crossed the clearing to the beck and only a few steps from the path found what he wanted, a tiny pool with a foothigh waterfall dropping into it over the edge of a rock. He filled the kettle by holding it under the waterfall and saw that, though there are always plenty of little pools in a beck finding its way down a steep hillside, this pool had been improved by someone who had built a dam across it at its lower end. “Wash basin,” said Dick to himself. “And we’ll be able to wash up by putting plates and things where the waterfall drips on them.” He went back to the hut and found Dorothea on her knees before the fire, blowing at the rubbish, which had not flamed up as easily as she had expected.
“But this is awful,” she said, when Dick told her about the pool. “It’s that other Pict again.”
“Well, it’s going to be very useful,” said Dick.
Then, as the flames began to leap, and Dorothea hung the kettle on the iron hook and begun to look among the stores, he turned to the hammocks. How, exactly, had Nancy fastened the ends that were to be let go in the day-time?
“I’m not going to do anything difficult the first night,” said Dorothea. “We’ll start on the beef roll. It’ll go bad if we try to keep it. I won’t open a tin. Beef roll. Bread and butter. And there’s any amount of cake for pudding.”
“All right,” said Dick. “I’ve found out about the hammocks, how she fastened them, I mean. The only thing I haven’t found out is how to get into them.”
“They’re a long way off the floor,” said Dorothea.
“We’ll have to use the stool for a step.”
“I say. Do take care,” said Dorothea two minutes later, reaching for the loaf of bread which had been kicked out of her hands almost into the fireplace.
“Sorry,” panted Dick, who was lying on his stomach across a hammock that had somehow twisted itself into a rope. Flying legs felt desperately for the stool, but it had fallen over. The only thing to do was to go on. He held tight to the hammock and went over it in a somersault, landing safely on his feet. “Sorry,” he said again. “It’s no use trying to get into it head first. Of course it won’t be so bad when the rugs are in it. But I think the proper way must be stern first.”
“We’ve got to learn everything,” said Dorothea, who had began by cutting the first slice of bread before putting the butter on, and only then remembered watching Susan who always spread the butter on the loaf and then cut off the buttered slice.
“Stern first is the way,” said Dick, “and it’s much easier if you get on the packing case first.”
Dorothea turned round to see Dick lying in his hammock and looking very pleased.
“It’s quite easy,” he said, “once you know. You pull one side of the hammock down and go at it stern first till you’re sitting in it, and then you swing your legs up.”
“How about getting out?”
“Legs first. Then slide. Like this … ” And Dick stood breathless on the floor beside her.
“Kettle’s boiling,” said Dorothea.
They were a long time over that first meal in their own house. Somehow, though there was no cooking to be done, the different courses fell apart. In that big fireplace wood burned very fast, and by the time they had eaten their slices of beef roll, they had to bring in more of the logs Dick had sawn, and once they had begun doing that, they went on till they had a good pile waiting ready in a corner of the hut. Then they ate their cake. After that they still felt hungry, wondered what supper had been like at Beckfoot, and went on to eat bread and marmalade. By the time they took their dirty plates, mugs, spoons and the one sticky knife that had been used for everything, and went out to the washing basin in the beck, the sun had gone far round and the clearing in the wood was in shadow.
Washing up was not a success.
“It’s doing it with cold water,” said Dorothea. “I ought to have remembered that Susan always uses hot.”
“Leave everything under the waterfall,” said Dick, “and it’ll be clean by morning.”
“We’ll have hot water another time,” said Dorothea.
It was growing dusk when they heard steps coming up the path from the road.
“It’s that Pict,” said Dorothea. “What are we going to do if we have to clear out now?”
“It’s somebody pretty large,” said Dick.
“She’s found out already,” whispered Dorothea. “It’s the Great Aunt herself coming up to bring us back.”
“Mercy me, it’s a pull up that brow,” panted old Cook as she came up out of the trees into the clearing. “And the path grown over with trees and underfoot them stones enough to break your legs. There’s one thing. We shan’t have Miss Turner walking up here. I thought I’d drop that dish a dozen times. Eh me, I hope we’re doing right.”
“Come in and look at our house,” said Dorothea, able to breathe once more.
“I’ve brought you the apple pie they had to their suppers. They didn’t eat much. Happen it’ll put you on a bit … ”
“Thank you very much. Has she really come? We thought we heard the motor car but we couldn’t be sure.”
“Aye, she’s come,” said Cook grimly. “She’s come, and trouble with her. Girt auld hen ’at wants to be cock o’ t’ midden. She’s begun by clearing Miss Nancy off from the head of the table and taking the mistress’s place herself. And I’d put Miss Nancy’s napkin ring there, so there could be no mistake. And it isn’t as if Miss Nancy’s the little lass she was.”
“What did she say?” asked Dorothea.
“Miss Nancy? I couldn’t have believed it. ‘Cook,’ she says, ‘Aunt Maria likes that end of the table better. And she’s the visitor so she must choose. Peggy and I’ll sit one each side of her.’ Miss Turner looked at her a bit flummoxed, but she didn’t oppen her gob … I mean, she didn’t say nowt about it, and after that Miss Nancy was saying how she hoped the weather would keep fine for her visit, and Miss Peggy chipped in asking if she liked sitting facing the engine in the train or the other way and did she have a corner seat?”
Cook was looking this way and that round the inside of the hut. “Not but what it’s better’n I thought,” she said. “But there’s Mrs. Blackett trusted me to look after you, and here’s two of you gone already. Miss Nancy does fair rush a body off their feet. Not but what Miss Turner wouldn’t be letting her tongue off if she knew you were staying at Beckfoot with the mistress away. But it’ll be worse if she finds out now, and how we’ll keep it from her, I don’t know. There’s one thing. You’ve a roof over your heads … not but what it could do with patching … ”
“Will you have a cup of tea?” said Dorothea. “I can make one in a minute.”
“Not I,” said Cook hurriedly. “Thank you kindly, but I must away down. I had to run up to see where Miss Nancy’d put you before I could be easy in my mind. Not that I’m that easy now. But it’s better’n I thought. Nay, nay, I mustn’t stop. Miss Turner’ll be ringing that bell, and no one to answer it …
