Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“We saw he wasn’t in the houseboat,” said Roger. “He’s covered up the cannon.”

“He isn’t allowed to live there,” said Peggy. “He has to sleep at home.”

“But aren’t you coming to Wild Cat Island?”

“Not until she goes.”

“Until who goes?”

“The great-aunt, of course,” said Captain Nancy. “And she only came the day before you did.”

“But you needn’t bring her,” said Titty.

“If we could maroon her we would,” said Nancy. “We’d tie her to the anchor and send her to the bottom in forty fathoms. We’d feed her to the sharks. We’d leave her on a rock to be eaten by land-crabs. We’d hang her in a tree for crows—or vultures. Vultures would be better. We’d . . . There’s nothing we wouldn’t do. Can you think of anything really good?”

“Nancy thinks of something new each night for us to dream about while we’re going to sleep. Last night it was land-crabs. The night before that it was white ants.”

“You know,” said Nancy, “eating her up, like the fox ate up the Spartan boy. It’s nothing to what she deserves. Why couldn’t she come in term-time, when it wouldn’t have mattered so much?”

“But it’ll be all right if you’re camping on the island with us,” said John.

“But we can’t come,” said Nancy.

“We’ve got to be on view,” said Peggy, “all the time.”

“Our aunts aren’t like that,” said Roger.

“Nor are most of ours,” said Nancy. “Some of ours aren’t native a bit. One of them might almost be a pirate. But the great-aunt’s altogether different. There’s no help for it. We’ve got to be mostly native till she goes. If she ever does. It isn’t as if it was only us. We’d bolt, but she’d have mother and Uncle Jim as hostages. They’re much more afraid of her than we are. You see, she brought them up.”

“Won’t you be able to come at all?” said Roger.

“We’ll always have to be back for some beastly meal,” said Nancy.

“The kettle’ll be boiling in a minute,” said Susan, reminded of the dinner she was getting ready. It was a dreadful thing that all their plans were going wrong. But dinner had to be eaten just the same. “Have you got mugs?” she called over her shoulder as she hurried back to the fire.

“Rather,” said Peggy. “And we’ve got our rations in the boat. There’s a cake and mugs in the knapsack. That other thing’s a meat pie. It was meant for native dinner last night, but the great-aunt said it was too salt, so cook said this morning we’d better have it and if the great-aunt wanted to see it again she’d have to do without. So we swiped it. It isn’t a bit too salt really. We dipped our fingers in the juice and tried what it was like while we were sailing down.”

She climbed back into Amazon and passed out the knapsack and then came carefully ashore with the meat pie.

“Sorry we’ve got no grog,” said Nancy. “Cook’s had no time to make any, being so busy with the great-aunt.”

“We’ve got plenty of milk for tea,” said Susan.

The four Swallows and the two Amazons were soon sitting round Susan’s fire, drinking tea and disagreeing altogether with the great-aunt’s poor opinion of the meat pie. When the meat pie was done, John used the tin-opener in his new knife to open the pemmican tin. Then he used the knife itself to cut the pemmican into six bits. They did not last long. But there was bunloaf and marmalade for pudding and then cake, and after that apples and chocolate to fill up with.

“Let’s keep the chocolate for rations while we’re exploring,” said Titty. After all, even though everything might be going wrong with their plans, they had set out to-day to explore the stream that ran into the lake at Horseshoe Cove, and there was nothing to stop them from doing that.

“Where are you going to explore?” asked Nancy.

“We’re going up the beck,” said Titty.

“You’ll only come to the road,” said Peggy.

It very soon became clear that there would be no exploring that day if it depended on Nancy and Peggy. What they wanted to do was to talk about the great-aunt and about schools and about all sorts of things that had been happening since Christmas. They were both tired of having only each other as listener. And you had only to look at John and Susan to see that they were quite content to sit by their fire in the cove and listen for just as long as Nancy and Peggy cared to talk.

The able-seaman and the boy listened for a long time and sometimes even asked questions. But at last Roger began trying to keep two little stones in the air at once, and one of his stones fell in his mug and might have broken it if there had not been a little tea left in the bottom. He had stopped listening. And the able-seaman, remembering all those blank spaces on the map got up and beckoned to him.

“Where are you going?” asked Susan.

“Exploring,” said Titty.

“Don’t go far from the stream,” said Susan, “and don’t be away too long. . . . What was that you were saying, Peggy?”

The able-seaman and the boy pushed their way into the bushes and disappeared behind a green curtain of leaves.

Table of Contents

“By mutual confidence and mutual aid

Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made.”

pope’s Homer

For some time, as the able-seaman and the boy pushed their way through the bushes and small trees by the side of the stream, they could hear the talking of the others, Nancy and Peggy very loud and clear, John and Susan not so loud. Then they could hear only the voices of Nancy and Peggy. Then Nancy’s voice alone was stronger than the rippling of the stream at the explorers’ feet. Then they heard even Nancy’s talk no more, though now and then, faint and far away as it was, there was no mistaking her cheerful laugh. After that, they could hear nothing but the noise of the water toppling over six-inch waterfalls and down pebbly rapids. The stream was too wide to jump across, but there were places where it was possible to hop from stone to stone and to get across with dry feet if you were lucky. The trees grew close to the stream, and in some places the water had hollowed out a way for itself almost under their roots. There were little pools, foaming at the top where the stream ran in, and smooth and shallow and fast at the hang before it galloped away again down a tiny cataract.

“There’s a fish,” said Roger.

“Where?”

“There isn’t one now. But there was. Look! Look! There’s another!” But that fish too was gone before the able-seaman had seen just where the ship’s boy was pointing.

“They needn’t be frightened,” said the able-seaman. “It isn’t as if we were herons. Keep still when you see the next one. Don’t point at it.”

The boy hurried on with his eyes on the water close ahead of him. Suddenly he stopped dead, like a dog that smells partridges in a field of stubble. Titty crept up, stooping low, till she was close beside him.

“There,” said Roger. “By the stone with the moss on it. Look! He’s sticking his nose out.”

A widening ripple was washed away with the stream, but it had been enough to show Titty where to look. There, in the clear water, she could see a small speckled fish which stayed almost in one place as if it were hung in the stream. As she looked it suddenly slanted up and broke the water again.

“He isn’t a bit like the perch we caught in the lake,” said Roger.

“It’s probably a trout,” said Titty.