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It had been a long day’s journey from the south, but the last few minutes of it were going like seconds. Already they were in the hill country where walls of loose stones divided field from field. Grey rocks showed through the withered grass. Grey and purple fells lifted to the skies. Titty and Roger hurried from side to side of the carriage, looking first out of one window and then out of another.
“Fair parched everything is,” said the farmer’s wife. “No rain for weeks and none coming, and no water in the becks. Folks are at their wits’ ends in some parts to keep their beasts alive.”
“Hullo!” said Roger. “There’s been a fire.”
“More’n one,” said the farmer’s wife.
The train was running through a cutting, the sides of which were black and burnt.
“Sparks from the engine?” said Roger.
“Aye,” said the farmer’s wife. “And where there’s no engines there’s visitors with motor-cars and matches and cigarettes and no more thought in their heads than a cheese has. It takes nobbut a spark to start a fire when all’s bone dry for the kindling. Eh, and here we are. Yon’s my farm …”
A farmhouse, not unlike Holly Howe, flashed into sight and was gone. The farmer’s wife jumped up and began collecting her parcels. The train came suddenly round a bend and began to slow up.
“There’s the lake!” Titty and Roger cried together.
Far below them, beyond the smoking chimneys of a village, glittering water stretched between the hills. The train was stopping for the last time.
“The platform’s on the other side,” said Roger.
“Who’ll be there?” said Titty.
“Nobody,” said Roger.
But a red knitted cap was bobbing up and down among the people waiting on the platform. In another moment Nancy Blackett was at the door, and they were saying goodbye to the farmer’s wife and struggling down with their suitcases.
“Here you are,” said Nancy. “Hullo, Mrs Newby. Well, Roger, did you get the pigeon all right? Did you let it fly? Mother and I had to start before it got home. She’ll be here in a minute. Shopping. Gosh, I was nearly too late to meet you. You didn’t forget the basket. Good. Good. Shiver my timbers but I’m jolly glad to see you. Come on. Let’s get your boxes out of the van, and then we’ve got to go to the Parcels Office.”
Everybody in the world seemed to be talking at once all round them, but presently their boxes came out of the van among the others, and Nancy, telling the porter to keep a look out for Mrs Blackett, was hurrying them along the platform.
“Is Captain Flint in the houseboat?” asked Roger.
“He’s still in South America, isn’t he?” said Titty.
“He ought to be here, but he isn’t,” said Nancy. “His mine wasn’t any good and it serves him right, not being here in time for the beginning of the holidays. But he’s on his way home. Some of his things have come already, but not the most important. At least it hadn’t yesterday. It may be here today.”
She took them into the Parcels Office.
“You haven’t a crate or a cage with something alive in it?” she asked the man behind the counter.
“Rabbits?” asked the man.
“The trouble is we don’t exactly know.”
“Miss Blackett, isn’t it?” said the man, running his finger down the columns of his book. “No, Miss, there’s nothing come for you. Not yet. Unless it’s come by this train.”
“I’ve looked in the van already,” said Nancy. “Look here, we’ll be awfully busy tomorrow. So I won’t be able to come across. But could you telephone if it comes?”
“Aye, Miss Blackett, I can do that.”
“But what is it?” asked Roger.
“It’s called Timothy, anyway,” said Nancy.
“Another monkey?” said Roger.
“Or a parrot?” said Titty. “He said he might be getting another.”
“Can’t be either,” said Nancy, as they went back to the luggage. “He said in the telegram that we could let it loose in his room. It can’t be a monkey or a parrot. It must be something that can’t do much damage and doesn’t climb. Dick …” Nancy checked herself and went on. “We’ve been looking through the natural history books, and we’re pretty sure it must be an armadillo. But we don’t know. And we can’t find out, because Uncle Jim is on his way home and we don’t even know the name of his ship. Whatever it is, he must have sent it on in advance, or he wouldn’t have telegraphed…. Hullo, here’s mother.”
A smallish, ancient motor-car with badly dinted mudguards had driven into the station yard. Mrs Blackett, round, small, no taller than Nancy, was talking to the porter. She turned as they came up.
“Here you are,” she said. “The last of the gang.”
“Except Timothy,” said Nancy. “He’s not here yet, but they’re going to telephone the moment he arrives.”
“Yes, those two …” Mrs Blackett was looking at their boxes. “We’ll have them both on the back. You’ve nothing else, have you, besides those suitcases? And how’s your mother? And Bridget? Oh, I was forgetting you’ve come straight from school, too, and won’t know any more than John or Susan.”
“We had a letter yesterday,” said Titty. “Bridgie’s only whooping about twice a day. So she’s all right, and so’s mother. At least she didn’t say she wasn’t.”
“Hop in,” said Mrs Blackett, when the boxes were strapped on the luggage grid. “Thank you, Robert. You come in front with me, Titty. Don’t anybody sit on my parcels. There are eggs in that basket, and tomatoes in the paper bag. Slam that door, Roger. Give it a push from inside to see it’s properly shut. That’s right, Nancy … I’m glad your uncle didn’t hear me get into those gears … Yes, I’ve remembered to take the brake off …”
There was a fearful crash and rattle, and the little old car swung out of the station gates and turned sharp to the left.
“Don’t we have to go round the head of the lake?” said Roger.
“You don’t,” said Nancy. “Not if young Sophocles flew straight.”
Titty, sitting in front by Mrs Blackett, looked round. “Why did you call the pigeon Sophocles?” she asked.
“You may well wonder,” said Mrs Blackett.
“Oh, mother, do look out for your steering,” said Nancy. “You see, Uncle Jim gave us one, and called him Homer because he was a homing pigeon. And then when we got two more for company, we looked up Greek poets and found Sophocles and Sappho. And there you are. Phew! Mother. Lucky I caught the eggs
