The Picts and the Martyrs

by Arthur Ransome

  “We’ve got to be ready for them as soon as they come,” said Dick. “And I’ve got to bale Scarab. She’s sure to be half full of water after last night.”

  “What would Susan do?” asked Dorothea.

  “She couldn’t do anything till she knew exactly what message he’s sent. He’s probably said ‘Come at once.’ But we don’t know.”

  “I don’t mean that,” said Dorothea. “Just look at the floor. If it goes on raining we may be forced to go back to Beckfoot. Oh, I say, and I left a loaf of bread on the table and there’s water splashing on it now.”

  Dick looked down at the floor. “Drainage,” he said. “That’s all it needs. I’ll do it in a minute. If I make a gutter, it’ll all run out of the door.”

  He rolled out of his hammock, came down with one foot in the puddle and set to work with his knife to make a narrow drain between the puddle and the door. “It doesn’t need a deep one,” he said. “Just big enough to let the water trickle along it.” He rolled his pyjamas well above his ankles, and went on digging and scraping till the drain reached the edge of the puddle. “I thought it would,” he said, as the water poured along it in a dusty stream. “Go back to Beckfoot?” They wouldn’t let Nancy down, least of all now, when they had only to keep hidden for a few more days, when everything had gone so well, when Scarab was ready, and the message had come that was almost sure to say that Timothy was wanting him for the work they had to do. He scraped along the bottom of the drain to hurry the water on its way, and, as the puddle shrank into no more than a big damp place on the floor he knew without her saying that Dorothea was feeling better.

  “We’ve got milk left from yesterday,” she said. “Skip along to the pool and get it, and we can have breakfast without waiting for Jacky.”

  “Good,” said Dick, leaving his drain, grabbing some handfuls of dry leaves and twigs and putting a match to them.

  “I’ll see to that,” said Dorothea. “You get the milk and fill the kettle at the same time.”

  Dorothea was herself again. Dick put his feet into his sandshoes, put a mackintosh over his pyjamas, and bolted joyfully to the beck which, no longer a mere trickle, was already overflowing at the place where it crossed the path. He lifted the stone from the hole in the bank of moss and found that water had risen in the hole half way up the neck of the milk bottle. He filled the kettle and came hurrying back to find the sticks crackling and the fire burning up and Dorothea dressed more or less and cutting bread and butter from the drier end of the loaf, which really was not as wet as it had seemed at first sight. “One end of it’s not wet at all, and I’ve got another loaf we haven’t begun.” By the time they had had their milk and cornflakes, the kettle was boiling. Dick crammed in some potted meat and bread and butter, dressed while his tea was cooling, burnt his throat with it all the same, took an apple to eat on the way, grabbed the empty milk bottle and was off.

  “There may be a message in the letter-box by now,” he said. “And if only I can catch Jacky before he goes to Beckfoot, I’ll be able to send an answer.”

  Dorothea, ashamed of her moment of weakness at the sight of the water on the floor, and the rain coming down outside and inside as well, set seriously to the business of housekeeping. Housekeeping for Picts was easy enough in fine weather, but not when everything was damp. The first thing to do was to get things dry. She had another worry ahead of her. Today was the day for the cooking of Jacky’s rabbit. She could not any longer put it off. And that rabbit, in the mind of an inexperienced cook, was bulking bigger than an elephant. It had to be skinned … and worse … and on these vital subjects her cookery book said nothing at all.

  *

  The rain had turned to a steady drizzle as Dick dodged through the trees beside the path that was now a lot of waterfalls. There was no letter in the hole in the wall. Dick had just had time to see that the hole was empty when Jacky, with a sack over his shoulders to keep off the rain, came bicycling along the road. Too late. He had already been to Beckfoot. He got carefully off his bicycle, took a bottle of milk from the basket in front of his handlebars and gave it to Dick in exchange for the empty one.

  “Thank you very much,” said Dick, and hesitated. Ought he or ought he not to ask Jacky to go back to Beckfoot to find out what message had been brought by the pigeon that had rung the bell last night? How much did Jacky know about the pigeons? How much would Nancy want him to know? He decided he had better not mention pigeons at all. “They didn’t send a message for me?” he asked.

  “Nay,” said Jacky.

  “Oh,” said Dick. “I thought perhaps they might.”

  “It’s nobbut a step. Shall I bike back and ask?”

  “No, no,” stammered Dick. Jacky, meaning to be helpful, might so easily be just the opposite. What if he were to ask Cook that question just when the Great Aunt was in the kitchen ordering meals?

  “Me time’s me own,” said Jacky. “Now I’m done wi’ t’milk.”

  “There’s no need,” said Dick. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Right-o,” said Jacky, and rode off.

  For a moment Dick thought of waiting for the postman. Then he remembered that after all that rain Scarab would need baling. If he could get her baled now, there would be so much time saved if Timothy’s message had been to say that he wanted him to come to the houseboat at once. And Dot was at the hut in case Nancy or Peggy came up with it. So he hid the milk behind the wall, hurried along the wet, shining road, climbed the gate into the field and, with squelching sandshoes, raced over the grass, pushed through the trees and came to Scarab in her secret harbour.

  There was a lot of water in her, more even than he had expected. He climbed aboard, caught the baler that was floating about in her, and began to bale. Scoop … splash. Scoop … splash. He remembered the quick swinging motion with which he had seen Tom Dudgeon bale his punt. It was a small baler and for a long time the baling seemed to make very little difference. He baled kneeling on the thwart, shifting every minute or two, to get his weight on the other knee. His arms ached. His back ached. The odd thing was that he enjoyed it. The more work he put in, the more Scarab seemed to be his own. Yesterday when he had been sailing her, trying not to make mistakes, she might have been any strange boat. But now, while his back felt as if it would never be straight again and drops of sweat kept falling on his spectacles, dim already with the rain, she was his own boat and no one else’s. He rested, wiped his spectacles so that until the drizzle covered them again he could get a better look at her, and wished the rain would stop, so that he could dry her wet sail for her and make her really comfortable.

  He set to work again, baling first with one hand and then with the other until, as he scooped, he could no longer fill the baler. At last she was as dry as he could get her without a sponge. He worked the bottomboards back into place and stood on them, looking round to see what else he could do for her. He looked up and, through the drizzle, saw a patch of blue sky. It would do no harm just to hoist her sail for a minute. In Picthaven, sheltered by the Beckfoot coppice, there was hardly any wind. So he clipped the halliard to the strop on the yard, hoisted away and, as the red sail went up, was suddenly soused with the water that had collected in its folds. Never mind. Another thing learnt. But it was a pity so much water had got inside his waterproof. He stood there holding the halliard, watching the trickles of water running down the red sail, along the boom, and dripping about his feet.

  Suddenly the rain came down again really hard. Big bubbles showed on the still water in the channel between the reeds. Big drops splashed on the wet thwarts. Dick lowered the sail and bundled it loosely along the gaff. With rain coming down like this, there would be more baling to do when the time came to sail. With that, he remembered that he did not yet know what the message was. Perhaps by now Nancy was already at the hut. He looked at his watch, found that the morning was gone as if by magic, leapt ashore and raced for home.

  It was not a lucky day. He had just crossed the gate into
the road when a motor car pulled up beside him.

  “You’re a drowned rat all right,” said a voice, and he saw the doctor looking out of the driver’s window.

  He could not very well tell the doctor that he was in a hurry and could not stop. So he had to wait while the doctor asked about the hut, told him to take his wet things off and get them dry, threatened that if he or Dorothea caught a cold they would have to come back to Beckfoot no matter how much Nancy wanted to keep them away, and chuckled at what he had just seen there. “One thing about it,” he said. “Nancy’s having to pay for her games. It did my heart good to see that young pirate sitting on the edge of a chair with her arms spreading a skein of wool, and young Peggy winding away and the old lady telling her to be sure not to pull the wool too tight.”

  “Did Nancy send a message for me?” Dick put in.

  “I didn’t give her a chance,” said the doctor. “I’ve enough on my conscience already, so when I saw Nancy trying to catch my eye, I got away quick.”

  This was dreadful. And still the doctor went on talking. At last he said he must be getting on to see another patient. He put in his clutch and drove off. A gloved hand waved out of the window. Dick did not see it. He was already racing full tilt along the road.

  If he had been one minute sooner he would have been in time to catch Nancy at the letter-box. As it was, he saw something brown with a flash of white disappear over the Beckfoot wall at the bend in the road. He could not be sure what it was and dared not shout. If it was one of the martyrs and she had been to the hut, Dorothea already had the news. He nearly forgot the milk, but remembered it just in time, and then, in case the postman had brought a letter, looked hurriedly into the hole in the wall. No letter, but a scrap of paper. Nancy’s writing and done in a hurry. There was no skull and crossbones. There was nothing but a few pencilled words:

  “URGENT NEWS. MUST SEE YOU. DON’T STIR FROM THE HUT. COMING AS SOON AS I CAN GET AWAY.”

  There was no signature. Dick read it twice and then hurried up the path. Water was pouring down it, but his sandshoes were so wet that they could get no wetter and it was quicker than pushing through the trees.

  Dick charged into the hut to find Dorothea sitting on the three-legged stool with the cookery book open before her on the packing case. A roaring fire was burning. The hammocks had been stowed and the rugs had been tossed over the beams and hung there airing. Dorothea had done everything she could think of that Susan would have done if living in a hut with a leaky roof with rain dripping on the floor.

  Dick noticed nothing of this. “Dot,” he panted. “Has one of them been here? Look what I found in the letter-box.”

  “Nobody’s been here, not even Jacky.”

  “I met Jacky,” said Dick, “and I’ve got the milk, but do look what Nancy says. I saw the doctor and he told me Nancy wanted to give him a message but he wouldn’t let her. She must have got out just after he’d gone. I saw someone going back over their wall. And then I found this in the box.”

  “It’s all right,” said Dorothea, reading the message. “It only means they’re coming here and don’t want us to be somewhere else.”

  “It means they’ve got the message. I was sure they had. But if Timothy wants me now why didn’t Nancy say so? I’ve baled Scarab. I could start at once.”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “He was a bit bothered about us and everything, like he was the other day. And he said Nancy and Peggy were winding wool.”

  “It’s their lunch time now,” said Dorothea. “It’s a good thing I haven’t started doing the rabbit. It’ll take too long. They’ll be up here as soon as the Great Aunt lies down to plan new tortures. Just think of her making Captain Nancy wind wool. I say, Dick, you’ve got sopping wet.”

  “I forgot there’d be a lot of water in the sail.”

  “You haven’t been sailing?”

  “No. Only hoisted it and lowered it again. I’ve baled her out. I’m ready to start any minute.”

  “You won’t be able to go with your things all wet. You’d better get into pyjamas while we get your clothes dry. And I’ll hot up some soup out of one of the tins.”

  Dick was out of his clothes and into his pyjamas in two minutes. Dorothea, with the cooking of the rabbit put off once more, closed the cookery book with relief. The rabbit, its fur sodden with rain, had been very daunting. She had brought it in and hung it from a peg in the hut to dry. Any Pict, of course, would be glad to have a rabbit to cook, but this was not the time to start skinning when at any minute Nancy might come racing up with something urgent for them to do. She made a simpler meal, opening a tin of tomato soup which she heated in the saucepan, and followed that with buttered eggs and sardines. While these things were being made ready, Dick’s clothes steamed before the fire, and Dick turned them first one way and then another to hurry their drying.

  “Two o’clock,” he said, as they bit into their apples after the meal. He went and stood in the doorway to listen.

  Time went on. Twice he thought he heard footsteps. Twice he was disappointed. There was only the noise of the beck, swollen with rain, and the steady drip from the roof which, thanks to his draining, made only a small puddle that no longer spread into a lake but trickled away through the open door.

  Every now and then the drizzle eased and there were gleams of sunshine through the wet trees, though more cloud was drifting from the south and the patches of blue sky showed only for a moment. Dick could settle to nothing. He tried to read the sailing book but could not keep his mind on it. Even a woodpecker, tapping at a tree close by, could not stop him from thinking that if only he had known in the morning what the message was he might by now be already in the houseboat doing work that really mattered.

  “It won’t take me a minute,” he said at last, looking up at the holes in the roof. He rolled his pyjamas to his knees, put on his waterproof, went out, filled the pockets of the waterproof with moss, and climbed up on the roof at the back of the hut where the steeply sloping ground made it easy. He pushed moss into the holes he could see and, better still, found that one of the big slates had stirred near the top of the roof. He was able to work it back into its place. Just then the rain came on again. Dick slid down and came back into the hut. The rain rattled on the roof but no longer found its way in. He was able to put the chair exactly where the drip had been and to sit there without a single drop falling on his head.

  “Well, that’s one good thing,” said Dorothea. “We’ll be able to get things really dry.”

  But all this time there was no sign of a prisoner escaping from Beckfoot. Four o’clock came. At half past Dorothea said, “Whatever they’ve been doing, they’ll be having tea with her now. They won’t come till after tea. Perhaps they aren’t going to be able to escape at all. We’ll have tea anyhow, and then, whatever happens, we must skin Jacky’s rabbit.”

  “Not yet,” said Dick. “It’s light till pretty late, and it would be awful if we had to leave it in the middle.”

  Five o’clock passed, six and seven. Dick, more and more gloomy, was back in his clothes which were singed only in one or two small places. The hut, now that the leaks had been stopped, was no longer steamy. The rugs hanging on the beams felt warm and dry. Dorothea made up her mind. “No one will come now,” she said. “There’ll be their supper and then she’ll make them play the piano. We shan’t know what the message is till tomorrow. I can’t put it off any longer. I’m going to cook that rabbit.”

  Dick had been looking through the bird book with eyes that saw neither print nor pictures. Perhaps he ought to have been working in the houseboat all afternoon. It was simply impossible that Timothy should have sent a message just to tell him to keep away. A whole day wasted. But Dot was right. Nothing could happen now. He shut the book, and brought his mind to the problem of the rabbit. Dorothea had seen that problem clearly.

  “In the cookery book,” she said, “the rabbits and things all seem to be born naked and ready for cooking. H
ow on earth are we going to skin it? Picts don’t buy rabbits ready trussed like the picture. What do they do? What does Jacky do?”

  “A Pict would skin it with a flint knife,” said Dick. “No. Bronze, I should think.”

  “Well, let’s skin it,” said Dorothea.

  “We’ll have to take its insides out,” said Dick.

  “I know,” said Dorothea. “But how, and do we skin it first or afterwards?”

  “Afterwards,” said Dick. “I’ve seen rabbits and hares hanging up in shops, and they’re in their skins but they’ve always got no inside.”

  Dorothea shuddered. “I wish we’d asked Jacky to do it,” she said.

  “Scientifically,” said Dick, “it ought to be easy … In my biology book there’s a picture …”

  “Never mind that,” said Dorothea. “Will you do it?”

  “I’ll try,” said Dick. “It’s sure to come out somehow.” He pulled out his knife and opened it.

  “Not here,” said Dorothea. “Not here. … It’ll make an awful mess. … Somewhere in the wood … Quick, before it starts raining again.”

  Dick took the rabbit by its hind legs and went out. Dorothea read feverishly in the cookery book. Minute after minute passed. Dick came back. He was looking very green.

  “Dick?” said Dorothea, and he knew it was a question.

  “No, I wasn’t. … But very nearly. … It was much worse than I thought it would be.”

  He laid the rabbit on the packing case.

  “Things inside it,” he said. “I threw away most of it, but not everything. Three things like hearts. Two of them kidneys, I think, and some loose dark flaps. …”

  “I’m a pig, Dick,” said Dorothea. “I oughtn’t to have let you do it all by yourself.”

  “Let’s do the skinning,” said Dick. “I tried, but I couldn’t. It’ll take two to do it properly.”

  No one who has not tried to take it off can know how firmly a rabbit’s skin sticks to a rabbit. Part of it can be freed easily enough but the four legs and head of the rabbit must have puzzled many a Pict. Dick began, naturally in the middle where he had cut the skin already. It was a messy business but so difficult that after the first few moments Dorothea forgot its messiness, and clawed and tugged at skin and body as if nothing mattered in the world except to get them apart.