The Picts and the Martyrs: Or Not Welcome at All by Arthur Ransome

Author:Arthur Ransome
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
Published: 2014-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVII

WAITING FOR THE MESSAGE

DICK WOKE first, and almost before his eyes were open, reached up for his watch and his spectacles that he had put for the night on the top of the beam above his head. It was still raining. The drips from the roof were splashing as they fell in a lake that was widening over the floor of the hut, but he hardly noticed them. “Dot,” he called. “Quick. We’ve overslept. It’s long after time to get up.”

Dorothea woke to a very different worry. “I wonder what we ought to do,” she said, watching the steady drip and listening to the beating of the rain on the roof.

“We’ve got to be ready for them as soon as they come,” said Dick. “And I’ve got to bale Scarab. She’s sure to be half full of water after last night.”

“What would Susan do?” said Dorothea.

“She couldn’t do anything till she knew exactly what message he’s sent. He’s probably said ‘Come at once.’ But we don’t know.”

“I don’t mean that,” said Dorothea. “Just look at the floor. If it goes on raining we may be forced to go back to Beckfoot. Oh, I say, and I left a loaf of bread on the table and there’s water splashing on it now.”

Dick looked down at the floor. “Drainage,” he said. “That’s all it needs. I’ll do it in a minute. If I make a gutter, it’ll all run out of the door.”

He rolled out of his hammock, came down with one foot in the puddle and set to work with his knife to make a narrow drain between the puddle and the door. “It doesn’t need a deep one,” he said. “Just big enough to let the water trickle along it.” He rolled his pyjamas well above his ankles, and went on digging and scraping till the drain reached the edge of the puddle. “I thought it would,” he said, as the water poured along it in a dusty stream. “Go back to Beckfoot?” They couldn’t let Nancy down, least of all now, when they had only to keep hidden for a few more days, when everything had gone so well, when Scarab was ready, and the message had come that was almost sure to say that Timothy was wanting him for the work they had to do. He scraped along the bottom of the drain to hurry the water on its way, and, as the puddle shrank into no more than a big damp place on the floor he knew without her saying so that Dorothea was feeling better.

“We’ve got milk left from yesterday,” she said. “Skip along to the pool and get it, and we can have breakfast without waiting for Jacky.”

“Good,” said Dick, leaving his drain, grabbing some handfuls of dry leaves and twigs and putting a match to them.

“I’ll see to that,” said Dorothea. “You get the milk and fill the kettle at the same time.”

Dorothea was herself again. Dick put his feet into his sand-shoes,

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