Mother’s mouth dropped open, just as Titty’s always did when she was thoroughly surprised.
“Ted!” she cried.
A head followed the hand.
“Hullo, Mary,” said Daddy. “Don’t be too hard on them. Nobody’s drowned. And nobody’s really to blame.”
“I’m coming aboard,” said Mother. “Though I didn’t mean to. You take that painter, John. You awful children. Did you meet him in Harwich?”
“No,” said Roger, unable to resist his chance, while the others never took their eyes off Mother’s face. “No … We met him in Holland.”
“Rubbish,” said Mother, lifting Bridget up to Daddy, who had climbed out of the forehatch and come aft to take her. Daddy planted her beside the wooden shoes on the cabin roof and put the Dutch doll in her hands. The next moment he had swung Mother aboard and kissed her.
“I don’t think I ought to kiss any of you others,” she said, but with the beginning of a laugh in her voice.
“You can kiss the whole lot of them here and now,” said Daddy. “You can take it from me they deserve it.”
“Oh, well,” said Mother, “I suppose I’ve got to forgive them now you’ve come back.” She did as Daddy said, and shook hands with Jim Brading and said she hoped he hadn’t hurt himself badly. “Was it the boom?” she asked. “It can give you a nasty bump.”
“No,” said Jim Brading. “It wasn’t that.”
“If only they’d kept their promises,” said Mother, turning to Daddy again. “We’d planned all to meet you in Harwich, instead of these four bad lots by themselves.”
“Didn’t you hear?” said Roger again. “We didn’t meet him in Harwich. We met him in Holland.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mother, quite clearly not believing a word of it, thinking it was just one of Roger’s jokes. “What a lovely doll, Bridget.”
“Now look here, Mary,” said Daddy. “We’ve a grand spread nearly ready in the cabin, and the owner and the skipper and the crew and the passengers want you and Bridget to honour them by lunching aboard. Isn’t that so, Jim?”
Jim’s turbaned head nodded slowly. He could not trust himself to say a word.
John, Susan, and Titty were in time to see their father give both Jim and them something very like an encouraging wink.
“We’ll be very pleased,” said Mother. “But we’ll have to go ashore and tell Miss Powell first.”
Roger thought Holland was falling very flat indeed.
“Don’t you understand we met him in Holland?” he said.
“Oh, yes,” laughed Mother. “And I suppose you bought all those wooden shoes yourselves and tried them on in a Dutch shop.”
“They did indeed,” said Daddy, and Mother, looking at his face, saw that he meant it.
“Jim!” exclaimed Mother. “You don’t mean to say you took them right across the North Sea in that awful weather, when you’d promised me not to take them out of harbour?”
“I … I,” Jim stammered, and put a hand to his head. This was too much for him.
“Jim wasn’t there,” said Daddy. “And that reminds me, I’ve got some telephoning to do on his behalf … Now then, Mary, don’t say another word till you know what really happened. I’m going to row you ashore, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
He jumped down into the dinghy, and Mother, dazed and puzzled, joined him there.
“Back in a quarter of an hour,” he said cheerfully. “You others’ll have the grub ready by then.”
A moment later he was pulling away from the ship.
Bridget had scrambled off the cabin roof and, with the Dutch doll clasped to herself with one hand, was holding the rail with the other, and making her way to the foredeck. The others, in the cockpit, watched the dinghy, with Daddy rowing and Mother sitting in the stern, going away towards the shore. Now and then they saw Daddy rest on his oars, while he leaned forward to talk to Mother. More than once they saw her turn to look back at the Goblin.
“Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?” said Jim.
“Daddy’s explaining everything,” said John.
“It’s going to be quite all right,” said Titty.
“Daddy’ll tell her we didn’t mean to go to sea,” said Susan.
“He said they’d be hungry when they got back,” Roger reminded her.
“What’s the name of the kitten?” asked Bridget from the foredeck.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arthur Ransome was born in Leeds in 1884 and went to school at Rugby. He was in Russia in 1917, and witnessed the Revolution, which he reported for the Manchester Guardian. After escaping to Scandinavia, he settled in the Lake District with his Russian wife where, in 1929, he wrote Swallows and Amazons. And so began a writing career which has produced some of the real children’s treasures of all time. In 1936 he won the first ever Carnegie Medal for his book, Pigeon Post.
Other books by Arthur Ransome in Red Fox
Swallows and Amazons
Swallowdale
Peter Duck
Winter Holiday
Coot Club
Pigeon Post
Secret Water
The Big Six
Missee Lee
The Picts and the Martyrs
Great Northern?
THE ARTHUR RANSOME SOCIETY
The Arthur Ransome Society was formed in June 1990 with the aim of celebrating his life and his books, and to encourage both children and adults to take part in adventurous pursuits – especially climbing, sailing and fishing. It also seeks to sponsor research, to spread his ideas in the wider community and to bring together all those who share the values and the spirit that he fostered in all his storytelling.
The Society is based at the Abbot Hall Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry in Kendal, where there is a special room set aside for Ransome: his desk, his favourite books and some of his personal possessions. There are also close links with the Windermere Steamboat Museum at Bowness, where the original Amazon has been restored and kept, together with the Esperance, thought to be the vessel on which Ransome based Captain Flint’s houseboat. The Society keeps in touch with its members through a journal called Mixed Moss.
Regional branches of the Society have been formed by members in various parts of the country – Scotland, the Lake District, East Anglia, the Midlands, the South Coast among them – and contacts are maintained with overseas groups such as the Arthur Ransome Club of Japan. Membership fees are modest, and fall into three groups – for those under 18, for single adults, and for whole families. If you are interested in knowing more about the Society, or would like to join it, please write for a membership leaflet to The Secretary, The Arthur Ransome Society, The Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 5AL, or email to
[email protected] THE ARTHUR RANSOME TRUST
“I seem to have lived not one life, but snatches from a dozen different lives.”
Arthur Ransome wrote twelve adventures about the Swallows and Amazons and their friends. He also wrote many other books and articles. He had a lot to write about, because in “real” life he was not only an author, but also a sailor, journalist, critic, story teller, illustrator, fisherman, editor, bohemian, and war reporter, who played chess with Lenin, married Trotsky’s secretary, helped Estonia gain independence and aroused the interest of both MI6 and MI5.
The Arthur Ransome Trust (ART) is a charity (no: 1136565) dedicated to helping everybody discover more about Arthur Ransome’s fascinating life and writings. Our main goal is to develop an “Arthur Ransome Centre” in the Lake District. If you want to know more about Arthur Ransome, or about ART’s projects, or think you would like to help us to put Ransome on the map, you can visit us at:
www.arthur-ransome-trust.org.uk
[email protected] WE DIDN’T MEAN TO GO TO SEA
AN RHCB DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 446 48375 6
Published in Great Britain by RHCB Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2011
Copyright © Arthur Ransome, 1937
First Published in Great Britain 1937 by Jonathan Cape
The right of Arthur Ransome to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Arthur Ransome, We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea
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