Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“They’re probably making an ambush for us,” said Nancy.

“Scouting along in the heather,” said Peggy. “They’ll probably come charging down on us in a minute.”

“We never ought to have let them go off by themselves,” said Susan.

“We’re all ready for you,” shouted Captain Nancy to the open moorland. “Make your attack and get it over. We want our tea.”

But nobody leapt up in the heather or dashed out from behind a rock.

“They wouldn’t hear anything if they were in Peter Duck’s,” said John.

“I told Titty to light the fire if we weren’t there,” said Susan.

A few minutes later they were climbing up the side of the waterfall into Swallowdale, Susan first, John next, the Amazons last. The Amazons were bothered by the difficulty of hoisting up their tent, and John and Susan would have stopped to help them if they had not been in such a hurry to know the worst.

“They haven’t even put their own tents up,” said John.

“They aren’t here at all,” said Susan.

A covey of grouse flew up out of the little valley with their startled cry, “Go back! Go back!”

“Nobody’s been here for a long time,” said Nancy as she and Peggy struggled up over the edge, “or the grouse would have been far away.”

Susan and John raced up the valley to the old camp. It was just as they had left it the day before. The heather still covered Peter Duck’s doorway. They pulled it aside and went in, to be met by an angry scream from the parrot. John lit a match and then one of the candle-lanterns that were waiting in a row on the stone ledge. Nothing in the cave had been touched.

Susan looked at John, and he saw that this was worse than the worst that she had feared. He picked up the parrot’s cage and carried it out into the evening light.

“They haven’t been here at all,” he said grimly to Nancy and Peggy, who were just dumping their tent by the fireplace.

“They’ve probably just been held up a bit by the fog, like us,” said Nancy.

“Or Roger’s got interested in something,” said Peggy.

“They’ve got lost,” said Susan.

“Pretty Polly, Pretty Polly,” said the parrot.

“I bet they’ll show up before we get the tents pitched,” said Nancy. “Let’s get on with it. It’s got to be done, anyhow.”

“I’m just going up to the watch-tower,” said John. “They may be in sight from there.”

“Good idea. We’ll have the tents up in no time. What about starting the fire, Mister Mate?”

“Make a good pillar of smoke so that they can see it from wherever they are,” said John, and climbed up the side of the valley to see what could be seen from the top of the Watch Tower Rock.

Susan did not feel at all like being Mister Mate. Her thoughts were all native thoughts, as she built her fire and lit it and then piled it higher than she ever did when all was well and she wanted a fire just for cooking. One dreadful scene after another came into mind. The able-seaman and the boy were lost, had fallen down a precipice, had been swallowed up in a bog. She had hardly a word to say as she brought the four tent bundles out of the cave and began putting the tents up, while Nancy and Peggy were busy marking out the place for theirs and making holes for their tent-pegs. And with these pictures of horror came others, of mother and Bridgie and nurse. At Holly Howe they were probably giving the ship’s baby her supper. Mother and nurse were happy and at peace, quite sure that nothing could be wrong with Titty and Roger so long as Susan was there to look after them. And there was Susan putting up tents for the able-seaman and the boy, and not even sure that there was anyone to sleep in them. And it made things even worse, somehow, to hear Nancy whistling cheerfully through her teeth, as she shoved the tent-poles into the long canvas tubes at either side of her tent door, and hove the whole tent up into its place, and took in the slack in the long guy ropes.

“Cheer up, Mister Mate,” said Nancy suddenly. “It’s all right. I know what’s happened to those two galoots. They went straight down to Swainson’s for milk, and Mary Swainson’s given them tea, and then the old man’s started singing at them and they haven’t had a chance to get away.”

“Of course that’s it,” said Peggy. “And Mary Swainson’s stuffing Roger with cake.”

Susan looked almost hopefully at Nancy. That really did sound possible. Quite wise, too. Titty had known the milk would be wanted and had not liked to light a fire and leave it burning, and so had gone down to the farm first of all, and then, well, she knew how hard it was to get away from the old people.

“It’s just what I ought to have thought of myself. We haven’t any milk, anyway. Only I was so bothered about us being late.”

John came back into Swallowdale to say that nothing was moving on the moor, and now it was Susan herself who comforted him.

“Nancy thinks they’re down at the farm,” she said, “and they probably are.”

“Milk,” said Peggy, “and listening to the old man’s songs.”

“Lend a hand here, Captain John,” said Nancy, “and then we’ll go down and bring them up.”

In a few minutes Swallowdale looked itself again, and better than it had looked before, now there was the Amazons’ big tent as well as the Swallows’ four little ones. Susan had built a huge fire and then put a lot of bracken on it, so that a thick curling column of bitter grey smoke climbed up into the evening sky. In the smoke hung the kettle, so that there would be boiling water by the time they came back. Susan damped the sods of earth that she kept by the fireplace and built them in round the edge of her fire.

“It’s safe enough really,” she said, “but perhaps someone ought to wait here, in case they miss us.”

Nobody wanted to stay, and besides there were still the things to fetch up from Horseshoe Cove. Susan got out a bit of paper from Titty’s box, and Nancy wrote on it in big letters, “STOP HERE TILL WE COME BACK.”

“Where shall I put it so that they’ll be sure to see it?”

“On the parrot’s cage,” said John. “Titty always says ‘Howdy’ to him, even if she’s only been away ten minutes.”

Susan’s hopes suddenly fell again. It was very unlike Titty to leave the parrot a moment longer than she could help. Not even the old man’s singing was likely to hold her when the parrot had been shut up for two days.

The two captains and the two mates hurried down the beck on the way to Swainson’s farm. Just as they dropped into the wood John looked back towards the last of the sunset over the moor, and saw the high cold column of smoke from the Swallowdale fire swaying in the quiet evening.

“Mother’ll be able to see that from Holly Howe,” he said. “She’ll know we’ve got back.”

Susan said nothing, but hurried on with the milk-can down into the wood.

The farm seemed very quiet as they came down the path towards it.

“The old man isn’t singing,” said Susan.

“Out of breath,” said Nancy.

“I don’t believe they’re here,” said Susan. “We’d hear Roger’s laugh if they were.”

THE MEDICINE MAN AND HIS PATIENT

“Not if he’s stuffing,” said Nancy.

But before they came to the farm gate they saw Mary Swainson coming from the dairy with a bucket.

“Ah, you’re back, are you?” she said.

“Have the others been here long?” asked Susan anxiously.

“What others?”

“Titty and Roger.”

“Nay, they’ve not been here. Weren’t you all away together? I was up this afternoon with the letter, before the fog came on, and there was none of you about then and the cave all shut up.”