Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

Wild Cat Island Once Again

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The feast came slowly to an end. Even Roger said that he thought he had had enough ice-cream. There had been plenty of everything for everybody. It had been a very happy feast. Almost, it might have been somebody’s birthday. It was the sort of feast that there is when everybody knows that the school term has come to an end and that holidays begin to-morrow. Of course, Swallow was afloat again, new rigged, new painted, and sailing just as well as ever. That would have been enough for the happiness of John, Susan, Titty, and Roger. They were shipwrecked mariners no longer, but able to sail once more. Bridget, the ship’s baby, with her mouth red with crushed raspberries, would have been happy anyhow just to be at a feast with the rest of the crew, as if she were old enough to go to sea like Roger himself. The Amazons were happy to be enjoying once more the freedom of ruthless and black-hearted pirates. But there was something in the happiness of this feast that was shared by Swallows and Amazons and their elders all alike. It was like the end of one of those heavy days full of thunder, when the clouds have cleared away and the air feels light and clean. It was as if shutters had been suddenly opened, letting the sunshine into a room that has been dark for a long time.

Yet there had been very little talk, really, about the going away of the great-aunt.

“Where did she sit?” Titty had asked Peggy privately.

“Just where Roger is sitting now.”

Titty had looked at Roger, but he was showing no signs of being a boy who was sitting in what had been the special chair of the great-aunt. Perhaps that was because he did not know. For a moment she had thought of getting him to move, but then she had decided that perhaps it was just as well not to tell him. The chair had been chosen for him because of its arms, on one of which he could lean his crutch, from which he refused to be parted.

Mrs. Blackett, chattering happily to Mrs. Walker (“Mother’s fairly letting herself go again,” said Nancy), did say something about the way in which children used to be brought up and how much better it was now that children could be the friends of their elders instead of their terrified subjects.

This was too much for Nancy. “What she really means,” she broke in, “is that it’s lucky that we are bringing ourselves up instead of being brought up by the G.A.”

“Nancy, Nancy,” said Mrs. Blackett, and then laughed at herself. “Well,” she said, “it is a relief to be able to call you Nancy now and again without being reminded that you were christened Ruth.”

“The trouble now would be if mother were to call me Ruth and I had to do something fierce to show that I was really Nancy.”

But little else was said about the great-aunt, though, when the feast was over and they were all in the garden, Roger, who liked Mrs. Blackett and remembered what he had heard about the great-aunt always pointing out the weeds, stumped up to her and said, “It’s a very nice lawn, and the daisies are nice too. A lawn without any daisies would be awfully dull.”

Mrs. Blackett stared at him for a moment, not in the least knowing what he meant, and then suddenly laughed.

“Well, it’s very kind of you to say so,” she said.

It was soon after that that Susan heard one of the mothers say, “It all depends what sort of children they are,” and the other reply, “It certainly works with yours.”

It was the mother of the Swallows who first spoke of going home.

“You’ll have a lot to do when you get back to camp,” she said, “and I want to beg a passage for myself and Bridget, as far as Holly Howe.”

“Come the whole way to Swallowdale,” said Titty.

“Do, please,” said Susan.

“Wait till you’re back on the island and Mrs. Blackett and I will come and spend a night with you, just to see how you manage.”

“And I’m coming,” said the ship’s baby.

“Of course.”

“Well done, mother,” said Nancy. “We’ll take care of you, and you shan’t get in a row from anybody.”

“Will Captain Flint come too?” asked Roger.

“I expect he will if he’s asked,” said Mrs. Blackett.

“He must be bursting to come,” said Nancy.

“Well,” said Peggy, “I do think he might have turned up for the feast.”

Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Walker looked at each other.

“He’s in a hurry to get back aboard his houseboat, after having to be proper all this time,” said Nancy.

Again Mrs. Blackett looked at Mrs. Walker. “And I suppose all of you are in a hurry to get back to your island.”

“We don’t want to waste a minute,” said Nancy.

“Swallowdale’s a fine camp,” said John, “but it’s not the same thing.”

“It isn’t an island,” said Titty.

“No harbour,” said Roger.

“It was quite all right while we hadn’t got Swallow,” said John.

“Come on,” said Nancy, “and we’ll begin getting things ready for portage. It’ll take us all day to-morrow if we don’t begin on it to-night.”

“Come on,” said Peggy. “Suppose someone else grabbed the island.”

“No one has,” said Titty. “I looked.”

“Anybody might,” said Nancy, “with none of us there to defend it. Look how you came last year and we had to have a war with you.”

“Come on,” said John. “We’ll be back there to-morrow and then we’ll have another.”

Some of the Swallow’s crew sailed in the Amazon for the passage to Holly Howe. This was to make more room for Mrs. Walker and the ship’s baby.

“We’ll lend you our A.B. and the ship’s boy,” said Captain John.

“Skip aboard,” said Captain Nancy.

“Aye, aye, sir,” sang out Roger and Titty together, and were presently stowing themselves one on each side of the centre-board case.

“Of course there’s really room in Swallow for all six of us,” said Captain John.

“No point in overcrowding,” called Nancy. “Besides, you and your mate sailed with us the other day and your fo’c’sle hands never have.”

“No fog to-day,” said Roger.

“Good thing, too,” said Nancy. “It’s horrid, groping about.”

“Good-bye, and thank you very much for the feast,” called the Swallows.

“Good-bye, mother,” called the Amazons. “You’re invited to a corroboree on Wild Cat Island any time you like.”

“Long pig and plenty of it,” called Peggy, as they drifted out towards the mouth of the river.

“We’ll pretend it’s great-aunt steak,” called Nancy, but Mrs. Blackett pretended not to hear.

“Was she really as bad as all that?” said Mrs. Walker quietly, as the Swallow slipped away.

“We never really saw her,” said John, “but she must have been.”

“She probably didn’t mean to be,” said Susan, “but she just was.”

“Well, I wonder,” said mother, “in thirty years’ time, when I come to stay with you. . . .”

“We’ll never let you go away,” said Susan.

“There won’t be any coming about it,” said John, “because there won’t be any going. You’re fixed.”

The wind was dropping as the afternoon turned into evening. It had freshened up after the race was over, but now there was only enough to keep the sheet stretched and the boom well out. There was not enough even for that when, half-way between the river and the Rio Islands they met a steamer, and the wash from it set both little ships rolling and tossing their booms about as if in an ocean swell.

In Swallow the ship’s baby was being allowed to help the mate to steer.