Swallowdale

by Arthur Ransome

  “They must have done, when they built the cairn,” said Peggy. “Think of the time it must have taken to build up all those stones.”

  “Perhaps it didn’t take any time,” said Titty. “Perhaps some tribe or other had won a victory, and everybody brought one stone and put it there.”

  “But they’d have a feast after that,” said Roger. “Can I climb up the cairn?”

  “No,” said Susan. “You’ve had one tumble already, and there aren’t thousands of us to build the cairn up again if you go and bring it down.”

  “It’s very well built.”

  “That just shows the people who built it didn’t want ship’s boys to pull it down.”

  “I’ll be very careful.”

  “Have an apple.”

  “May I lean against the cairn?”

  “Anything you like so long as you don’t start climbing on it.”

  Roger sat down with his back against the cairn, so as to be less tempted to climb it. It seemed a pity not to and so be a few feet higher even than the top of Kanchenjunga. He could climb it, he thought, next year or perhaps the year after. In the meantime …. He looked down towards Swallowdale somewhere on the moors so far below, tried to see Wild Cat Island, but could not be sure if he had, watched a steamer moving at the low end of the lake, looked out to sea and then, when he had eaten his apple, rolled over and began feeling the stones at the foot of the cairn. Was it so very well built, after all?

  The others were planning what they would do, now that the great-aunt was gone, and the Amazons were once more free to be pirates, and there seemed to be hope that Swallow would soon be back, when they were startled by a shout from Roger. “Look, look! What’s this?”

  In his hand was a small round brass box with the head of an old lady stamped on the lid of it. Framing the head of the old lady were big printed letters: “QUEEN OF ENGLAND EMPRESS OF INDIA DIAMOND JUBILEE 1897.” Roger had found a loose stone at the foot of the cairn, had pulled it out, and seen the little brass box hidden behind it.

  “She must be Queen Victoria,” said John. “She came before Edward the Seventh.”

  “She really is awfully like Bridgie used to be,” said Titty.

  “There’s something inside,” said Roger, shaking the box.

  “Let’s open it,” said Nancy.

  “I’ll open it,” said Roger, and he did. Inside was a folded bit of paper and a farthing with the head of Queen Victoria on it.

  “Take care,” said Titty. “It may be a treasure chart. It may be a deadly secret. It may crumble at a touch. They often do.”

  But the paper was strong enough. Roger let Nancy unfold it. She opened it, began reading aloud, and then stopped. Peggy took it and read it aloud, while the others looked at it over her shoulder. It was written in black pencil that had scored deeply into the paper:

  “August the 2nd. 1901.

  We climbed the Matterhorn.

  Molly Turner.

  J. Turner.

  Bob Blackett.”

  “That’s mother and Uncle Jim,” said Peggy in a queer voice.

  “Who is Bob Blackett?” asked Susan.

  “He was father,” said Nancy.

  Nobody said anything for a minute, and then Titty, looking at the paper, said, “So that was what they called it. Well, it’s Kanchenjunga now. It’s no good changing it now we’ve climbed it.”

  “That was thirty years ago,” said John.

  “I wonder how mother and Uncle Jim escaped from the great-aunt to come up here,” said Peggy. “She was looking after them, you know.”

  “Probably father rescued them,” said Nancy.

  “Why did they put the farthing in?” wondered Roger.

  “Let’s put it all back,” said Titty hurriedly. “They meant it to stay for a thousand years.”

  “Has anybody got a bit of paper?” said Nancy suddenly.

  Nobody had, but Titty had the stump of a pencil. Nancy took it and wrote firmly on the back of the paper on which her father and mother and uncle had set forth their triumph of thirty years before:

  “Aug. 11. 1931.

  We climbed Kanchenjunga.”

  “Now,” she said, “we all sign here,” and she wrote her name. “You next, Captain John. Then the two mates, and then the able-seaman and the ship’s boy.”

  Everybody signed. Then Nancy folded up the paper, put it back in the box with the farthing, and gave it to Roger.

  “You found it,” she said. “You put it back, and then perhaps in another thirty years …” She broke off, but presently laughed. “Shiver my timbers,” she said, “but I wish we had a George the Fifth farthing.”

  “I’ve got a new halfpenny,” said Roger.

  “Can you spare it?”

  “I’ll give you another if you can’t,” said John, “when we get back to the camp.”

  Roger dug out his halfpenny. The box was closed and pushed far back into the hole at the foot of the cairn. Roger wedged the loose stone firmly in its place.

  “Nobody’d ever guess there was anything there,” said Roger. “I wouldn’t have found it if the stone hadn’t worked loose.”

  “And now perhaps it won’t be found for ages and ages till people wear quite different sorts of clothes,” said Titty. “Perhaps it’ll be more explorers just like us. I wonder how big Captain Flint was then?”

  “I wonder if they had a clear day for it,” said Peggy.

  “And saw the Isle of Man,” said Roger.

  They looked out to sea.

  “Hullo,” said John. “We can’t see it any more.”

  “I saw it a minute ago,” said Titty.

  “There must be a fog out at sea,” said John. “What luck that we came up early while it was still so clear.”

  “Come along,” said Nancy suddenly. “Remember we’ve got to get down to Watersmeet and then to Beckfoot and then sail to Horseshoe Cove and carry our tent up to Swallowdale. We ought to be starting.”

  “Where’s the rope?” said Roger.

  “I’ll carry the rope,” said Nancy. “We used it all right coming up. I don’t see why we shouldn’t use the path going down. It’ll be lots quicker.”

  A minute or two later, after a last look round from the top of the world, the six explorers, who had climbed Kanchenjunga as Kanchenjunga should be climbed, were hurrying down the mountain at a good jog-trot.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  FOG ON THE MOOR

  IT was early afternoon when the Beckfoot war canoe, or rowing boat, shot through the bridge into the lower reaches of the Amazon. The two captains were rowing, Roger was in the bows, and the rest of the explorers were in the stern, together with the rope and the knapsacks and the sleeping-bags, the kettle and the milk-can that they had picked up at the Half-Way Camp on their way down from the top of the mountain.

  “There’s our tree,” called Roger, as the boat turned a bend of the river and he saw the huge oak with its branches spreading far out over the water.

  “Easy all,” called Mate Peggy.

  “You’re sure you really do want to go home that way instead of coming in the Amazon?” said Mate Susan.

  “Of course we do,” said Titty. “That’s what we laid the patterans for.”

  “Besides,” said Roger. “there’s hardly any wind.”

  “Well, look here, Titty,” said Susan. “There really isn’t much wind, so if you do get back before us you can get the fire going and put some water on to boil. You’ll find the saucepan in the larder.”

  “Susan!” said Titty indignantly.

  “In Peter Duck’s cave, I mean,” said Susan. “There’s no point in taking the kettle. The less you have to carry the better.”

  “We don’t need anything but chocolate,” said Roger.

  “And the compass,” said Titty. “We’ll take great care of it. We ought to have the compass, you know.”

  “We shan’t need it,” said Susan.

  “All right,” said John.

  “Back water with yo
ur left,” cried Peggy. “Ship your oars!”

  With a loud swishing of oak leaves, the rowing boat ran itself gently into the bank beside the big tree. Roger was out in a moment and hanging on to the painter to stop the boat from slipping back until Titty had picked out their two knapsacks and worked her way past the rowers to join him on the bank. John gave her the compass. Susan handed out a double ration of chocolate for each of them. Except for the chocolate and compass there was nothing in their knapsacks, but when exploring, they would rather have had empty knapsacks than none. They would not need their sleeping-bags which, as Nancy said, would cram in with the rest of the cargo in Amazon. “Much better send things by sea than by pack-horses.”

  “Pack-donkeys,” said Susan. “They’d be much better off in Amazon themselves.”

  For a moment the able-seaman was afraid that Susan was going to think better of it, and not let them go after all, but Peggy called out, “Shove her off,” so Roger threw the painter aboard, and the two of them, pushing together, sent the boat shooting out into the river.

  “Out oars,” called Peggy, who was enjoying giving orders to the captains. “Back water with your right. Pull left. Left. Pull both. Steady. Left again. All right now.”

  The war canoe with the two captains and the two mates moved fast downstream and disappeared.

  Roger looked after it.

  “Suppose we never see them again,” he said.

  The able-seaman was not going to allow that kind of talk.

  “Now then, Boy,” she said, “get your knapsack on. We mustn’t hang about. It wouldn’t be fair to the ship’s parrot. He’s waiting in the cave.”

  “He’s got Peter Duck,” said the boy.

  “No, he hasn’t. Not now. We’ll have Peter Duck with us. He was waiting for us under the oak tree. It’s just the sort of thing he’d like, following patterans over the moor. Besides, he’ll be a help in case of natives.”

  “Unfriendly ones?” said the boy, struggling into the straps of his flapping, empty knapsack.

  “Savages,” said the able-seaman. “They might go for you or me if we were by ourselves. But if Peter Duck were to give just one look at them they wouldn’t dare.”

  All the same, when they had slipped through the edges of the wood to the road, they listened carefully, lying on the top of the stone wall, to make sure that no natives of any kind were coming either way.

  “Are you ready?” said Titty.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy.

  “Peter Duck says now’s our chance. Drop and hare across for all you’re worth.”

  They dropped, and hared.

  “Here’s my tuft of grass. That’s the first of the patterans. There’s a good step on the other side. Be quick. Give me one foot. Don’t kick with the other. Wriggle with the top of you. Quick!”

  The able-seaman hoisted the boy up the wall. He scrambled over the top and disappeared, all but his hands, which for a moment clung on to the moss-covered stones.

  “I’m feeling for the step,” his voice came in a whisper, as if he were afraid of being overheard. “I’ve got it.”

  His hands were gone and Titty heard him drop into the dead leaves on the other side of the wall. She found it none too easy to climb the wall herself, and would have been glad if Peter Duck had been real enough to give her a leg up as she had given Roger. Of course, he would have done if he had been there. So she had to pretend that he had already climbed over. “He did it in one jump,” she said to herself. “It was nothing to him after running up and down rigging all his life.” A moment later she, too, had found the step on the other side and jumped from it down into the wood. Roger was already looking for pine-cones.

  “No,” said the able-seaman, “we didn’t put any here. No need. We follow the wall till we see the four firs, and then the four firs show the way to the first of our patterans. We can’t go wrong here. All we’ve got to do is to keep along the wall and climb as fast as we can.”

  They had crossed the road just at the place where the old wall came down from the moor. They could almost touch it when they dropped down into the wood. There was nothing to keep them, and they began at once scrambling up through the wood, keeping close to the old wall, and pushing aside the hazel branches. It was hard climbing, and they were glad when they came to the edge of the thick wood, to the place where the trees had been cut down and there was little left but old stumps, and foxgloves, and ferns, so that they could see where they were going and how the ruins of the old wall led on to the four dark fir trees standing one above another on the steep hillside.

  “What about chocolate?” said Roger, less because he wanted chocolate than because he wanted a rest.

  “Come on,” said Titty. “We’ll have our first chocolate under the four firs. That’ll be the first stage. Then we’ll have to look for our patterans to show us the rest of the way.”

  They hurried on, climbing still, over the rough, broken ground where the old tree stumps and the few scattered young trees showed there had once been a wood. Under the four great firs, which were all that were left of that old forest of thirty or forty or fifty years ago, the able-seaman and the boy ate a ration of chocolate, and looked back into the valley of the Amazon.

  Roger said, “I wish I’d seen the great-aunt close to.”

  “It’s a good thing none of us did,” said Titty. “Just think of what happened to the people who looked at the Gorgon. We might all have been turned into stone and stuck about the Beckfoot garden with bird-baths or sundials on the tops of our heads.”

  “It didn’t happen like that to the Amazons,” said Roger.

  “Perhaps they always looked the other way,” said Titty. “And, anyhow, she almost did turn them into stone. Look at the way they got stuck here and couldn’t do any of the things they wanted to do. And remember how stiff they were when we saw them in the carriage. That was because they were sitting just in front of her. I don’t believe even Captain Flint felt properly springy while she was anywhere near.”

  “I wonder where he is.”

  “Playing the accordion in his houseboat probably. At least I think that’s what he’d do. He saw her off this morning, you know. Come on, Boy. Let’s get on to Swallowdale. Remember the Amazons are going to be in the camp to-night. Come on. We must keep the four firs in a line and look for the patterans.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy, and scampered on towards the moor with his eyes on the ground, running to right and then to left and back again like a dog trying to pick up a scent.

  The able-seaman moved crabwise, and not so fast, all the time looking over her shoulder to see that the four firs looked as nearly as possible like one.

  They crossed the broad belt of heather and had already left the four firs far behind when Roger found the first of the pine-cones.

  “Good,” said the able-seaman. “I was beginning to think we’d missed it.” She had another look back at the firs, and then hurried forward. She was picking up the second pine-cone before the boy saw it.

  “Hurrah,” shouted the boy. “They’re the best patterans that ever were. We can’t miss the way now.” He galloped on over the moor and presently picked up the third.

  “Shall we leave them for another time?” he said.

  “No. Better throw them away. We don’t want to show anybody else the way to Swallowdale.”

  “Which of us can throw farthest?” said the boy, giving Titty a pine-cone and running on to pick up another for himself.

  The able-seaman knew that Roger could beat her at throwing, but she threw her pine-cone none the less. Roger threw his but not quite in the same direction, so they had to measure the distances by stepping before they could be sure that this had really gone a yard or two farther than hers.

  “This is a waste of time,” said the able-seaman. “Besides, Peter Duck could throw yards farther than either of us if he wanted to.”

  They hurried on again, picking up the pine-cones one by one as they found them, and throwing e
ach one away as soon as they saw the next.

  They were high up on the top of the open moorland and had already long lost sight of the four firs, when Roger stopped suddenly and said, “What’s become of the hills?”

  Titty looked back towards Kanchenjunga. Kanchenjunga stood out clear in the sunshine and so did the great hills beyond him to the north, but the lower hills to the south had disappeared altogether. It was as if there was nothing beyond the moorland but the sky.

  “It’s not so hot now,” said Roger.

  It certainly did seem much cooler all of a sudden. And the sunshine was not so bright as it had been.

  Titty looked back again to Kanchenjunga. A wisp of pale cloud was floating across his lower slopes. His head was somehow fading. She could no longer see the peak with the cairn that they had that morning climbed. She looked over the moorland towards Swallowdale. Something was happening. There was no doubt about it. The moorland was shrinking. It was nothing like so wide as it had been. The trees away to the left had gone. The hills away to the right had disappeared. The moorland, instead of ending sharply where it dropped into the farther valley, faded into a wall of soft white mist.

  “It’s coming in like the tide,” said Titty.

  “We’re on a cape with the sea pouring in on each side of us,” said Roger.

  A high wall of mist was now rolling towards them from the south along the top of the ridge. There seemed to be no wind, but the mist moved forward, little clouds sometimes spilling ahead of it like the small waves racing up the sands in front of the breakers.

  IN THE FOG

  “It’s cold,” said the boy.

  “Let’s hurry,” said the able-seaman.

  And then the mist rolled over the top of them and they could see only a few yards ahead.

  “It wasn’t a cape,” said Roger. “Only a sandbank. And now the sea’s gone over the top of it.”