well too, and both of them felt more ready to face up to whatever news they would hear.
Miss Pepper made the tea, and Diana cut the bread. Soon they were eating cold ham, and drinking the hot tea. “Though really, why we don’t have orangeade this hot morning, instead of this scalding tea, I can’t think!” said Diana.
Immediately after breakfast Miss Pepper set off briskly to the village. She was back in half an hour and the children, who were anxiously looking out for her, ran to meet her, most relieved to see a smile on her face.
“Better news,” said Miss Pepper at once. “Your mother arrived safely, and your aunt was so glad to see her—and she has taken a turn for the better already.”
“Good, good, good!” said Diana, thankfully.
“Apparently she fell from the top of a ladder when she was tying up some ramblers on the wall,” said Miss Pepper. “And she hit her head on the stone path. Nothing to do with Loony at all! She’s in hospital, and your mother is with her. And I’m afraid your mother will have to stay away for quite a while, because there is no one to look after your uncle—so your mother says she’ll spend part of her time seeing to your uncle and the other part with your aunt.”
“Oh. Then what’s to happen to us?” said Diana at once.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to try and hire a car and take the caravan back to my own home,” said Miss Pepper. “You’ll have to come with me, I’m afraid, as your own house is shut up. I’m sorry, dears—very very sorry. This is a horrid end to what was going to be one of your very best holidays. But I honestly don’t see what else we can do.”
“I don’t either,” said Roger, gloomily. “And I think it’s jolly good of you to take all this trouble for us, Miss Pepper. I’m sure you don’t want us in your little house! Oh dear—isn’t this all horrid!”
“Diana can come with me to find out about a car,” said Miss Pepper as they cleared up the caravan and made up the bunks. “And Roger can stay here with the caravan. That be all right, Roger?”
“Of course,” said Roger, still gloomy, and watched Miss Pepper go off to the village again, Diana by her side. What a mess-up of a glorious holiday! Miss Pepper was good and kind—but the thought of living for two or three weeks in her tidy little house filled Roger with dread.
“We’ll be too bored for words!” he thought and then reproached himself for being unkind. Whatever would they have done without Miss Pepper just now! “We might have gone to stay with old Barney, if he hadn’t been touring about the country with his father,” his thoughts ran on. “Oh well—we’ll just have to make the best of things, I suppose.”
Miss Pepper and Diana came back in an hour’s time, looking depressed.
“We can’t get a car anywhere in the village,” said Miss Pepper. “So we telephoned the nearest town, and somebody is going to try there for us. I do hope we shan’t have to take some old crock that will break down half-way home! I’m really not very good at driving cars I don’t know.”
Their caravan was set on a heathery hill, just off the road, not far from a farm-house. The farmer had given them permission to stay on the hill—and, about three o’clock that afternoon, the three saw him coming up to their caravan.
“Oh dear—I hope he’s not going to turn us off!” said Miss Pepper in a fright.
The farmer came slowly up to where they were all sitting outside the caravan, his dog at his heels.
“Good afternoon, Ma’am,” he said, in his pleasant country voice. “There be a message come for you, sent to my farm-house by the post office. Telegram it be.”
He held out the orange telegram and Miss Pepper took it, suddenly frightened. She tore it open and read it. Then she looked round at the two waiting children, puzzled.
“Listen,” she said, “it says, ‘Wait till you see us to-night. Barney’.”
“Wait till you see us to-night!” echoed Diana, and her face suddenly lighted up. “Oh, Miss Pepper! Barney and his father must have heard about Auntie Pat’s accident, and how Mummy had to go to her, leaving us here! And they’re coming here to-night! Oh, how wonderful!”
“They must have heard the message on the radio last night, when we did!” said Roger. “And they rang the Hillsley telephone number and found out what was happening. Miss Pepper! Everything will be all right now! Barney’s father will arrange about a car and everything. Oh, thank goodness!”
Diana gave a long sigh of relief, and her heart suddenly lightened. Barney was coming—and his nice father. Now things would soon be settled for them. Perhaps they could go and stay with Barney?
“Thank you,” said Miss Pepper to the farmer, and he nodded, and left, his dog still at his heels.
“Wait till you see us to-night!” said Diana, quoting the telegram again. “That must mean that they are driving straight to us, wherever they are—and must be rather far away, or they would arrive before to-night. Good old Barney! Now we can just sit back and not worry.”
“You two had better go down to the river and have a bathe,” said Miss Pepper. “It’s so hot to-day. I won’t come with you, because someone had better stay with the caravan. Go along now, and have a good swim. It will do you good.”
So off went Roger and Diana, feeling considerably happier because of Barney’s telegram. How good it was to have friends—how very very good!
“We shall see dear little Miranda too,” said Diana happily. “The best thing about animals is that they don’t seem to change, as human beings do! Miranda must have looked the same ever since she was a year old!”
They had a long bathe, and then lay in the warm heather to dry. They were hungry when they got back to the caravan. “Any news of Barney yet? Or another telegram?” asked Roger. Miss Pepper shook her head.
“No—but Barney said ‘to-night’ in his telegram, you know. We shall have to wait in patience. I’m sure they must be down in Cornwall, or up in the north of Scotland, or in the Welsh mountains—somewhere quite far away from here, anyway.”
“I’m not going to bed till they come,” said Roger firmly.
“I can’t really expect you to!” said Miss Pepper. “But I hope it’s before twelve o’clock!”
The evening drew on, and the sun began to sink low down in the west. At every far-off sound of a car going by on the distant road, the three of them stiffened and listened—but car after car purred by in the distance, and not one stopped, or came in their direction.
Then at last, just as it was getting really dark, the sound of a car jolting over the rough road to the old farm-house came to their ears. “That must be Barney!” said Diana in excitement. They listened anxiously.
The car stopped—and then, a few minutes later they heard it starting up again in the silence of the evening. It was coming over the rough track that led to them!
“It’s Barney! It must be!” cried Roger, leaping up. “The villagers must have sent them to the farm, and the farmer has told them where we are. Barney! Barney! Barney!”
An
