The Picts & the Martyrs. Arthur Ransome

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CHAPTER VI

      “SHE’S HERE!”

      THE NOISE of footsteps died away below them in the wood. Dorothea stood listening till she could hear them no more. Everything had happened with such a rush, there had been no time to think. Now, suddenly she began to wonder if after all they were doing the right thing, and, even worse, if they were going to be able to do it. She was sure they were right in clearing out from Beckfoot. What else could they have done? Nancy and Peggy were older than they were and had wanted them to go. Even old Cook had been thinking they would be better gone. But wouldn’t it have been better to go away altogether? Down at Beckfoot it had seemed quite simple, just to go and live in a hut in the wood. It had seemed easy till Nancy and Peggy had gone. Now, just for a moment, she found herself wanting to run after them.

      She turned to look at the Dogs’ Home that was now to be a house for Picts. Were they really going to live in that old hut, alone, high in the wood, with no one else within sight or call? Were they going this very night to sleep in it, and wake in it tomorrow alone and secret, like escaping prisoners hiding in a hostile country? They had never even camped except with other tents close by and with John and the capable Susan taking charge and doing the housekeeping for everybody. Was she going to be able to manage by herself ? Wasn’t the whole idea a mistake?

      She looked at Dick and saw that he had no doubts at all. For him there had been a problem to solve and a solution found for it. If they could not live at Beckfoot, they must live somewhere else. Why not here? And she saw that Dick was already looking warily into the trees and trying to get a better view of some bird of which he had caught a glimpse. Dorothea pulled herself together. Nancy and Peggy down there at Beckfoot with the Great Aunt were going to have the really difficult time. And, whatever happened, she and Dick must not be the ones to let them down.

      “Come on, Dick,” she said. “Let’s see what wants doing to our house.”

      They walked round it and decided that the wall was so thick that there was no need to worry about the few stones that had fallen from it. A little moss well pushed in would stop any holes in the roof. “It’s a good solid house,” said Dick, “and quite big enough, and it couldn’t be in a better place.” Dorothea, after walking round it, and remembering that at least there was no danger of its blowing away like a tent, half thought they would make a bit of a garden for it, but decided that the few foxgloves growing close to the hut were really better then anything planted on purpose. “We’ll not bother about a window box,” she said, “but we’ll have some flowers in a jam-pot. I found an empty one when we were clearing the sticks out. I wish I’d thought of taking some roses when I was picking them to go in the spare room.”

      “I wonder who left the jam-pot,” said Dick.

      “Some Pict or other before us,” said Dorothea. “It doesn’t matter so long as he doesn’t come back while we’re here.” She looked in at the door of the hut. “I’m sure Susan would say we ought to have brushed it out first, before putting the furniture in. But we haven’t a brush.”

      “I can make one,” said Dick. “Where’s that saw the other Pict left?”

      In a very few minutes he had cut some young birch shoots and tied them into a firm bundle round one end of a straight ash sapling. Meanwhile Dorothea had pulled all the furniture out once more, the packing-case table, the soap-box larder, the three-legged stool, the chair with a broken back, the two suitcases. Then she set to work with her new broom and the hut filled with choking clouds of dust.

      “Better not sweep all the floor away,” said Dick.

      “I’ll just get the top layer off. It’s mostly twigs. I’ll sweep it into the fireplace ready for when I start the fire again for supper. Look here. You’d better be cutting logs.”

      Dick, while the dust came rolling from the door and window of the hut, set to work outside on the huge pile of dead branches. There was an old tree stump in the clearing, just the right height for him to use in sawing the thicker ends of the branches into short lengths. The thinner branches he broke across his knee, or by putting a foot on them and lifting. He had made two piles, one of small stuff for firelighting, and one of thicker bits, and was resting for a moment, to open and shut his fingers, cramped with holding the saw, when Dorothea came out to him with something in her hand.

      “Dick,” she said. “Somebody really has been using our house. Look at this.” She held out an open clasp knife with a bone handle.

      “Not very rusty,” said Dick. “Where did you find it?”

      “I nearly brushed it into the fireplace,” said Dorothea and stiffened … “Listen!”

      “Only a motor car,” said Dick.

      “It’s her,” said Dorothea.

      Dick stood listening, the knife forgotten in his hand. Above the noise of the little beck, above the noise of rustling leaves, above the harsh shouting of some jays below them in the wood, they could hear a motor car coming along the road. They heard it hoot at a bend. They heard it passing.

      “Perhaps it isn’t going to stop,” said Dick.

      They heard it hoot again.

      “It’s turned into Beckfoot,” said Dorothea. “She’s getting out now. This very minute. Nancy and Peggy are saying ‘How do you do?’ They’re carrying her things in and asking if she’s had a pleasant journey … just like they asked us … ”

      Presently they heard the motor car hoot again. They heard it pass once more along the road below the wood. They heard the noise grow fainter in the distance.

      “They’re in for it now,” said Dorothea. “We all are.”

      Things felt suddenly different, even for Dick. Before, somehow, the Great Aunt had hardly seemed a real person. All these preparations, the turmoil at Beckfoot, the sudden change from being visitors into being Picts hiding in a hut in the forest, might have been just part of one of Nancy’s games. The noise of that motor car coming along the road to Beckfoot and going away again had altered everything. It was like the moment in a game of hide and seek when a whistle blows far away and the hider knows that the search has begun and that it is not safe for him to stir.

      For some minutes they stood silent.

      “It’s no good wondering what’s happening,” said Dorothea at last. “We can’t do anything to help them.”

      Dick found suddenly that he was holding a knife in his hand.

      “It isn’t one of their knives,” he said, looking at it carefully. “At least, I don’t think so. Nancy’s has a lot of tweaks in it, tin-openers and corkscrews and things. And Peggy’s is a scout knife with a marline spike.”

      “If there’s another Pict … ” Dorothea shook herself. “Anyway, that string on the door had been there a long time. The only thing to do is to hope he won’t turn up. I’ve done the floor. You’ve got a grand lot of wood ready. Give me a hand in getting the things in again, and then I’ll get the fire going and you take the kettle and find a good place to fill it from the СКАЧАТЬ