the sheet turned down so bravely, O?
For to-night I shall sleep in the cold open field
Along with the wraggle-taggle gipsies, O!”
SHIP’S ARTICLES, though important, are but a small part of making ready for a voyage of discovery. There was a great deal more to do. Luckily mother had nearly finished making the tents. She had decided as soon as they had sent off the letters that tents would be wanted if the expedition to the island was allowed, and that if it was not allowed, the next best thing would be a camp on shore. So she had bought the thin canvas and had been working at tent-making every day, while fat Vicky was sleeping and the others were fishing by the boathouse or camping on the Peak of Darien. That night, after Captain John and Mate Susan had followed their crew to bed, mother had finished both tents.
Next morning, after breakfast, John and Susan, with mother to help them, Titty to watch, and Roger to get in the way, had put up one of the tents between two trees in the Holly Howe garden. The tents were the simplest kind. Each tent had a three-cornered piece for the back. The back was sewn to the sides, and a piece of stout rope was stitched to the canvas inside to make the ridge of the roof. The ends of this rope were fastened to two trees, and so held the tent up. No tent poles were needed. Along the bottom of the back and sides were big pockets, to be filled with stones. On the rocky ground, where you cannot drive in tent pegs, this is a good plan. At the front of the tent there were loose flaps, joined to the sides, so that they could be rolled up and tied out of the way with two pairs of tapes that worked like the reef points in a sail.
“Properly,” said John, “we ought not to take tents with us. We ought to make a tent out of a sail by hanging it across the yard for a ridge pole, and we ought to hold it up with two pairs of oars, a pair at each end. But one tent would not be big enough and to make two we should want eight oars and two sails, big ones. Swallow has only got one small sail, and two oars. So these tents are much better.”
“They are good enough tents except in a high wind,” said mother. “Father and I often slept in one when we were young.”
Titty looked gravely at mother.
“Are you really old?” she said.
“Well, not very,” said mother, “but I was younger then.”
Mother had bought two square waterproof ground-sheets, one for each tent. One of them was spread inside the tent that was being tried.
“You be careful,” said mother, “to keep the edges of the ground-sheet inside the tent, or if it rains you’ll find yourselves sleeping in a puddle.”
Everybody crowded into the tent and sat down. Titty borrowed fat Vicky from nurse, and brought her in too. Susan shut the flaps of the tent from inside.
“We might be anywhere,” Titty said.
“Next time we put the tent up we shall be on the island,” said John.
“What about mattresses?” said mother.
“Rugs,” said Captain John.
“Not enough,” said mother, “unless you want to be like the lady who ran away with the wraggle-taggle gipsies and caught her death of cold.”
“The song doesn’t say so,” said Titty. “It only says she didn’t care.”
“Well, and what happened to Don’t Care?”
“Came to a bad end,” said Roger.
“A cold is a bad end when you are camping, especially on a desert island,” said mother. “No, we must get some haybags filled for you to sleep on. If you put them on the ground-sheets and lie on the top of them, and roll yourselves up in rugs and blankets, you’ll come to no harm.”
Captain John was in a hurry to try the Swallow under sail.
“Let’s go down to the harbour and overhaul the ship,” he said.
“We can take her out now, can’t we, mother?”
“Yes. But I’d like to come with you the first time.”
“Come along. Do. You can be Queen Elizabeth going aboard the ships at Greenwich that were sailing to the Indies.”
Mother laughed.
“It doesn’t matter a bit about your not having red hair,” said Titty.
“All right,” said mother, “but I think we must leave Vicky with nurse.”
So they all crawled out of the tent. Fat Vicky was given back to nurse, and Queen Elizabeth walked down to the boathouse with Captain John of the sailing ship Swallow, Mate Susan, Able-seaman Titty, and the Boy Roger, who ran on ahead with the big key to get the boathouse open.
The boathouse was a stone one, with a narrow quay along each wall inside, and a small jetty sticking out beyond it into the lake.
Roger had got the door open by the time they came to it, though he had had a tough struggle with the rusty lock. He was already inside, looking down on the Swallow. The Swallow was a sailing dinghy built for sailing on a shallow estuary, where the sands were uncovered at low tide. Most sailing dinghies have centre-boards, plates which can be let down through their keels, to make them sail better against the wind. Swallow had none, but she had a rather deeper keel than most small boats. She was between thirteen and fourteen feet long, and fairly broad. Her mast lay in her, and beside it, neatly rolled up, were boom, yard, and sail, and a pair of short oars. Her name, Swallow, was painted on her stern.
Captain John and his crew looked at her lovingly. She was already their own ship.
“Better bring her outside and make fast to the jetty while you step the mast,” said Queen Elizabeth. “You won’t be able to get her out if you step the mast while she’s in the boathouse. That beam is too low.”
Captain John went aboard his ship. Mate Susan untied the painter, and between them they brought the Swallow out of the boathouse. Then Susan fastened the painter to an iron ring on the end of the jetty. She too climbed down into Swallow.
“Can I come too?” asked Roger.
“You and Titty and I will wait till they have the sail up,” said Queen Elizabeth. “Give them plenty of room and a free hand. We should only be in the way if we went aboard now.”
“Hullo,” said John, “she’s got a little flagstaff, and there are flag halyards on the mast to hoist it by.” He held up a tiny flagstaff with a three-cornered blue flag on it.
“I’m going to make her a much better flag than that,” said Titty.
“Better take this one to make sure you make yours the same size,” said Queen Elizabeth.
John and Susan had done plenty of sailing, but there is always something to learn about a boat that you have not sailed before. They stepped the mast the wrong way round, but that was set right in a moment.
“She doesn’t seem to have a forestay,” said John. “And there isn’t a place to lead the halyard to in the bows to make it do instead.”
“Let me have a look,” said
