The Picts & the Martyrs. Arthur Ransome

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      “I shan’t want any more,” said Dick, closing the suitcase and pushing it away under the seat. “And there wasn’t room anyhow. All the rest have gone home.”

      “Have you had anything to eat? Mother told me to have lunch in the train.”

      “I had mine at Crewe. I had thirty-seven minutes to wait before your train came in.”

      “Good,” said Dorothea, and, while the train rushed northward, the two of them settled to their books.

      Dick was a slow reader, Dorothea a fast one. Dick read the chapter on the theory of sailing, three careful times, then the chapter on small boats. He had gone back to the chapter on knots and was trying each one of them with a bit of string and being polite but firm to an old man sitting next to him, who knew no more about knots than Dick but kept on wanting to show him how to tie them, when, as the train slowed down for the last time, Dorothea closed The Sea Hawk with a sigh.

      “It all came right in the end,” she said. “The horrid brother had to own up and everybody knew Sir Oliver wasn’t a murderer. Dick! There’s the lake! We’re nearly there.”

      Books were hurriedly stowed. Dorothea wrote “Arrived safely Dick and Dorothea” on the addressed postcard her mother had given her to be sent off from the station. The train jerked to a standstill. The old man said “Good afternoon” and stepped down to the platform, and they saw the red caps of Nancy and Peggy dodging quickly through the crowd.

      “Scarabs, ahoy!” cried Nancy.

      “Hullo!” called Dorothea.

      And then, it was as if Nancy had suddenly remembered something she had forgotten. She became a different Nancy.

      “We are delighted to see you. I do hope you had a pleasant journey.”

      Dorothea stared. “Yes, thank you,” she said. “It was very kind of you to invite us. I am so glad we were able to come.” She had understood that Nancy, who was very good at being a pirate, was now being a hostess instead.

      Nancy laughed. Nobody could keep up that sort of thing for more than a sentence or two.

      “Heave it out,” she said. “And the next.”

      Between them she and Peggy swung the two suitcases down to the platform. “Is this all you’ve got?” she asked.

      “Yes,” said Dorothea.

      “Well done. We can manage these easily. Cook thought you’d have a ton of luggage. She wanted to send Billy Lewthwaite with Rattletrap. Come on. Two to a suitcase. We’ve got to lug them to the bus.”

      “We’re going down to the boat landing,” said Peggy.

      “Is Scarab ready?” asked Dick.

      “She must be, pretty nearly,” said Nancy. “We’ll know in a minute. We hadn’t time to stop on the way up. Touch and go getting here to meet the train. Hullo! Here’s Timothy. I thought he’d missed it.”

      “Squashy Hat,” exclaimed Dorothea, who had seen him at the same moment, a tall, thin man, with an old tweed hat, working towards them through the crowd.

      “We don’t call him that now,” said Peggy.

      “We’ve spent the last two holidays breaking him in,” said Nancy.

      “He’s still shy of everybody except us,” said Peggy. “Look at him waiting while those farmers stand jabbering. Captain Flint would have barged through in two jiffs.”

      But the tall man had seen them, waved his hand, and was presently beside them. “Hullo, partners,” he said. “I had a few stores to get, and I thought I might as well see if you’d really arrived. Better let me have those suitcases.”

      “How are you getting on with the mine?” asked Dick.

      “Not so bad. We’ve cut into the vein at eleven places now, and got a lot of samples. Jim tells me you’re going to give me a hand with the assays.”

      “I’d simply love to,” said Dick.

      “Look here,” said Nancy. “You aren’t going to make him do stinks when they’ve got a new boat.”

      “Not unless he wants to. But I’ve promised Jim to get those assays done before he comes back.”

      “We can’t be sailing all the time,” said Dorothea.

      “Nancy would if she could,” laughed Timothy.

      “Qualitative or quantitative analysis?” asked Dick. “I’ve only got as far as qualitative at school.”

      “Quantitative,” said Timothy. “Assays. We know what’s there, but we want to know how much to the ounce.”

      “We’re going to miss that bus,” said Nancy.

      “We’re not,” said Timothy, and, after Dorothea had dropped her postcard into the letter-box by the booking office, the five of them squeezed into the last four seats of the station bus, and the conductor found room for the suitcases. The bus swung out of the station yard, and down through the village on its way to the steamer pier.

      “When are we going to start the assays?” asked Dick.

      “Working in the houseboat to-morrow,” said Timothy. “The day after to-morrow I’m going up to the mine. We might get at the assays the day after that.”

      “Not unless there’s a dead calm,” said Nancy.

      “If you want to have a look at your mine, you could come up to High Topps with me the day after to-morrow. I’ll call for you on the way.”

      “Look here,” protested Nancy. “They’ve got a boat.”

      “They’ve never seen the mine since last summer,” said Peggy.

      “There isn’t much to see,” said Timothy. “The interesting stuff is what Dick and I are going to do in your uncle’s study.”

      “Just stinks,” said Nancy, but Dick and Timothy looked at each other with a private grin.

      At the steamer pier they left the bus, and Timothy carried the suitcases out along one of the small landing stages. Two boats were tied up there. One was the Amazon, with her Jolly Roger fluttering from her masthead. The other was the old grey rowing boat that usually lay against fenders alongside Captain Flint’s houseboat. Her stern was full of parcels, for Timothy Stedding had been buying stores. He now unfastened his painter, stepped in, and put out his oars.

      “See you the day after to-morrow,” he said. “No need to come up to the mine unless you want to, but I’ll look in just in case.”

      “Aren’t you coming to see their boat?” said Nancy.

      “Not now,” said Timothy. СКАЧАТЬ