Five on a Hike Together (6 page)

„Idiot," she said. „Well, we didn"t leave til about nine o"clock. We didn"t worry about you because we felt sure you would be safely at Blue Pond Farm-house and would guess we"d had to wait about with Timmy. And when we got there and found you hadn"t arrived - well, we were in a state!"

„And then we thought you must have found somewhere else for the night," said Julian,

„but we thought if we heard nothing we"d go down to the police first thing this morning and report your disappearance!"

„So down we came - without any breakfast either!" said George. „That shows how worried we were! Blue Pond Farm-house was nice. They gave us a bed each in two tiny little rooms, and Timmy slept with me, of course "

A wonderful smel came creeping into the little dining-room, followed by the inn-woman carrying a large tray. On it was a steaming tureen of porridge, a bowl of golden syrup, a jug of very thick cream, and a dish of bacon and eggs, all piled high on crisp brown toast.

Little mushrooms were on the same dish.

„It"s like magic!" said Anne, staring „Just the very things I longed for!"

„Toast, marmalade and butter to come, and the coffee and hot milk," said the woman, busily setting everything out. „And if you want any more bacon and eggs, just ring the bel ."

„Too good to be true!" said Dick, looking at the table. „For goodness" sake, help yourselves quickly, girls, or I shal forget my manners and grab."

It was a wonderful breakfast - extra wonderful because they were all so ravenously hungry. There wasn"t a word said as they spooned up their porridge and cream, sweetened with golden syrup. Timmy had a dishful too - he loved porridge, though he didn"t like the syrup - it made his whiskers sticky!

„I feel better," said Anne, looking at the porridge dish. „The thing is - shall I have some more porridge and risk not enjoying my bacon and eggs so much - or shal I go straight on with bacon and eggs?"

„A difficult question," said Dick. „And one that I am faced with too. On the whole I think I"l go on with bacon and eggs - we can always have more of those if we want to - and those little mushrooms real y do make my mouth water! Aren"t we greedy? But how can anyone help that when they"re so hungry?"

„You haven"t told us a single word of what happened to you last night," said Julian, serving out the bacon and eggs with a generous hand. „Now that you"ve got something inside you, perhaps you feel able to tell us exactly why you ignored my instructions and didn"t arrive where you were supposed to last night."

„You sound like our headmaster at school!" said Dick. „The plain fact is - we got lost! And when we did final y arrive somewhere, we thought it was Blue Pond Farm-house, and we stayed the night there."

„I see," said Julian, „But didn"t the people there tell you it wasn"t the right place? Just so that you could have let us know? You must have known that we would worry about you."

„Well, the old woman there was stone-deaf," explained Anne, attacking her bacon and eggs vigorously. „She didn"t understand a word we said, and as we thought it was Blue Pond Farm-house, we stayed there - though it was a horrible place. And we were worried because you didn"t arrive!"

„A chapter of accidents," said Julian. „Al "s well that ends wel , however."

„Don"t sound so pompous!" said Dick. „Actually we had a pretty poor time, Ju. Poor Anne had to sleep in a little loft, and I slept in straw in a barn - not that I minded that - but - well, peculiar things happened in the night. At least - I think they did. I"m not real y sure it wasn"t all a dream."

„What peculiar things?" asked Julian at once.

„Well - I think perhaps I"l tel you when we"re on our way again," said Dick. „Now I think about it in full daylight I feel that either it was all a sil y dream - or - well, as I said -

something very peculiar."

„You never told me, Dick!" said Anne, in surprise.

„Well, to tell you the truth I forgot about it because other things happened," said Dick.

„Having to get away from that man, for instance - and wondering about Julian and George - and feeling so hungry."

„You don"t sound as if you had a good night at all," said George. „It must have been awful, too, trying to find your way in the dark. It poured with rain, didn"t it?"

„Yes," said Anne, „but oh - the thing that frightened me more than anything was the bells!

Did you hear them Julian? They suddenly clanged out, and they made me terribly scared.

I couldn"t think what they were! Whatever were they ringing out for? They were so loud."

„Didn"t you know what they were ringing for?" said Julian. „They were bel s rung from the prison that nice old woman told us about - they were rung to tell everyone on the countryside that a prisoner had escaped! Lock your doors. Guard your folk."

Anne stared at Julian in silence. So that was why the bel s had made such a clamour and clangour. She shivered.

„I"m glad I didn"t know that," she said. „I would have slept in the straw with Dick if I"d known there was an escaped prisoner. Have they caught him?"

„I don"t know," said Julian. „We"ll ask the inn-woman when she comes."

They asked her, and she shook her head. „No. He"s not caught yet. But he wil be. Al the roads from the moor are guarded and everyone is on the watch. He was a robber who broke into houses and attacked anyone who tried to prevent him. A dangerous fel ow."

„Julian - is it all right to go hiking on the moors if there"s an escaped prisoner about?" said Anne. „I shan"t feel very comfortable."

„We"ve got Timmy," said Julian. „He would be strong enough to protect us from three prisoners if necessary! You needn"t worry."

„Woof," agreed Timmy, at once, and thumped his tail on the floor.

At last everyone had finished breakfast. Even starving Anne couldn"t manage the last bit of toast. She sighed happily, „I feel myself again," she announced. „I can"t say I feel very much like walking - but I know it would be good for me after that enormous meal."

„Good or not, we"re going on our way," said Julian, getting up. „I"l buy some sandwiches first."

The inn-woman was delighted with their hearty praises. She gave them some packets of sandwiches and waved good-bye. „You come again whenever you can," she said. „I"l always have something nice for you."

The four went down the street and took a lane at the bottom. It wound about for a short way and then came into a val ey. A stream ran down the middle of the val ey. The children could hear it gurgling from where they stood.

„Lovely!" said Anne. „Are we going along by the stream? I"d like to."

Julian looked at his map. „Yes - we could," he said. „I"ve marked the path to follow, and the stream joins it some way on. So if you like we could go along by it, though it wil be very rough walking."

They made their way to the stream. „Now Dick," said Julian, when they had left the path.

„What about telling us all those peculiar things that happened in the night? There"s nobody about to hear - not a soul in sight. Let"s hear everything. We"ll soon tel you whether it was a dream or not."

„Right," said Dick, „Well, here"s the tale. It does sound pretty queer. Listen..."

Dick began his tale - but it real y was very difficult to hear it because they couldn"t walk four abreast, as there was no path to follow.

In the end Julian stopped and pointed to a thick clump of heather. „Let"s go and sit there and hear Dick"s story properly. I keep missing bits. No one can hear us if we sit here."

They sat down and Dick started again. He told about the old woman who was afraid her son would be angry if she let them stay the night. He told about his bed in the straw.

„And now here comes the bit I think must have been a dream," he said. „I woke up to hear a scratching noise on the wooden walls of the barn..."

„Rats or mice?" said George, and Timmy leapt up at once, of course. He was sure she had said the words to him!

„I thought that too," said Dick. „But then I heard a gentle tap-tap-tapping on the window."

„How horrid," said Anne. „I shouldn"t have liked that at all."

„Neither did I," said Dick, „But the next thing I heard was my name being cal ed! “Dick!

Dick!” Just like that."

„It must have been a dream then," said Anne. 'There was no one there who knew your name."

Dick went on. „Well, then the voice said - “Dick! I know you"re there, I saw you go in!” And it told me to go to the window,"

„Go on," said Julian. He was puzzled. No one in the world but Anne could have known that Dick was in the barn - and it certainly wasn"t Anne out there in the night!

„Well, I went to the window," said Dick, „and I saw, rather dimly, of course, a wild-eyed looking fel ow, He couldn"t see me in the darkness of the barn. I just mumbled, “I"m here,”

hoping he would think I was whoever he wanted."

„What did he say next?" asked George.

„He said something that sounded stuff and nonsense," said Dick, „He said it twice. It was

“Two-Trees. Gloomy Water. Saucy Jane.” And he said “Maggie knows.” Just like that!"

There was a silence. Then George laughed. „Two-Trees! Gloomy Water! Saucy Jane - and Maggie knows about it! Well, it must have been a dream, Dick! You know it must. What do you think, Julian?"

„Well - it does sound a bit nonsensical to have someone come in the middle of the night and cal Dick by name and give him a strange message that doesn"t mean a thing to him!" said Julian. „It sounds more dream-like than real. I"d say it was a dream too."

Dick began to think they were right - and then a sudden thought struck him. He sat up straight. „Wait a bit!" he said „I"ve remembered something! The man slipped a bit of paper through the broken pane of the window, and I picked it up!"

„Ah - that"s different," said Julian. „Now - if you can"t find that paper, it"s all a dream and you dreamt the paper too - but if you can fmd it, well the whole thing is true. Very peculiar indeed - but true."

Dick searched quickly in his pockets, He felt paper in one of them, and drew it out. It was a dirty, crumpled piece, with a few words on it and a few lines. He held it out to the others in silence, his eyes shining.

„Is this the paper?" asked Julian. „My word - so you didn"t dream it after al , then!"

He took the paper. Four heads bent over it to examine it. No, five - because Timmy wanted to see what they were al so interested in, He thrust his hairy head between Julian"s and Dick"s.

„I can"t make any sense of this paper," said Julian, „It"s a plan of some kind, I think - but what of, or where, it"s impossible to know."

„The fel ow said that Maggie had one of these bits of paper too," said Dick, remembering.

„Who in the wide world is Maggie?" said George, „And why should Maggie know?"

„Any more to tell?" asked Julian, intensely interested now.

„Well - the son of the deaf old woman came into the barn later on," said Dick. „And he sat and waited and waited, and muttered and muttered - and then when I woke up he wasn"t there. So I thought I must have dreamt him too. He didn"t see me, of course."

Julian pursed up his lips and frowned. Then Anne spoke excitedly.

„Dick! Ju! I think I know why the second man came into the barn. It was the second man that the wild-eyed man wanted to give the message to, and the bit of paper - not to Dick. He didn"t want Dick. But he had seen him creep into the barn, and I suppose he thought Dick was the man he real y wanted and that he was in the barn waiting for him!"

„That"s all very wel - but how did he know my name?" asked Dick,

„He didn"t know it! He didn"t know it was you at all!" said Anne, excitedly. „The other man"s name must have been Dick too! Don"t you see? They must have planned to meet there, the wild-eyed man and the old woman"s son - and the first man saw Dick go in, so he waited a bit and then went and tapped on the window! And when he called “Dick!

Dick!” of course Dick thought it was he that he wanted, and he took the message and everything! And then the other man, the real Dick came along - and was too late to meet the first one. Our Dick had met him and got the message!"

Anne was quite breathless after this long speech. She sat and stared at the others eagerly.

Didn"t they think she was right?

They did, of course. Julian clapped her on the back. „Well worked out, Anne! Of course that"s what happened."

Dick suddenly remembered the boy they had met on the way down from the old woman"s cottage to Beacons Vil age - the whistling boy. What had he said about the old woman and her son?

„Anne - what did that whistling boy say? Wait a bit - he said that was Mrs. Taggart"s place

- and he said we"d better not go there or her son would drive us off. And he said - yes, I remember now - he said “Dirty Dick we cal him - he"s a terror!” Dirty Dick! His name must be Dick then! Why didn"t I think of it before?"

„That proves that Anne is right," said Julian, pleased. Anne looked pleased too. It wasn"t often that she thought of something clever before the others did!

They all sat thinking. „Would this have anything to do with the escaped prisoner?" said George at last.

„It might," said Julian. „He might have been the prisoner himself, that fel ow who came with the message. Did he say who the message was from?"

„Yes," said Dick, trying to remember, „He said it was from Nailer. I think that was the name -

but it was al given in whispers, you know."

„A message from Nailer," said Julian. „Well - perhaps Nailer is in prison - a friend of the man who escaped. And maybe when he knew this fel ow was going to make a dash for it, he gave him a message for someone - the man at that old cottage, son of the old woman.

They may have had a prearranged plan."

„How do you mean?" asked Dick, looking puzzled.

„Well - the old woman"s son, Dirty Dick, may have known that when the bel s rang out, this fel ow was making a run for it - and would come to bring him a message. He was to wait in the barn at night if the bel s rang, just in case it was Nailer"s friend who had escaped."