Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“It’s fine,” said John. “We could even signal to mother if we wanted anything, or she could signal to us. And that rock over there ought to make a good watch-tower, though it’s a bit far from the valley.”

About a hundred yards away a big, square, flat-topped rock rose out of the heather.

But there was no time to look at the rock that day. Looking down towards the lake, they could see where the stream that ran through Swallowdale left the moor and dropped into the trees on its way down to Horseshoe Cove. Something was moving down the beck. Roger had the telescope.

“What’s the mate doing down there?” he said suddenly.

“Where?”

“There. She’s just going into the forest.”

“Oh, bother!” said John. “She’s been too quick over the fireplace and now she’s gone to get wood. She probably thinks we’ve forgotten all about it. Come on. We’ve got to catch her up. Anyhow, that rock’ll do all right for a watch-tower. Come on. Follow the sheep-tracks through the heather, and look where you’re going, if you can.”

“Why?” said Roger.

“Adders,” said John.

“Loose?”

“Yes,” said Titty, “of course loose. And very poisonous.”

“Is it safe?” said Roger.

“Not if you tread on one,” said John, “but they get out of your way if you give them a chance. But if there’s one curled up in the sun and you go and stick your hoof down on the top of him, he doesn’t like it. But come on now, and show the mate how much wood you can get together before she brings her own lot back.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Titty.

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Roger. “Who’s going in front?”

John had already answered that question by running full tilt along a narrow sheep-track that wound down towards the woods, and looked like joining the stream some distance below the waterfall at the lower end of Swallowdale. He ran, sometimes jumping over tufts of heather, as hard as he could go. Titty hared after him. Roger hurried after her, but not so fast. Serpents were all very well in cigar-boxes belonging to old charcoal-burners who knew all about them, but there was no point in being careless and getting bitten right at the beginning of an expedition. Roger, though he lost no time, took good care to tread on no snakes.

In the forest they found all that they wanted. In the oak and hazel wood there were fallen saplings that had dried after falling and broke almost like tinder. In the larch wood just below there were thousands of old dead branches, thin, with little knobs on them, very good for starting fires. It was the mate who went down as far as the top of the larch wood. The others gathered their sticks close to the edge of the moor. John and Roger had string in their pockets, and made good bundles to carry on their backs. Titty had got a big pile together and was wondering how she was going to carry it when she saw the mate climbing up from the larch wood and staggering under a tremendous load.

“Do you want some string?” panted Susan. “There’s some in my pocket, but I haven’t a hand to spare.”

Titty pulled the string out of the mate’s pocket and tied up her own bundle so that she could carry it without losing more than one or two sticks by the way.

“Did you all come?” asked Susan.

“Yes,” said Titty, “the others have just started back.”

When the mate and the able-seaman left the trees they could see two great bundles of sticks, the captain’s and the boy’s, moving slowly up beside the stream. They hurried after them. There was no talking. When all four of them had climbed the rocks by the waterfall and were again in Swallowdale they were pretty hot, but they had enough wood to boil the kettle two or three times over without anybody having to make a second journey to the forest.

The mate, as usual, had built a first-rate fireplace. The dry sticks lit easily, and in a very short time the explorers were eating their first meal in Swallowdale. It was already rather late. Then, while the beck was doing most of the washing-up for them (for they had put the dirty mugs and spoons and the knife and the fork that did for everybody in a little whirlpool among the rocks), they stored all the wood they had not used in Peter Duck’s cave. “It’s just as well to make sure of keeping it dry,” said Susan, thinking as mate and cook of the explorers.

“We might be besieged in Swallowdale and not able to get out for more wood,” said Titty, thinking more like an outlaw.

“Let’s go and look at that rock now,” said Titty.

But Captain John was already thinking of the move and was in a hurry to go down into the woods to cut the carrying-poles on which to sling the baggage.

They found just the poles they wanted in the hazel wood, and John and Susan cut them, and everybody helped to round their ends. All four knives had been sharpened by the blacksmith before the explorers had left the south of England, and this was a very good chance of trying how sharp they were. As soon as the two poles were ready, the explorers slung their knapsacks on them for practice, John and Susan carrying one pole and Titty and Roger carrying the other, with the knapsacks swinging from the middle of each pole. The whole party went quickly down the steep woods, having a little trouble on the way, because the knapsacks would keep slipping forward down the poles unless the two carriers were on the same level. But they were already nearly at the bottom of the larch wood, and within sight of the road, when John, who was in front with Susan, dropped suddenly on the ground.

“Lurk!” he said, “lurk for your lives!”

“Lucky the knapsacks are pretty empty,” said Susan, putting down her end of the pole.

“Sh! Sh!” said John.

All four explorers crouched low and kept perfectly still. On the road below them there was the noise of a horse’s hoofs.

“Trotting or walking?” whispered Roger. Again it was hard to tell.

“Walking,” whispered Titty, but she was wrong.

A black horse was moving at a solemn trot, pulling an open carriage. Two grown-up people and two girls were sitting in the carriage.

“One of them’s Mrs. Blackett,” said Susan.

“The other must be the great-aunt,” said Titty, “but those can’t be the Amazon pirates.”

A very prim elderly lady, holding a small black parasol over her head, was sitting stiffly beside Mrs. Blackett. In front of them on the little narrow seat behind the driver, facing the grown-ups, were two girls in flounced frocks, with summer hats, their hands in gloves, clasped on their knees. It was a dreadful sight. As the carriage disappeared, the explorers looked at each other with shocked eyes.

“That’s much worse than being shipwrecked,” said Titty at last.

“I don’t believe it was Captain Nancy,” said Roger.

But there was not really any doubt about it.

Table of Contents

That night when they came down to Horseshoe Cove, their minds full of the little secret valley of Swallowdale, and of Peter Duck’s cave, more secret still, they were in a hurry to get the night over and planned to be early on the march. In the morning they hurried over their bathe, and Titty ran nearly all the way to Swainson’s farm to get the morning milk. They hurried over breakfast. Their hurry lasted them through the striking of the tents and most of the packing. But when the time came for leaving the cove and marching up to the moorland, everybody had an empty feeling in the middle, though breakfast was so lately over. There is something dreadful to sailors in turning their backs on the sea, and though Captain John had yesterday been looking forward to getting away from everything that reminded him of the shipwreck, he began to-day to feel, like the others, that by marching inland they would somehow be putting life on Wild Cat Island farther away than it had been put by the sinking of the Swallow. Even Titty and Roger, the discoverers of Swallowdale, were this morning in no hurry to start. Everybody was glad when Roger sighted a rowing boat coming down the lake from the Peak of Darien, and when Titty, looking through the telescope, saw that it was Captain Flint’s. The sight of Captain Flint rowing down from Darien gave them a good excuse for waiting a little longer without having to tell each other of their secret doubts. Everybody knew that he would not be rowing down towards Horseshoe Cove unless he had something to say to them.