LITMIR.BIZ

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at once cross the lawn to the group of small white tents. Instead they walked up and down under those curtainless windows. Fragments of talk, sentences, half sentences, single words, floated across the garden. Mrs Blackett was explaining again and again why it was that, though she did not mind having six children not her own safely camped in her garden, she did not at all like the idea of letting them go camping miles away up on the fells where anything might happen to them and she would not be there to help. And then, whenever she got a chance, there came a loud, cheerful rush of persuasive talk from Nancy.

      “As safe as houses … Much safer in case of earthquakes and things. And anyway, now we know it’s there, it wouldn’t be much fun looking anywhere else. And you know we couldn’t get home every evening. Not from High Topps. Cruelty to animals. We’d be on the road all day and never have any time there at all. Besides, it’d be much better if none of us were here while you’re finishing up the papering and painting. Better for cook, I mean. And you know you’re always saying Susan can be trusted to be sensible …”

      That was all Nancy, but when she paused for breath, Mrs Blackett began again. “It would be all very well if you were all Susans. There’s only one Susan in the eight of you. It’s the Dicks and Dots and Rogers I’d be worrying about …”

      “Me?” whispered Roger indignantly.

      “Shut up,” said Titty. “They’re coming.”

      Mrs Blackett had turned suddenly off the path and was walking across the lawn to the tents. Nancy, with dancing eyes, as if she knew the victory was won, was close behind her.

      “Where is Susan?” said Mrs Blackett. “Oh, there you are.” She turned aside towards the camp-fire, from which Susan had just lifted a boiling kettle.

      “It’s no good trying to get any sense out of my harumscarums,” said Mrs Blackett. “Tell me, Susan, do you really want to go camping away up on High Topps instead of staying here?”

      “Of course she does,” said Nancy.

      “Pirates hold their peace,” said Mrs Blackett, “long enough to let Susan answer for herself.”

      “It’s very nice here, of course,” said Susan.

      Mrs Blackett laughed. “So you do want to go?” she said.

      “Only because of the gold,” said Susan.

      “I’m sure there’s just as much gold here as anywhere else,” said Mrs Blackett.

      “Slater Bob said High Topps,” said Susan, “and he told us just what to look for …”

      “Well done, Susan,” said Nancy.

      “But, of course, there may be other places.”

      Nancy almost groaned.

      “If only my brother were at home,” said Mrs Blackett.

      “But the whole point of everything is to find the gold before he comes back,” said Nancy.

      “It’s to be a surprise for him,” said Dorothea.

      “Or if you could only wait till your mothers are here to decide for themselves.”

      “He’ll be here before that,” said Nancy.

      “And when they come we’ll all be sailing,” said John.

      “And somebody else is looking for it already,” said Titty.

      “Not really,” said Mrs Blackett. “Now, Susan. You tell me, what would your mother say?”

      “She’d say all right if Roger went to bed at the proper time.”

      “She’d tell us about gold-mining in Australia,” said Titty. “She might even want to come too.”

      “I dare say she would,” said Mrs Blackett. “But that’s just what I can’t do with the house all upside down. And what about you?” she added, turning to Dick and Dorothea. “What would Mrs Callum say?”

      “She wouldn’t mind if we promised to do what Susan told us,” said Dorothea.

      “You see how it is, Susan. It all comes down to depending on you.”

      “It’s much safer than the island,” said Susan, and the others looked at her most gratefully. “No night sailing or anything like that, even if we wanted. Nothing can go wrong.”

      “If only it wasn’t so far,” said Mrs Blackett.

      “You’ve got Rattletrap,” said Nancy.

      “And what about milk every day? It’s not like the island, with Mrs Dixon just across the bay.”

      THE PIGEON-LOFT

      “Atkinson’s farm’s close to High Topps,” said Nancy. “You can see it on the map in Captain Flint’s room. It’s only just across the Dundale road.”

      “And water?”

      “There’s the beck right on the Topps. We’ll camp by the side of it, where the charcoal-burners were. Simply gorgeous, it’s going to be.”

      “Oh well,” said Mrs Blackett. “But it’s no good thinking I can keep coming up there to see you. One of you’ll have to run down every day, to let me know no necks are broken or ankles twisted or anything like that.”

      “What are the pigeons for?” said Nancy joyously.

      “But I can’t spend all day in the stableyard watching for a pigeon when I’ve five hundred thousand things to do and workmen in every room, and cook and me both run off our legs.”

      Nancy looked sharply at Dick.

      Dick, in spite of himself, turned a little pink. “I think it would work,” he said. “I think I could make the pigeon ring a bell when it came home.”

      “That would settle it,” said Nancy.

      “No it wouldn’t,” said Mrs Blackett. “Somebody would have to spend all day listening for the bell.”

      “It wouldn’t just ring and stop,” said Dick. “The way I’ve planned it, it’ll go on ringing and ringing till somebody comes and turns it off.”

      Mrs Blackett, yielding, caught at a straw. “If you can promise to send a pigeon home every day with a letter, and arrange for it to ring a bell that nobody can help hearing …”

      “Dick’ll do it,” said Nancy. “That’ll be a pigeon a day for three days, and then one of us’ll come home to bring them back. Well done, mother. A pigeon a day keeps the natives away … We don’t want to keep you away, of course. It’s only to save you having to come.”

      “Well, if Dick really can do it,” said Mrs Blackett doubtfully. “And if you can get milk at Atkinson’s, and find a nice place with good water …”

      “She’s agreed,” shouted Nancy. “Barbecued billygoats, mother, but I thought you were never going to.”

      “I put all my trust in you, Susan,” said Mrs Blackett. “And you, too, John,” she added. John grinned. It was kind of her to say it, but he knew she did not mean it. On questions of milk and drinking-water and getting able-seamen to bed in proper time, Susan was the one the natives trusted.

      “We’ll start the trek first thing in the morning,” said Nancy.

      “No. No. No,” said her mother. “You can’t do that. Send out your pioneers and find the right place. Make sure about the milk from Atkinson’s. They may be selling every drop they have with so many visitors about. And make sure of good water. You know what the becks are like and the Atkinsons may be short themselves. I can’t have you simply setting out with nothing arranged. And Dick’s got to turn your pigeons into bell-ringers or you can’t go at all.”

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