came back with the roses and met Nancy staggering across the hall with a bundle of brown netting.
“Hammocks!” said Nancy, and dumped them on the floor. “I’ll get you some vases. Hi! Peggy! Take down the Jolly Rogers from Dick’s bed. She’s bound to poke her nose in and want to know what Uncle Jim was doing with them. I say, Dot, when you’ve plunked the roses in her room … Some on the dressing-table … Some on the mantelpiece and some with the biscuit tin by her bed … just make sure Dick’s got all his things … Coming … COMING! Jibbooms and bobstays! We’ve only got four hours left … ” She was gone and back again in a moment with three glass vases for the flowers. “Water in the bathroom,” she said. “I’ve got to keep an eye on Cook and the stores.”
Ten minutes later not a trace of Dick and Dorothea was left in the rooms that had been theirs. The spare room, gay with roses, was ready for a guest of a very different kind. Even the two suitcases were down in the hall, with the hammocks, kettle, hammer, a tin of nails and a huge pile of rugs.
In the kitchen Cook was filling tins with tea and sugar and Peggy and Nancy were packing things into knapsacks. “And a cake,” said Cook. “And a beef roll to start on, and a dozen eggs. Dearie me, I wish I knew if I’m doing right or wrong.”
“Right. Right. Right,” said Nancy. “There’s nothing else to be done and you know it. Look here, if you and Peggy and I all fairly bust ourselves being angels she’ll simply have to let Mother alone. But if Dick and Dot are here she’ll be down on Mother and down on us and down on them and we’ll never be able to hold in and everything’ll be ten millions times worse.”
“Well, I’m doing it for the best,” said Cook. “And if it turns out bad … ”
“It won’t. Their house is splendid. They’ll be better off there than here. And you’ll be able to smuggle grub to them. Where are our mugs and the camping spoons and knives and forks?”
“Out of my kitchen all the lot of you,” said Cook. “We’ll be having her here before they’re out of the house. Miss Peggy, come out of my larder … ”
“All right, we’ll leave the rest of the stores to you. We’ll be getting on with all the other things. Giminy, there’ll be a lot to carry. And we can’t use dromedaries either. Nobody could push a bicycle up that path … Come on the Picts. Everybody cart what they can.”
For the next few hours even the Great Aunt herself was forgotten in the rush of house moving. They had not far to go, but every single thing had to be carried by hand. There were the two packed suitcases, that the four of them, two to a suitcase, found quite enough to manage, going up the steep place through the hazels where the overflow from the beck had washed the path away. There were the hammocks, a three-legged stool, a Tate & Lyle sugar case for a table, a hurricane lantern, the scarab flag, the folded paper skull and crossbones, the big camp kettle, a huge saucepan, a teapot, mugs, spoons, knives, forks, plates and more stores than would go into all four knapsacks. There was the little barrel, filled with lemonade, that had to be slung from a pole and carried up by Nancy and Peggy, who explained that in the ordinary way they carried their grog slung beneath an oar.
Down at Beckfoot, as they came dashing in for fresh loads, they found Cook getting hotter and hotter, shaking out rugs, dusting and generally trying to do twenty-two things at once.
“And what about your tea?” she said late in the afternoon, as Nancy went off for the last time with a knapsack in each hand.
“No time,” said Nancy. “We’ll hang on till supper. There’s an awful lot to do.”
“And them two?”
MOVING HOUSE
“They’re all right. Rigging hammocks with Peggy.”
“You’ll be back before Miss Turner comes?”
“Back and beautiful,” said Nancy. “Be an angel, Cooky, and save time by digging out our best frocks.”
Up at the hut in the wood, the pile of things dumped outside it was dwindling. The two hammocks had been slung under the big cross-beams. Stores and crockery had been all owed to share the shelf high above the fireplace with Dick’s microscope and books. The huge skull and crossbones had been fixed up on the wall. A soap box, in a corner well away from the fire, was being used as a larder. The sugar case made a table and store cupboard in one.
“We’ve forgotten something,” said Dorothea. “What about our sleeping bags? They’re put away somewhere with our tents.”
“Have you ever tried to get into a sleeping bag in a hammock?” asked Nancy. “It can’t be done … not unless you’re a sort of eel. That’s why we brought the rugs.”
Dick was looking at the hammocks. He was wiping his spectacles. Dorothea knew that he was trying to work out the scientific way of getting into a hammock slung far above the floor. But he did not say anything, and neither did she. That sort of thing they would have to find out for themselves.
“Barbecued billygoats,” said Nancy. “Who slung those hammocks?”
“I did,” said Peggy. “Is anything wrong?”
“Let go this end of this one,” said Nancy, “while I do the other, and then make it fast again with a bowline. Then they can undo them and roll them up during the day. We’ll roll them up now.”
“No, no,” said Dick. “Please leave them so that I can have a good look and be able to do it tomorrow.”
To-morrow. By that time they would have slept in those hammocks … if they could ever get into them. Dorothea looked hurriedly away.
“It’s a lot better than the igloo,” said Nancy. “And it’ll be better still when you’ve lived in it a bit.”
“Let’s start the fire again and make tea,” said Dorothea.
“What’s the time?” said Nancy.
Dick pulled out his watch. “Twenty-two minutes to six.”
“Good-bye, Picts,” said Nancy. “She’ll be here before we’re ready if we don’t go.”
“Do you think she’s really going to make it very awful?” said Dorothea.
“Pretty awful, I expect,” said Peggy. “She usually does.”
“It would have been a jolly lot worse for everybody,” said Nancy, “if she’d found visitors in the house with Mother away. We’ve saved that anyhow, thanks to you people not minding being kicked out.”
“We’re going to be all right,” said Dorothea. “But what about you?”
“We’ll keep her purring somehow. Come on, Peggy. You’ve got a smear right across your face. Hurry up. Soap and water. White frocks. Oh gosh, and party shoes. Come on. Look here,
