Night Birds On Nantucket by Joan Aiken

Author:Joan Aiken [ Joan Aiken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 2004-03-04T05:00:00+00:00

7

Aunt Tribulation gets up – second trip to the attic – Dido’s in the well – return of Captain Casket – trip to the forest – the conspirators – the gun

AUNT TRIBULATION HAD evidently decided that it was easier to keep an eye on the girls if she got up, for the next day, and all the days following, she was downstairs by seven conducting a close scrutiny into all that went on. Indeed, as Dido said, it was hard to believe that anything had ever been the matter with her at all, so active and vigilant was she now in pursuit of the children and in keeping them hard at work.

‘What does she take us for, perishing slaves?’ grumbled Dido.

It was by no means so easy to circumvent Aunt Tribulation now she had come downstairs. She was large and strong, much larger than Dido, who remained small for her age, though wiry and healthy. After Dido had been rapped with a thimble numerous times, shut up in the grandfather clock, deprived of meals, and made to sit on the whale’s jawbone for two hours, she saw that cunning and strategy would be needed.

‘As well as learning you to stand up to her, Pen, we’ve someway got to make her humble, so she’s real sorry for her nasty nature and won’t never bother you no more,’ Dido said one morning when they were out hoeing the cornfield.

‘Do you think that would ever be possible?’ sighed Penitence.

‘Have you written the letter to your Pa yet?’

‘Yes, I have it in my chemise pocket.’

‘Now, the mischief is, how’re we going to get it to Nantucket to post it? No use to give it to old Mungo and ask him to take it to the mail office.’

Market days had come and gone, but Aunt Tribulation had sternly vetoed any idea that Dido or Pen might go in with the farm produce and do some shopping. Mungo, as usual, was sent on his own with a written list of groceries needed, which the owner of the main store would check and supply.

‘If we could give the boots to your monkey-faced friend, he might post the letter for us,’ Dido presently reflected. ‘The trouble is how to wheedle Aunt Trib outa the house so’s I can slip up to the attic and grab a pair. She never stirs except just into the yard.’

‘I could tell her one of the sheep was sick and ask her to come up to the pasture.’

‘She wouldn’t care,’ said Dido, who privately suspected that Aunt Tribulation knew little more about farming than the girls themselves. ‘No, I have it, Penny, you must pretend you think I’ve fallen down the well. She wouldn’t like that; no water, for one thing, and who’d do the work? She’d come out to help you grapple for me with a rope, and I could nip round to the back and climb up the willow tree and in our window.’

‘But if she found out?’ breathed Pen in horror.

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