Pigeon Post. Arthur Ransome
was thinking about that,” said Dick. “If we do find gold, we’ll have to crush it and pan it, and we’ll want a crushing mill. He’s got one, but it’s a most awful weight.”
They looked at a big iron mortar and huge pestle, the handle of which was bound with rags. Nancy lifted first the pestle, then the mortar itself.
“Jolly heavy,” she said. “But we’re sure to need them.”
They were carried out to the yard, and wedged on the handcart between two boxes.
“Gosh!” said Roger, when he saw them. “What about pickaxes, too?”
“Borrow them,” said Nancy. “But I bet no one’s got a crushing mill but us.”
Things were looking a good deal more hopeful by the time cook called them in to eat cold mutton and salad in the dismantled dining-room.
“We’re practically ready,” said Peggy.
“I’m glad of that,” said Mrs Blackett.
And soon after they had finished up a cold rice pudding and a lot of bananas and gone out for a last look round to see that nothing had been forgotten, Dorothea ran back into the house to tell Mrs Blackett that the expedition was starting.
John, who was taking first turn at pushing the handcart, had trundled it out into the road. Titty and Dorothea took the ends of the short tow-ropes to help pull it along. Nancy and Peggy were holding the heads of the heavily laden dromedaries. Susan was still making fast some of the baggage. Dick bolted back to the study for Captain Flint’s copy of Phillips on Metals. He came back with the red book.
“I’ll take great care of it,” he said to Mrs Blackett.
“All right,” she said, “so long as you keep it dry … and it doesn’t look as if we’re going to have any rain before next year,” she added, looking at the dusty road and up at the clear blazing sky.
“Half a minute,” said Nancy. “Somebody take my drom. I’ve forgotten the blue beads.”
She gave her bicycle to Susan, and was gone. They could hear her charging up the carpetless stairs. She was out again in a moment with two small necklaces of blue glass beads, which she hung on the lamp-brackets of the dromedaries.
“Every camel in the East wears them,” she said, “to keep off the evil eye, and our dromedaries will need them extra badly to save them from getting punctures.”
“How are we going to get them up the hills?” asked Roger, looking at the dromedaries, slung all over with baskets and bundles.
“You’ll pull,” said Nancy. “They always have a little donkey to lead the caravan.”
At the very last minute Peggy leant her dromedary against the wall, and raced up to the pigeon-loft for the tin of hemp and canary seed, a pinch of which was allowed to good pigeons for a treat.
They were off.
“Now, Susan,” said Mrs Blackett. “I’m counting on you to look after them … And, Nancy, I’ll be coming along as soon as I can. Don’t try to rush things with Mrs Tyson. Don’t unpack anything till I’ve seen her and heard what she has to say. She may say she doesn’t want to have you at all …”
“All right, mother … We’ve promised.”
“About that bell,” said Dick. “You do know how to turn it off when you catch the pigeon? You see if you don’t, it’ll ring until the batteries run down …”
“And until we are all driven mad,” said Mrs Blackett. “Oh, yes. I won’t forget. Pull down the swinging bit, and push the slide across till lunch-time next day. Then pull it back again, and wait with cotton wool in both ears until the next pigeon rings the alarm …”
“You won’t really need cotton wool,” said Dick. “But, of course, you could make it not so loud by muffling the bell with a cloth or something …”
“Never mind,” said Mrs Blackett. “I was only joking. I shall want to hear it.”
“Goodbye, mother. Goodbye. Goodbye …”
The caravan moved off along the road. As they turned the corner where the fir trees hid the Beckfoot gate, they looked back for the last time, to see Mrs Blackett and cook, who had run out at the last minute to see them go, waving their handkerchiefs. The next moment they could see them no more. The Swallows, Amazons and D’s Mining Company was fairly on its way.
“I can’t believe we’re really off,” said Titty.
“If it wasn’t for Susan, we wouldn’t be,” said Nancy. “Susan and Dick … And the pigeons,” she added, looking at Homer, Sophocles, and Sappho, balancing on their perches in the big cage as the handcart swayed along.
For the first half mile it was easy going, but, when they had passed the place where the road round the head of the lake turned off over the bridge, things became more difficult. Their own road was narrow and winding, going up the valley close to the dried-up little river. Sometimes it almost touched the river bank, and then it would turn suddenly away to climb round a lump of rock only to drop steeply on the other side till it met the river once more. The handcart, with John pushing, Susan lending a hand, and Dorothea and Titty hauling in front, seemed light enough on level ground, but weighed as much as a steam roller the moment it was going uphill, and was inclined to get out of control as soon as it began to go down. It was the same with the dromedaries. The donkeys, Dick and Roger, had no sooner stopped pulling in front than they had to start holding back from behind.
Everybody, except John and Nancy, who had to mend it, was very glad when Peggy’s dromedary, in spite of its blue beads, punctured its front tyre. This meant a rest, a small ration of chocolate, and the paddling of dusty feet in the shallow pools that were left among the stones of the river-bed.
The puncture was mended and they went on. The valley narrowed. Steep woods came down on the left of the road, and they passed the place where Titty had come down with the charcoal-burner the year before, to ride home on the end of a felled tree pulled by three huge horses.
“Let’s go up and see if the wigwam’s still there,” said Roger.
“It isn’t,” said Nancy. “At least, no charcoal-burners. They’re miles away at the low end of the lake.”
On the right was the river, and on the further side of it the fell, all rock and bracken, rose steeply into the sky.
“Greenbanks,” said Nancy. “We were up there yesterday. High Topps ends just about there.”
“Couldn’t we cross the river and go straight up?” said Roger.
“Got to get to Tyson’s first,” said Peggy. “I say, do pull back a bit. The beast’s trying to run away.”
Beyond Greenbanks, the valley opened out a little, and there were fields on their left, looking brown and parched, with cows flicking flies with their tails. On their right the fellside was wooded, and the trees came right down to the river.
“How much further?” said Roger.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t come yesterday,” said Susan. “We did all this twice, and a lot more, besides exploring on the Topps looking for water.”
They were climbing all the time now, and nearing the head of the valley. There were waterfalls in the river, though hardly any water was coming down. Ahead of them, the woods seemed to stretch across from side to side, closing the valley with a green curtain.
“We’re nearly there,” said John. “Stick to it, Titty. Atkinson’s is up at the top where the road goes through those woods. Tyson’s farm is this side of them, down at the bottom.”
“It’s such a pull,” said Roger.
“Let’s