save it for him,” said Nancy, and Dorothea thought that Nancy’s way of saying “Thank you” was not very different from old Slater Bob’s.
Old Slater Bob drank his beer, but he would have none of the food the expedition had brought with them. Bread and cheese was what he had and bread and cheese was what he liked. “I’ve quarried and mined for fifty years on a bit of cheese to my dinner and I don’t fancy nowt else.”
They were hungry enough after the long trek, and there was nothing left of the provisions when at last Timothy and the old man, who had been talking of mining all the time, got to their feet.
“Are you going in now?” asked Dick. “Can we come?”
“And welcome,” said the old man.
“Who’s got torches?” said Timothy.
“We both ha
ve,” said Dorothea.
“The batteries are rather run down,” said Dick, and just for a moment his mind shot back to the night of the burglary.
“They’ll do,” said Timothy. “Bob’s got a pretty good light.”
The old man was carrying an acetylene lantern. He turned it up, so that a bright white flame nearly dazzled them, and led the way into the old cave where Roger had found the copper.
“What’s that hissing?” said Peggy.
“Water on the carbide,” said Dick, and caught Nancy’s eye, and knew that she was thinking of saying the word, “Professor”. He did not wait to hear it, but followed Timothy and the old man into the cave. The cave was twice the size it had been when he had known it. It was as if the whole back of it had been moved further into the hill, and in the middle of that new wall of raw stone was the opening of a tunnel four feet wide. In the cave the bright light of the lantern was answered by reflected sparks from lumps of copper ore. He heard the old man talking to Timothy, saying that he didn’t think much of No. 3, but 4 and 5 were promising well. “If some of that’s not right good stuff, I don’t know nowt about copper.”
“What are the numbers?” Dick asked when he got a chance. “Are they the same as the numbers on the different lots we were working at in the houseboat?”
“That’s it,” said Timothy. “Jim numbered the sections, and what we’re doing is checking up on probable yield. The stuff varies a lot. That’s why I want fresh samples. Two of our results seem a bit queer.”
“Let’s go on and see the place where you were blasting,” said Nancy.
“Nowt to see,” said the old man. “Not till I’ve cleared the muck away.”
“Well, let’s see what there is,” said Nancy.
They went on through a dark tunnel, following the lantern, most of the light from which was hidden by old Bob himself.