Five on a Hike Together (7 page)

„Yes, I see," said Dick „I think you"re right. Yes, I"m sure you are. My word, I"m glad I didn"t know that fel ow at the window was an escaped convict!"

„And you"ve got the message from Nailer!" said Anne. „What a peculiar thing! Just because we lost our way and went to the wrong place, you get a message from a prisoner given you by one who"s escaped! It"s a pity we don"t know what the message means - or the paper either."

„Had we better tell the police?" said George. „I mean - it may be important. It might help them to catch that man."

„Yes," said Julian. „I think we should tel the police. Let"s have a look at our map. Where"s the next vil age?"

He looked at the map for a minute. „I think really we might as wel go on with what I had planned," he said. „I planned we should reach this vil age here - Reebles, look - in time for lunch, in case we hadn"t got sandwiches. We"d have gone there for drinks anyway. So I vote we just carry on with our ramble, and call in at Reebles police station - if there is one -

and tell them our bit of news."

They all got up. Timmy was glad. He didn"t approve of this long sit-down so soon after breakfast. He bounded ahead in delight.

„His leg"s quite all right," said Anne, pleased. „Well I hope it teaches him not to go down rabbit holes again!"

It didn"t, of course. He had his head down half a dozen within the next half-hour, but fortunately he could get no farther, and he was able to pul himself out quite easily.

The four saw little wild ponies that day. They came trotting over a hil ock together, smal and brown, with long manes and tails, looking very busy indeed. The children stopped in delight. The ponies saw them, tossed their pretty heads, turned one way all together and galloped off like the wind.

Timmy wanted to go after them, but George held his col ar tightly. No one must chase those dear little wild ponies!

„Lovely!" said Anne. „Lovely to meet them as suddenly as that. I hope we meet some more."

The morning was as warm and sunny as the day before. Once again the four of them had to take off their blazers, and Timmy"s tongue hung out, wet and dripping. The heather and wiry grass was soft underfoot. They followed the stream closely, liking its brown colour and its soft gurgling voice.

They bathed their hot feet in it as they ate one of their sandwiches at half past eleven.

„This is bliss!" said George, lying back on a tuft of heather with her feet lapped by the water. „The stream is tickling my feet, and the sun is warming my face - lovely! Oh, get away, Timmy, you idiot! Breathing down my neck like that, and making my face so wet!"

The stream at last joined the path that led to the vil age of Reebles. They walked along it, beginning to think of dinner. It would be fun to have it in a little inn or perhaps a farm-house, and keep their sandwiches for tea-time.

„But first we must find the police-station," said Julian. „We"ll get our tale told, and then we"ll be ready for our meal!"

There was a police-station at Reebles, a smal one with a house for the policeman attached. As the one policeman had four vil ages under his control he felt himself to be rather an important fellow.

He was in his house having his dinner when the children walked up to the police-station.

They found nobody there, and walked out again. The policeman had seen them from his window and he came out, wiping his mouth. He wasn"t very pleased at having to come out in the middle of a nice meal of sausage and onions.

„What do you want?" he said, suspiciously. He didn"t like children of any sort. Nasty little things, he thought them - always ful of mischief and cheek. He didn"t know which were worse, the smal ones or the big ones!

Julian spoke to him politely. „We"ve come to report something rather strange, which we thought perhaps the police ought to know. It might help them to catch the prisoner who escaped last night."

„Ha!" said the policeman scornful y. „You"ve seen him too, I suppose? You wouldn"t believe how many people have seen him. "Cording to them he"s been in every part of the moor at one and the same time. Clever fellow he must be to split himself up like that."

'Well, one of us saw him last night," said Julian politely. „At least, we think it must have been him. He gave a message to my brother here."

„Ho, he did, did he?" said the policeman, eyeing Dick in a most disbelieving manner. „So he runs about giving messages to school-boys, does he? And what message did he give you, may I ask?"

The message sounded extremely sil y when Dick repeated it to the police. „Two-Trees.

Gloomy Water, Saucy Jane. And Maggie knows."

„Real y?" said the policeman, in a sarcastic voice. „Maggie knows as well, does she? Well, you tell Maggie to come along here and tell me too. I"d like to meet Maggie - specially if she"s a friend of yours."

„She"s not," said Dick feeling annoyed. „That was in the message. I don"t know who Maggie is! How should I? We thought perhaps the police could unravel the meaning. We couldn"t. The fel ow gave me this bit of paper too."

He handed the piece of dirty paper to the policeman, who looked at it with a crooked smile „So he gave you this too, did he?" he said. „Now wasn"t that kind of him? And what do you suppose al this is, scribbled on the paper?"

„We don"t know," said Dick. „But we thought our report might help the police to catch the prisoner, that"s all."

„The prisoner"s caught," said the policeman, with a smirk on his face. „You know so much -

but you didn"t know that! Yes, he"s caught - four hours ago - and he"s safe back in prison now And let me tell you youngsters this - I"m not taken in by any sil y schoolboy spoofing, see?"

„It"s not spoofing," said Julian, in a very grown-up manner, „You should learn to see the difference between the truth and a joke."

That didn"t please the policeman at al . He turned on Julian at once, his face reddening

„Now you run away!" he said. „I"m not having any cheek from you! Do you want me to take your names and addresses and report you?"

„If you like," said Julian, in disgust. „Have you got a notebook there? I"ll give you al our names, and I myself wil make a report to the police in our district when I get back."

The policeman stared at him. He couldn"t help being impressed by Julian"s manner, and he calmed down a little.

„You go away, all of you," he said, his voice not nearly so fierce. „I shan"t report you this time. But don"t you go spreading sil y stories like that or you"l get into trouble. Serious trouble too."

„I don"t think so," said Julian. „Anyway, seeing that you are not going to do anything about our story, may we have back our bit of paper, please?"

The policeman frowned. He made as if he would tear the paper up, but Dick snatched at it. He was too late. The aggravating policeman had torn it into four pieces and thrown it into the road!

„Don"t you have laws against scattering litter in your vil age?" asked Dick, severely, and careful y picked up the four pieces of paper. The policeman glared at Dick as he put the bits into his pocket. Then he made a peculiar snorting noise, turned on his heel and marched back to his sausages and onions.

„And I hope his dinner"s gone cold!" said George. „Horrid fellow! Why should he think we"re tel ing a lot of untruths?"

„It is rather a queer story of ours," said Julian, „After all - we found it a bit dificult to believe when Dick first told it. I don"t blame the policeman for disbelieving it - I blame him for his manner. It"s a good thing most of our police aren"t the same. Nobody would ever report anything."

„He told us one bit of good news, anyway," said Anne. „That escaped prisoner is back in prison again! I"m so relieved to know that."

„I am too," said Dick. „I didn"t like the look of him at all. Well, Ju - what do we do now?

Forget the whole business? Do you think there"s anything in that message to follow up?

And if so - can we do anything?"

„I don"t know," said Julian. „We must think a bit. Let"s go and see if we can scrounge a meal in some farm-house somewhere. There seem to be plenty around."

They asked a little girl if there was a farm-house anywhere near that would give them dinner. She nodded and pointed.

„See that farm-house up on the hil there? That"s my Gran"s place. She"ll give you dinner, I expect. She used to give dinner in the summer to trippers, and I expect she would give you some too, if you ask her, though it"s late in the season."

„Thanks," said Julian, and they all went up the lane that curved round the hil -side. Dogs barked loudly as they came near and Timmy"s hackles went up at once. He growled.

„Friends, Timmy, friends," said George. „Dinner here, Timmy. Dinner, perhaps a nice bone for you. Bone!"

Timmy understood. The fur down his neck lay flat again and he stopped growling. He wagged his tail at the two dogs near the farm-gate who sniffed his doggy-smel suspiciously even when he was some distance away.

A man hailed them. „What do you kids want? Mind those dogs!"

„We wondered if we could get a meal here!" called back Julian. „A little girl down in the vil age said we might."

„I"l ask my mother," said the man, and he yelled in an enormous voice to the farm-house nearby. „Ma! Ma! Four kids out here want to know if you can give them a meal."

A very fat old lady appeared, with twinkling eyes and red cheeks like an apple. She took one glance at the four by the gate, and nodded her head, „Yes. They look decent children. Tell them to come along in. Better hold their dog"s collar though."

The four walked to the farm-house, George holding Timmy firmly. The other two dogs came up, but as Timmy was hoping for a bone, he was determined to be friendly, and not a single growl came from him, even when the two dogs growled suspiciously. He wagged his tail, and let his tongue hang out.

The other dogs soon wagged theirs, and then it was safe to let Timmy go. He bounded over to them and there was a mad game of „chase-me-roll-me-over" as George called it.

„Come your ways in," said the plump old lady. „Now you"l have to take what we"ve got.

I"m busy today and haven"t had time for cooking. You can have a bit of home-made meat-pie, or a slice or two of ham and tongue, or hard-boiled eggs and salad. Bless you, you look as pleased as Punch! I"l put the lot on the table for you and you can help yourselves! Wil that do? There"s no vegetables though. You"l have to make do with pickled cabbage and my own pickled onions and beetroot in vinegar."

„It sounds too marvellous for words," said Julian. „We shan"t want any sweet after that!"

„There"s no pudding today," said the old lady. „But I"l open a bottle or two of our own raspberries and you can have them with cream if you like. And there"s the cream cheese I made yesterday too."

„Don"t tell us any more!" begged Dick. „It makes me feel too hungry. Why is it that people on farms always have the most delicious food? I mean, surely people in towns can bottle raspberries and pickle onions and make cream cheese?"

„Well either they can"t or they don"t," said George „My mother does all those things - and even when she lived in a town she did. Anyway, I"m going to when I"m grown-up. It must be so wonderful to offer home-made things by the score when people come to a meal!"

It was extraordinary to think that any children could possibly eat the meal the four did, after having had such a huge breakfast. Timmy ate an enormous dinner too, and then lay down with a sigh. How he wished he could live at that farm-house! How lucky those other two dogs were!

A small girl came in shyly as they ate. „I'm Meg," she said. „I live with my Gran. What are your names?"

They told her. Then Julian had an idea, „We"re walking over your moor," he said. „We"ve been to lots of nice places. But there"s one we haven"t been to yet. Do you know it? It"s cal ed Two- Trees."

The little girl shook her head. „Gran would know," she said. „Gran! Where"s Two-Trees?"

The old lady looked in at the door, „What"s that? Two-Trees? Oh, that was a lovely place once, but it"s all in ruins now. It was built beside a queer dark lake, in the middle of the moors. Let"s see now - what was it cal ed?"

„Gloomy Water?" said Dick.

„Yes! That"s right. Gloomy Water," said the old lady. „Are you thinking of going by there?

You be careful then, there"s marshland around there, just when you least expect it! Now -

would you like anything more?"

„No thank you," said Julian, regretful y, and paid the very modest bil . „It"s the nicest lunch we"ve ever had. Now we must be off."

„Off to Two-Trees and Gloomy Water, I hope!" George whispered to Dick. „That would be real y exciting."

Once outside the farm-house Julian looked round at the others. „We"ll find out how far Two-Trees is and see if we"ve got time to pay it a visit," he said. „If we have, we"ll go along there and snoop round. If we haven"t we"ll go tomorrow."

„How can we find out how far it is?" said Dick eagerly. „Wil it be on your map?"

„It may be marked there if the lake is big enough," said Julian. They walked down the hil , and took a path that led once more over the moors. As soon as they were out of sight and hearing of anyone Julian stopped and took out his big map. He unfolded it and the four of them crouched over it as he spread it out on the heather.

„That nice old lady said it was in the middle of the moors," said Julian. „Also we know there"s a lake or at any rate a big pool of some kind."

His finger traced its way here and there on the map. Then George gave a cry and dabbed her finger down.

„There, look! It"s not really in the middle. See - Gloomy Water! That must be it. Is Two-Trees marked as well?"

„No," said Julian, „But perhaps it wouldn"t be if it"s in ruins. Ruins aren"t marked on maps unless they are important in some way. This can"t be important. Well - that"s certainly Gloomy Water marked there. What do you say? Shall we have a shot at going there this afternoon? I wonder exactly how far it is."