“But I didn’t,” said Joe. “I couldn’t. Why, last night.…”
Mr. Tedder looked at him. “Why so you was,” he said at last. He turned. “And what time do you say the offence took place?”
“Ten past five,” said the woman eagerly. “I know it was, because I was boiling eggs, and looked at the clock just when Ronald shouted that we were floating down the river.…”
“Ten past five,” said Mr. Tedder slowly. “Why from five o’clock all these boys was doin’ a bit o’ weedin’ in my patch, an’ gettin’ worrams for to make a bab … for liftin’ eels.… Couldn’t ’a been this boy cast you adrift. Why, ’twas all but dark when they go home with their worrams.…”
“But I tell you we’d had them round earlier with some tale about a blasted bird.”
“They was in my patch at ten past five,” said Mr. Tedder doggedly.
“It must have been some other boy,” said the thin man the other had called “James”.
“Not these,” said Mr. Tedder. “You skip along, you three. No need to hang about the staithe.”
“And my coat?” said Joe.
He came warily forward and picked it up, put it carefully on and then pulled out of an inner pocket a large white rat, which sat on his arm, sniffed the air contemptuously, and looked about it with its round pink eyes.
“Take that thing away,” screamed the woman.
“Now then, ’Livy. You don’t mind that. Not wearing skirts.…” The fat man of the three stopped suddenly as the woman in orange trousers gave him a resounding slap in the face.
“And you, Ronald,” she said angrily to the man with red hair. “Come along. You’ve made us look fools enough already. Last night and this morning. That boy down the river was bigger than this one. Anyway, you’ll never catch him, letting him go like you did last night.”
“Never catch him?” shouted the man they called Ronald. “Never catch him?”
“How are you going to know him when you see him?” said the thin man.
“Bet you five to one I do. I’ll know him soon enough.”
“Bet you don’t. Take you in pounds you don’t.”
“Done! I’ll know him. He’s got a criminal face that boy has. What I call sinister. I’ll know him when I see him. Casting loose our ropes. What are the police for, anyway? … Constable!”
Mr. Tedder pulled out a note-book.
“If you want to make complaint …” he was beginning, when a quiet voice close beside him said, “Officer!”
“Ma’am,” said Mr. Tedder, straightening his back and turning sharply on his heel, to see a little old lady with a pug. Mrs. Barrable had thought it time to intervene.
“Am I mistaken?” she asked, “or is there a speed limit of five miles an hour through Horning village? I think I have seen the notices.”
“No boats to go above five miles per hour,” said Mr. Tedder, “not between the board t’other side of the Ferry and t’other board at top of Horning Reach.”
“This motor-cruiser,” said Mrs. Barrable, “seems to make a practice of disregarding the speed limit as well as the convenience and safety of other users of the river. I have noticed it before, and today I think I have been fortunate not to have been swamped by it. Do I lay an information with you, or must I see the Bure Commissioners …?”
ON HORNING STAITHE
Mr. Tedder turned again, but he and the old lady and the pug were alone. The people from the cruiser, with their yachting-caps, their berets and their bright pyjamas were hurrying angrily back to their vessel. The three small boys were standing open-mouthed in the Death and Glory, wondering at the sudden collapse of the enemy.
“I wouldn’t do nothin’ about it, ma’am,” said Mr. Tedder slowly. “They hear what you say.”
“Thank you, officer,” said Mrs. Barrable, “I think you’re perfectly right. No, William!”
William had felt the quarrel in the air, and, as the Margoletta’s engine started up and she swung away from the staithe and upstream, he had allowed himself a single bark.
“Least said, soonest mended,” said Mr. Tedder, though not thinking of William. “Takes all sorts to make a world, but fare to me as we could do without some of ’em. There’s been trouble up at Wroxham with that lot, making such a noise by the bridge nobody in the hotels could get their sleep. But where’s the use? Here today they are and gone tomorrow. Casting off their moorings? Now who’s going to do a thing like that? More likely they forget to make ’em fast.”
Mrs. Barrable thought it time to speak of other things. She asked Mr. Tedder what sort of a spring it had been for gardening, and what seeds he had in, and what were the best of the new peas. Constable Tedder told her that, between themselves, she couldn’t do better than Melksham Wonder if she wanted peas that would eat well and pod well and not go rambling wild. They walked slowly off the staithe together.
And then they parted. Two people whom Mrs. Barrable thought she knew by sight had just slipped into the grocer’s shop after anxiously watching from a distance what had been happening on the staithe. So she looked in there, and found Port and Starboard, still rather out of breath, doing Mrs. McGinty’s shopping.
“So we meet again,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you. A pound of peppermint toffees, please. For a stand-by. You never know when they may be wanted badly. Oh no, thank you. I’ll take them with me. And half a pound of plain chocolate for William. I’ll take that, too, and then I’ll leave you this list and call for the things on my way back from the Post Office. I have to look in there for letters.”
“Does William eat chocolate?” asked Port.
“Doesn’t he?” said Mrs. Barrable.
They drifted out of the shop together, and then, at once, the twins, who had been holding themselves in with great difficulty, asked her what had happened.
“We didn’t see the beginning,” said Port, “but we saw Joe picking up his coat, and then, suddenly, off they went.”
“What was it you said to make them go off like that?”
“My dears,” said Mrs. Barrable, “I just said whatever came into my head.”
“Whatever it was, it worked.”
“And was it all right about the Death and Glories?”
“You go and ask them,” said Mrs. Barrable.
“You don’t think they’ll be getting into a row? Tom was in an awful stew about it.”
“Tell him their alibis were cast iron.”
“Glad I made them weed for the policeman,” said Starboard. “I wasn’t really sure last night whether it was a good idea or not.”
“It was brilliant,” said Mrs. Barrable.
“Will those Hullabaloos leave Tom alone about it now?” asked Port.
“If they had any sense at all they would,” said Mrs. Barrable, “but they haven’t any to start with, and when men begin making bets with each other, there’s no end to their foolishness. No, I’m a little afraid this morning has made things rather worse.”
Talking it over in the Death and Glory, the three small Coots were of much the same opinion.
“Sorry they spoke, they was,” said Bill. “Patchin’ it on us. We hadn’t done nothin’, had we? And Mr. Tedder know we hadn’t.”
“It was worth a week o’ weedin’,” said the usually silent Pete.
“They didn’t like old Ratty, neither,” said Bill.
“They’ve got it in proper for Tom Dudgeon,” said Joe.
CHAPTER IX
THE MAKING OF AN OUTLAW
THAT afternoon there was not wind enough to stir the flame of a candle when Tom and the twins rowed down the river in the Titmouse. “We’d better all go in one boat,” Tom had said, “and then I can hop into the reeds if we hear the Margoletta, and you can hang about and pick me up again when they’ve gone by.” That morning’s happenings on Horning Staithe had shown the Coots that it was no good thinking that the Hullabaloos were of the kind that forgive and forget. So the three of them together rowed slowly down the river, looking at the ne
sts as they passed them, and rejoicing to see that the coot with a white feather, on No. 7 nest, was sitting as steadily as if she had never been disturbed.
“Hullo,” said Tom, when at last they came in sight of the Teasel, “they’ve taken the awning down.”
“Mustn’t let them think us quite incapable,” Mrs. Barrable had said when she came back from her shopping, and she and Dick and Dorothea between them had folded up the awning and stowed it in the forepeak, and lowered the cabin roof, and washed down the decks with the mop and generally done their best to make the Teasel look as if she were ready for a voyage.
“She’s a jolly fine boat,” said Starboard. “It’s a pity those kids can’t sail.”
“There they are,” said Tom.
Dick and Dorothea had come out of the cabin and were standing in the well. Dorothea was waving. Dick was looking anxiously round the Teasel. They had done the best they could, but he felt sure that something or other ought to have been stowed a little differently. Well, it was too late to alter anything now. Dorothea was finding, all of a sudden, that now that these sailing twins were close at hand, she did not know what to say to them. She found it easy enough to make up stories in which everybody talked and talked. Indeed, already, since yesterday, she had gone through half a dozen imaginary scenes in which she and Dick met and made friends with Port and Starboard. And now here they were, and she could not get one single word out of her mouth and was quite glad that William was doing all the talking and doing it very loud.
The Titmouse slid alongside.
“How do you do?” said Tom, as Mrs. Barrable came out of the cabin, and William stopped barking, remembered that Tom was a friend, and came and licked the hand with which he was keeping the Titmouse from bumping the Teasel.
“I am so glad you managed to come,” said Mrs. Barrable. “These are Dick and Dorothea. And one of you two is Nell and the other is Bess, and one is Port and the other is Starboard, and the two of you are twins, and I don’t know yet which is which.”
“It’s quite easy, really,” said Starboard.
“Once you know,” said Port.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Barrable. “I remember now. Nell’s the one with curly hair.”
“And the right-handed one,” said Tom. “That’s why she’s Starboard, and Bess is left-handed and so she’s Port. It comes very handy for sailing.”
“Not much sailing for anybody today,” said Mrs. Barrable, looking up the glassy river.
And then, before they had even had time to shake hands, something happened which Dorothea had not imagined in any of her scenes, something which turned them all into old friends working together.
“Why look,” said Mrs. Barrable. “Isn’t that those piratical bird-protectors?”
Round the bend of the river above the Teasel’s moorings, just where, last night, Mrs. Barrable had seen Tom racing down in his old Dreadnought, and then the Margoletta roaring after him, came the old black ship’s boat, Joe standing in the stern and steering, Pete and Bill rowing like galley-slaves so that there was a white ripple of bubbling water under her forefoot.
“They’re in a mighty hurry,” said Starboard.
“Something’s up,” said Tom.
“It’s those Hullabaloos again,” said Port.
“Easy,” shouted Joe, as the Death and Glory swept down the river. The sweating galley-slaves bent forward, panting, over their lifted oars.
“It’s that cruiser,” called Joe, swinging his vessel round. “A man from Rodley’s come down to see my dad, and we ask him. He don’t know when that lot’s giving up the Margoletta. But they’re coming down river. Changed a battery, they have.”
“They must use a lot of electricity,” said Dick, more to himself than to anybody else, “with a wireless like that going on all the time.”
“The doctor tell us where you was,” said Joe. “Down here any time they may be.”
Tom looked at the reeds.
“I’ll just have to hide again,” he said. “And you three had better clear off, or we’ll be getting the Teasel mixed up in it too.”
“Tom mustn’t let himself be caught,” explained Port, “because it would be so awful for the doctor.”
“It’s Coot Club business, anyhow,” said Starboard, “and we’re just not going to have him caught.”
“If he’s going to skipper the Teasel, it’s our business, too,” said Mrs. Barrable, and laughed when she saw Dick and Dorothea both staring at her. “We may be going to manage a voyage after all,” she said, “if the Coot Club can turn you two into sailors.… And this is no place for first sailing lessons, out in the open river. If those Hullabaloos are coming down again, they shan’t find any of us. We’ll vanish, pirates and all.”
“But how?” said Tom.
“Into Ranworth Broad,” said Mrs. Barrable.
“No wind,” said Starboard, looking up the river on which the only ripple was made by a water-hen swimming across.
“We could quant,”1 said Tom, “but don’t you think I’d better just hide?”
“They can’t search the Teasel,” said Mrs. Barrable. “You come aboard and you can always slip into the cabin. Don’t let’s lose time. Have you three pirates got a rope?”
“We’ve a good ’un.”
“I’ll look after Titmouse,” said Port. “You’ll want Starboard to steer while you quant.”
Tom looked doubtful.
“Of course, she’s right,” said Mrs. Barrable. “They’ll take no notice of her. It’s not a girl they’re looking for. It’s a boy with a criminal face, sinister, too. It’s no good having either you or Dick there.”
“I can’t really row,” said Dick, “not yet.”
Tom and Starboard climbed aboard the Teasel. Bill and Pete brought the Death and Glory near enough for Joe to throw Tom the long rope they always carried with them in hope of salvage work. Many a time it had come in useful when they had found beginners who had got themselves aground in their hired boats and did not know how to get off. The rope uncoiled in the air. The end fell across the foredeck. Tom had it as it fell and made it fast round the mast.
“Come on, you,” cried Starboard to Dick, as she jumped ashore to get up the anchors. “And what about the gang-plank?”
“We’ll take it with us,” said Mrs. Barrable. “William would miss it at the next place.”
“The next place.…” Simple words, but glowing with glorious meaning. No mere houseboat after all. Here today and gone tomorrow. Mrs. Barrable had gone into the cabin to see that no jampots full of paint brushes were going to upset. Dick and Starboard were both ashore. Tom was getting the quant ready. Dorothea, alone in the well, laid a daring hand upon the tiller. This, indeed, was life.
“That’s right,” Starboard was saying to Dick. “Coil it up so that you bring it aboard all ready to stow. Hang on, half a minute. Hi, you, what’s your name, Dorothea, just tell the Admiral we’re all ready.…”
“The Admiral?”
“Well, just look at her fleet.”
Dorothea laughed happily. There certainly was a fleet, what with the Death and Glory, and the Teasel, and the Teasel’s little rowing dinghy, and the Titmouse out in the river with a twin at the oars.
“Admiral,” she said, through the low cabin door. “Port … I mean Starboard … says they’re all ready.”
“Good,” said the Admiral, coming out, “then we’re only waiting for the tug.”
“Cast off forrard!” That was Skipper Tom on the foredeck.
“Quick, you. Give her a bit of a push off. Now’s your chance. Hop aboard.” That was Starboard, who was moving along the bank with the stern rope amid a great rustling of bent reeds. Dick jumped, grabbed a shroud and landed on the deck.
“Stern warp aboard,” called Tom, and then, glancing aft to see Starboard leap down into the well, where Dorothea eagerly made room for her at the tiller, he waved a hand forward.
“Half ahead!” called the skipper of the tug-boat, Death and Glory.
br /> The tow-rope tightened with a jerk. The Teasel answered it. She was moving.
“Full ahead!”
Dick and Dorothea looked at the little dinghy brushing the reeds where only a minute ago they had been able to step ashore. Wider and wider was the strip of water between the Teasel and the bank. The tow-rope that at first had tautened and sagged, and tautened and sagged again, dripping as it lifted, now hardly sagged at all. With quick short strokes, Bill and Pete, those two engines of the tug, kept up a steady strain. And there was Tom, lifting the long quanting pole, finding bottom with it, and hurrying aft along the side deck, leaning with all his weight against the quant’s round wooden head. A jerk as he came to the stern, and back he went on the trot, lifting the quant hand over hand, finding bottom with it and again leaning on it, forcing the Teasel along, so hard that if the engines of the tug had eased up for a moment he would have taken the strain off the tow-rope.
“She’s moving now all right,” said Starboard. “If only we can get round the corner in time.”
“Where is the corner?” asked Dorothea.
“You’ll see it in a minute,” said Starboard.
“But here they are!” said Dorothea. “We’re too late.”
“That’s not the Margoletta,” said Starboard. “That’s only a little one.”
A small motor-cruiser, making a good deal of noise for its size, but nothing like the noise of the Margoletta, was coming down river to meet them. It slowed up on seeing the fleet, the Death and Glory towing the Teasel and the little Titmouse, rowed by Port, acting as encouragement and convoy.
“Decent of them,” said Tom. “Keep an eye on the tug,” he added, jerking the quant from the mud and running forward again.
A single, shrill whistle sounded from the Death and Glory. It was answered on the instant by a single hoot from a motor-horn on the little cruiser.
“Good for Joe,” said Tom.
“What does it mean?” asked Dick.
“He’s telling everybody that he’s directing his course to starboard,” said Tom, “and they’re going to do the same.”