Isn't he going to have a
sleeping-bag too?' said Dick, with a grin.
The other three children laughed, and
Timmy, the dog, thumped his tail hard on the ground.
'Look at him,' said George. 'He's laughing,
too! He's got his mouth stretched wide open.'
They all looked at Timmy. He really did
look as if a wide grin stretched his hairy mouth from side to side.
'He's a darling,' said Anne, hugging him.
'Best dog in the world, aren't you, Timmy?'
'Woof!' said Timmy, agreeing.
The four children, Julian, tall and strong
for his age, Dick, George and Anne were busy planning a camping holiday. George
was a girl, not a boy, but she would never answer to her real name,
'It's absolutely wizard, being allowed to
go on a camping holiday all by ourselves,' said Dick. 'I never thought our
parents would allow it, after the terrific adventure we had last summer, when
we went off in caravans.'
'Well - we shan't be quite all by
ourselves,' said Anne. 'Don't forget we've got Mr Luffy to keep an eye
on us. He'll be camping quite near.
'Pooh! Old Luffy!' said Dick, with a laugh.
'He won't know if we're there or not. So long as he can study his precious
moorland insects, he won't bother about us.'
'Well, if it hadn't been that he was going
to camp, too, we wouldn't have been allowed to go,' said Anne. 'I heard Daddy
say so.'
Mr Luffy was a master at the boys' school,
an elderly, dreamy fellow with a passion for studying all kinds of insect-life.
Anne avoided him when he carried about boxes of insect specimens, because
sometimes they escaped and came crawling out. The boys liked him and thought him
fun, but the idea of Mr Luffy keeping an eye on them struck them as very
comical.
'It's more likely we'll have to keep an eye
on him,' said Julian. 'He's the sort of chap whose tent will always be falling
down on top of him, or he'll run out of water, or sit down on his bag of eggs.
Old Luffy seems to live in the world of insects, not in our world!' seems to
live in the world of insects, not in our world!'
'Well, he can go and live in the world of
insects if he likes, so long as he doesn't interfere with us,' said George, who
hated interfering people. 'This sounds as if it will be a super holiday -
living in tents on the high moors, away from everybody, doing exactly what we
like, when we like and how we like.'
'Woof!' said Timmy, thumping his tail
again.
'That means he's going to do as he likes,
too,' said Anne.  'We really must check down our list and find out if
we've got every single thing we want. Where did I get to - oh, four
sleeping-bags.'
'Yes, and you wanted to know if Timmy was
to have one,' said Anne, with a giggle.
'Of
course he won't,' said George. 'He'll sleep where he always does - won't you,
Timmy? On my feet.'
'Couldn't we get him just a small
sleeping-bag?' asked Anne. 'He'd look sweet with his head poking out of the
top.'
'Timmy hates looking sweet,' said George.
'Go on, Dick. I'll tie my hanky round Anne's mouth if she interrupts again.'
 It was a very
interesting one. Things like cooking-stoves, canvas buckets, enamel plates and
drinking-cups were on it and each item seemed to need a lot of discussion. The
four children enjoyed themselves very much.
 'Well - I shouldn't think we've
forgotten a thing, have we?'
'No. We've probably thought of too much!'
said Julian. 'Well, old Luffy says he'll take all our things on the trailer
behind his car, so we'll be all right. I shouldn't like to carry them
ourselves!'
'Oh, I wish next week would come!' said
Anne. 'Why is it that the time seems so long when you're waiting for something
nice to happen, and so short when something nice is happening?"
'Yes, it seems the wrong way round, doesn't
it?' said Dick, with a grin. 'Anyone got the map? I'd like to take another
squint at the spot where we're going.'
Julian produced a map from his pocket. He
opened it and the four children sprawled round it. The map showed a vast and
lonely stretch of moorland, with very few houses indeed.
'Just a few small farms,
that's all,' said Julian
pointing to one or two. 'They can't get
much of a living out of such poor land, though. See, that's about the place
where we're going - just there - and on the opposite slope is a small farm
where we shall get milk, eggs and butter when we need them. Luffy's been there
before. He says it's a rather small farm, but jolly useful to campers.'
'These moors are awfully high, aren't
they?' said George. 'I guess they'll be freezing cold in the winter.'
'They are,' said Julian. 'And they may be
jolly windy and cold in the summer, too, so Luffy says we'd better take
sweaters and things. He says in the winter they are covered with snow for
months. The sheep have to be dug out when they get lost.'
Dick's finger followed a small winding road
that made its way over the wild stretch of moorland. 'That's the road we go,'
he said. 'And I suppose we strike off here, look, where a cart-track is shown.
That would go to the farm. We shall have to carry our stuff from wherever Luffy
parks his car, and take it to our camping-place.'
'Not too near Luffy, I hope,' said George.
'Oh, no. He's agreed to keep an eye on us,
but he'll forget all about us once he's settled down in his own tent,' said
Julian. 'He will, really. Two chaps I know once went out in his car with him
for a day's run, and he came back without them in the evening. He'd forgotten
he had them with him, and had left them wandering somewhere miles and miles
away.'
'Good old Luffy,' said Dick. 'That's the
sort of fellow we want! He won't come springing up to ask if we've cleaned our
teeth or if we've got our warm jerseys on!'
The others laughed, and Timmy stretched his
doggy mouth into a grin again. His tongue hung out
happily. It was good to have all four of
his friends with him again, and to hear them planning a holiday. Timmy went to
school with George and Anne in term time, and he missed the two boys very much.
But he belonged to George, and would not dream of leaving her. It was a good
thing that George's school allowed pets, or George would certainly not have
gone!
Julian folded up the map again. 'I hope all
the things we've ordered will come in good time," he said. 'We've got
about six days to wait. I'd better keep on reminding Luffy that we're going
with him, or he's quite likely to start without us!'
It was difficult to have to wait so long
now that everything was planned. Parcels came from various stores and were
eagerly opened. The sleeping-bags were fine.
'Super!' said Anne.
'Smashing!' said George, crawling into
hers. 'Look! I can lace it up at the neck - and it's got a hood thing to come
right over my head. Golly, it's warm! I shan't mind the coldest night if I'm
sleeping in this. I vote we sleep in them tonight.'
'What? In our bedrooms?' said Anne.
'Yes. Why not? Just to get used to them,'
said George, who felt that a sleeping-bag was a hundred times better than an
ordinary bed.
So that night all four slept on the floor
of their bedrooms in their sleeping-bags, and voted them very comfortable and
as warm as toast.
'The only thing is, Timmy kept wanting to
come right inside mine,' said George, 'and honestly there isn't enough room.
Besides, he'd be cooked.'
'Well, he seemed to spend half the night on
my tummy,' grumbled Julian. 'I shall jolly well keep the bedroom door shut if
Timmy's going to spend the
night flopping on everyone's bag in turn.'
'I don't mind the flopping, so much as the
frightful habit he's got of turning himself round and round and round before he
flops down,' complained Dick. 'He did that on me last night. Silly habit of
his.'
'He can't help it,' said George at once.
'It's a habit that wild dogs had centuries and centuries ago - they slept in
reeds and rushes, and they got into the way of turning themselves round and
round in them, to trample them down and make themselves a good sleeping-place.
And our dogs go on turning themselves round now, before they go to sleep, even
though there aren't any rushes to trample down.'
'Well! I wish Timmy would forget his doggy
ancestors were wild dogs with rushy beds, and just remember he's a nice tame
dog with a basket of his own,' said Dick. 'You should see my tummy today! It's
all printed over with his foot-marks.'
'Fibber!' said Anne. 'You do exaggerate,
Dick. Oh, I do wish Tuesday would come. I'm tired of waiting.' 'It'll come all
right,' said Julian. And so, it did, of course. It dawned bright and sunny,
with a sky that was a deep blue, flecked with tiny white clouds.
'Good-weather clouds,' said Julian,
pleased. 'Now let's hope old Luffy has remembered it's today we're starting
off. He's due here at ten o'clock. We're taking sandwiches for the whole party.
Mother thought we'd better, in case Luffy forgot his. If he's remembered them
it won't matter, because we're sure to be able to eat them ourselves. And
there's always Timmy to finish things up!'
Timmy was as excited as the four children.
He always knew when something nice was going to happen. His tail was on the wag
the whole time, his tongue hung out, and he panted as if he had been
running a race. He kept getting under
everyone's feet, but nobody minded.
Mr Luffy arrived half an hour late, just
when everyone was beginning to feel he had forgotten to come. He was at the
wheel of his big old car, beaming. All the children knew him quite well,
because he lived not far away and often came to play bridge with their father
and mother.
'Hallo, hallo!' he cried. 'All ready, I
see! Good for you! Pile the things on the trailer, will you? Mine are there too
but there's plenty of room. I've got sandwiches for everyone, by the way. My
wife said I'd better bring plenty.'
'We'll have a fine feast today then,' said
Dick, helping Julian to carry out the folded-up tents and sleeping-bags, while
the girls followed with the smaller things. Soon everything was on the trailer
and Julian made them safe with ropes.
They said good-bye to the watching
grown-ups and climbed excitedly into the car. Mr Luffy started up his engine and
put the lever into first gear with a frightful noise.
'Good-bye!' called all the grown-ups, and
Julian's mother added a last word. 'DON'T get into any awful adventure this
time!'
'Of course they won't!' called back Mr
Luffy cheerfully. 'I'll see to that. There are no adventures to be found on a
wild and deserted moor. Good-bye!'
Off they went, waving madly, and shouting
goodbye all the way down the road. 'Good-bye! Good-byeeeeee! Hurrah, we're off
at last!'
The car raced down the road, the trailer
bumping madly after it. The holiday had begun!
2
Up on the moors
Mr Luffy was not a good driver. He went too
fast, especially round the corners, and many times Julian looked behind at the
trailer in alarm, afraid that everything would suddenly leap off it at some
sharp bend.
He saw the bundle of sleeping-bags jump
high into the air, but fortunately they remained on the trailer. He touched Mr
Luffy on the shoulder.
'Sir! Could you go a bit slower, please!
The trailer will be empty by the time we arrive, if the luggage leaps about on
it much more.'
'My word! I forgot we had a trailer,' said
Mr Luffy, slowing down at once. 'Remind me if I go over thirty-five miles an
hour, will you? Last time I took the trailer with me, I arrived with only half
the goods on it. I don't want that to happen again.'
Julian certainly hoped it wouldn't. He kept
a sharp eye on the speedometer, and when it veered towards forty he tapped Mr
Luffy on the arm.
Mr Luffy looked supremely happy. He didn't
like term time, but he loved holidays. Term time interfered with the study of
his beloved insect-world. Now he was off with four nice children he liked, for
a holiday on a moorland he knew was alive with bees, beetles, butterflies and
every other kind of insect he wanted. He looked forward to teaching the four
children quite a lot. They would have been horrified if they guessed this, but
they didn't.
He was an odd-looking fellow. He had very
untidy, shaggy eyebrows over kind and gentle brown eyes that always reminded
Dick of a monkey's. He had a rather large nose, which looked fiercer than it
was because, unexpectedly, it had quite a forest of hairs growing out of the
nostrils. He had an untidy moustache, and a round chin with a surprising dimple
in the middle of it.
His ears always fascinated Anne. They were
large and turned rather forward, and Mr Luffy could waggle the right one if he
wanted to. To his great sorrow he had never been able to waggle the left one.
His hair was thick and untidy, and his clothes always looked loose, comfortable
and rather too big for him.
The children liked him. They couldn't help
it. He was so odd and gentle and untidy and forgetful - and yet sometimes
unexpectedly fierce. Julian had often told them the story of Tom Killin the
bully.
Mr Luffy had once found Tom bullying a
small new boy in the cloakroom, dragging him round and round it by his belt.

'There you stay till you get someone to
lift you down!' Mr Luffy had thundered. 7 can get hold of a belt too, as you
can see!'
And then he had stalked out of the
cloakroom with the small, terrified boy beside him, leaving the bully hung up
high on the peg, quite unable to free himself. And there he had to stay,
because not one of the boys who came pouring in from a game of football would
lift him down.
'And, if the peg hadn't given way under his
weight, he'd be stuck up there still, 'Julian had said with a grin.
'Good old Luffy! You'd never think he could
be fierce like that, would you?'
Anne loved that story. Mr Luffy became
quite a hero to her after that. She was pleased to sit next to him in the car,
and chatter about all kinds of things. The other three were squashed at the
back with Timmy on their feet. George firmly prevented him from climbing up on
her knee because it was so hot. So he contented himself with trying to stand up
with his paws on the window-ledge and his nose over the side.
They stopped about half past twelve for
lunch. Mr Luffy had indeed provided sandwiches for everyone. And remarkably
fine ones they were too, made the evening before by Mrs Luffy.
'Cucumber, -dipped in vinegar! Ham and
lettuce! Egg! Sardine! Oooh, Mr Luffy, your sandwiches are much nicer than
ours,' said Anne, beginning on two together, one cucumber and the other ham and
lettuce.
They were all very hungry. Timmy had a bit
from everyone, usually the last bite, and watched each sandwich eagerly till
his turn came. Mr Luffy didn't seem to understand that Timmy had to have the
last bite of any sandwich, so Timmy simply took it out of his hand, much to his
surprise.
'A clever dog,' he said, and patted him.
'Knows what he wants and takes it. Very clever.'
That pleased George, of course. She thought
that Timmy was the cleverest dog in the world, and indeed it did seem like it
at times. He understood every word she said to him, every pat, every stroke,
every gesture. He would be much, much better at keeping an eye on the four
children and guarding them than forgetful Mr Luffy.
They drank ginger beer and then ate some
ripe plums. Timmy wouldn't have any plums, but he
licked up some spilt ginger beer. Then he
snuffed up a few odd crumbs and went to drink at a little stream nearby.
The party set off again in the car. Anne
fell asleep. Dick gave an enormous yawn and fell asleep too. George wasn't
sleepy, nor was Timmy, but Julian was. He didn't dare to take his eye off the
speedometer, though, because Mr Luffy seemed to be very much inclined to speed
along too fast again, after his good lunch.
 'We should be there about half past five. Look, you can see the
moorland in the distance now - all ablaze with heather!'
Everybody looked ahead, except Anne, who
was still fast asleep. Rising up to the left for miles upon miles was the
heather-covered moorland, a lovely sight to see. It looked wild and lonely and
beautiful, blazing with heather, and shading off into a purple-blue in the
distance.
'We take this road to the left, and then
we're on the moors,' said Mr Luffy, swinging violently to the left, and making
the luggage in the trailer jump high again. 'Here we go.'
The car climbed the high moorland road
steadily. It passed one or two small houses, and in the distance the children
could see little farms in clearings. Sheep dotted the moorland, and some of
them stood staring at the car as it drove by.
'We've got about twenty miles to go, I
should think,' said Mr Luffy, jamming on his brakes suddenly to avoid two large
sheep in the middle of the road. 'I wish these creatures wouldn't choose the
centre of the road to gossip in. Hi, get on there! Let me pass!'
Timmy yelped and tried to get out of the
car. The sheep hurriedly decided to move, and the car went on. Anne was
thoroughly awake by now, having been almost jerked out of her seat by the
sudden stop.
'What a shame to wake you!' said Mr Luffy,
gazing down at her kindly, and almost running into a ditch by the side of the
road. 'We're nearly there, Anne.'
They climbed steadily, and the wind grew a
little cold. All around the children the moors stretched for mile upon mile,
never-ending. Little streams sometimes splashed right down to the roadway, and
ran beside it.
'We can drink the water in these streams,'
said Mr Luffy. 'Crystal clear, and cold as ice! There's one quite near where
we're going to camp.'
That was good news. Julian thought of the
big canvas buckets they had brought. He didn't particularly want to carry those
for miles. If there was a stream near their camping place it would be easy to
get the buckets filled with washing-water.
The road forked into two. To the right was
a good road, leading on and on. To the left it became not much more than a
cart-track. 'That's the one we take,' said Mr Luffy, and the car jerked and
jolted over it. He was forced to go slowly, and the children had time to see
every little thing they passed.
'I shall leave the car here,' said Mr
Luffy, bringing it to a standstill beside a great rock that stood up bare and
grey out of the moor. 'It will be sheltered from the worst winds and rain. I
thought we'd camp over yonder.'
There was a little slope just there, backed
by some enormous gorse bushes. Thick heather grew everywhere. Julian nodded. It
was a good place for camp-
ing. Those thick gorse bushes would provide
fine shelter from the winds.
'Right, sir,' he said. 'Shall we have tea
first, or unpack now?'
'Tea first,' said Mr Luffy. 'I've brought a
very good little stove for boiling and cooking things. Better than a wood fire.
That makes kettles and saucepans so black.'
'We've got a stove, too,' said Anne. She
scrambled out of the car and looked all round. 'It's lovely here -all heather
and wind and sun! Is that the farm over there - the one we shall go to for eggs
and things?'
She pointed to a tiny farmhouse on the hill
opposite. It stood in a small clearing. In a field behind it were three or four
cows and a horse. A small orchard stood at the side, and a vegetable garden lay
in front. It seemed odd to see such a trim little place in the midst of the
moorland.
That's Olly's Farm,' said Mr Luffy. 'It's
changed hands, I believe, since I was here three years ago. I hope the new
people are nice. Now - did we leave something to eat for our tea?'
They had, because Anne had wisely put away
a good many sandwiches and bits of cake for tea-time. They sat in the heather,
with bees humming all round them, and munched solidly for fifteen minutes.
Timmy waited patiently for his bits, watching the bees that hummed round him.
There were thousands of them.
'And now I suppose we'd better put up our
tents,' said Julian. 'Come on, Dick - let's unpack the trailer. Mr Luffy, we
don't intend to camp on top of you, sir, because you won't want four noisy
children too near. Where would you like your tent put?' Mr Luffy was about to
say that he would like to have
the four children and Timmy quite close,
when it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps they might not want him too near.
They might want to make a noise, or play silly games, and if he were near it
would stop them enjoying themselves in their own way.
So he made up his mind not to be too close.
Til pitch my tent down there, where that old gorse bush is,' he said. 'And if you'd
like to put yours up here, where there's a half-circle of gorse bushes keeping
off the wind, you'd be well sheltered. And we shan't interfere with one another
at all.'
'Right, sir,' said Julian, and he and Dick
began to tackle the tents. It was fun. Timmy got under everyone's feet as
usual, and ran off with an important rope, but nobody minded.
By the time that dusk came creeping up the
heather-covered moorland, all three tents were up, the ground-sheets were put
down, and the sleeping-bags unrolled on them, two in each of the children's
tents, and one in Mr Luffy's.
'I'm going to turn in,' said Mr Luffy. 'My
eyes are almost shut. Good night all of you. Sleep well!'
He disappeared into the dusk. Anne yawned
widely, and that set the others off too. 'Come on - let's turn in, too,' said
Julian. 'We'll have a bar of chocolate each, and a few biscuits. We can eat
those in our sleeping-bags. Good night, girls. Won't it be grand to wake up
tomorrow morning?'
He and Dick disappeared into their tent.
The girls crawled into theirs with Timmy. They undressed, and got into their
warm, soft sleeping-bags.
'This is super!' said George, pushing Timmy
to one side. 'I never felt so cosy in my life. Don't do that, Timmy. Don't you
know the difference between my feet and my middle? That's better.'
'Good night,' said Anne, sleepily. 'Look,
George, you can see the stars shining through the opening of the tent. Don't
they look enormous?'
But George didn't care whether they were
enormous or not. She was fast asleep, tired out with the day's run. Timmy
cocked one ear when he heard Anne's voice, and gave a little grunt. That was
his way of saying good night. Then he put his head down and slept.
'Our first night of camping,' thought Anne,
happily. 'I shan't go to sleep. I shall lie awake and look at the stars and
smell that heathery smell.'
But she didn't. In half a second she was
sound asleep, too!
3
Anne's volcano
Julian awoke first in the morning. He heard
a strange and lonely sound floating overhead. 'Coor-lie! Coor-lie!'
He sat up and wondered where he was and who
was calling. Of course! He was in his tent with Dick - they were camping on the
moors. And that wild cry overhead came from a curlew, the bird of the
moorlands.
He yawned and lay down again. It was early
in the morning. The sun put its warm fingers in at his tent opening, and he
felt the warmth on his sleeping-bag. He felt lazy and snug and contented. He
also felt hungry, which was a nuisance. He glanced at his watch.
Half past six. He really was too warm and
comfortable to get up yet. He put out his hand to see if there was any
chocolate left from the night before, and found a little piece. He put it into
his mouth and lay there contentedly, listening to more curlews, and watching
the sun climb a little higher.
He fell asleep again, and was awakened by
Timmy busily licking his face. He sat up with a start. The girls were peering
in at his tent, grinning. They were fully dressed already.
'Wake up, lazy!' said Anne. 'We sent Timmy
in to get you up. It's half past seven. We've been up for ages/
'It's a simply heavenly morning,' said George.
'Going to be a frightfully hot day. Do get
up. We're going to find the stream and wash in it. It seems silly to lug heavy
buckets of water to and fro for washing, if the stream's nearby.'
Dick awoke too. He and Julian decided to go
and take a bathe in the stream. They wandered out into the sunny morning,
feeling very happy and very hungry. The girls were just coming back from the
stream.
'It's over there,' said Anne, pointing.
'Timmy, go with them and show them. It's a lovely little brown stream, awfully
cold, and it's got ferns along its banks. We've left the bucket there. Bring it
back full, will you?'
'What do you want us to do that for, if
you've already washed?' asked Dick.
'We want water for washing-up the dishes,'
said Anne. 'I suddenly remembered we'd need water for that. I say, do you think
we ought to wake up Mr Luffy? There's no sign of him yet.'
'No, let him sleep,' said Julian. 'He's
probably tired out with driving the car so slowly! We can easily save him some
breakfast. What are we going to have?'
'We've unpacked some bacon rashers and
tomatoes, ' said Anne, who loved cooking. 'How do you light the stove, Julian?'
'George knows,' said Julian. 'I say, did we
pack a frying-pan?'
'Yes. I packed it myself,' said Anne. 'Do
go and bathe if you're going to. Breakfast will be ready before you are!'
Timmy gravely trotted off with the boys and
showed them the stream. Julian and Dick at once lay down in the clear brown
bed, and kicked wildly. Timmy leapt in too, and there were yells and shrieks.
'Well - I should think we've woken up old Luffy
now!' said Dick, rubbing himself down with a rough towel. 'How lovely and cold
that was. The trouble is it's made me feel twice as hungry!'
'Doesn't that frying bacon smell good?'
said Julian, sniffing the air. They walked back to the girls. There was still
no sign of Mr Luffy. He must indeed sleep very soundly!
They sat down in the heather and began
their breakfast. Anne had fried big rounds of bread in the fat, and the boys
told her she was the best cook in the world. She was very pleased.
'I shall look after the food side for you,'
she said. 'But George muist help with the preparing of the meals and
washing-up. See, George?'
George didn't see. She hated doing all the
things that Anne loved to do, such as making beds and washing-up. She looked
sulky.
'Look at old George! Why bother about the
washing-up when there's Timmy only too pleased to use his tongue to wash every
plate?' said Dick.
Everyone laughed, even George. 'All right,'
she said, Til help of course. Only let's use as few plates as possible, then
there won't be much washing-up. Is there any more fried bread, Anne?'
'No. But there are some biscuits in that
tin,' said Anne. 'I say, boys, who's going to go to the farm each day for milk
and things? I expect they can let us have bread, too, and fruit.'
'Oh, one or other of us will go,' said
Dick. 'Anne, hadn't you better fry something for old Luffy now? I'll go and
wake him. Half the day will be gone if he doesn't get up now.'
Til go and make a noise like an earwig
outside his tent,' said Julian, getting up. 'He might not wake with
all our yells and shouts, but he'd
certainly wake at the call of a friendly earwig!'
He went down to the tent. He cleared his
throat and called politely: 'Are you awake yet, sir?'
There was no answer. Julian called again.
Then, puzzled, he went to the tent opening. The flap was closed. He pulled it
aside and looked in.
The tent was empty! There was nobody there
at all.
'What's up, Ju?' called Dick.
'He's not here,' said Julian. 'Where can he
be?'
There was silence. For a panic-stricken
moment Anne thought one of their strange adventures was beginning. Then Dick
called out again: 'Is his bug-tin gone? You know, the tin box with straps that
he takes with him when he goes insect-hunting? And what about his clothes?'
Julian inspected the inside of the tent
again. 'Okay!' he called, much to everyone's relief. 'His clothes are gone, and
so has his bug-tin. He must have slipped out early, before we were awake. I bet
he's forgotten all about us and breakfast and everything!'
'That would be just like him,' said Dick.
'Well, we're not his keepers. He can do as he likes! If he doesn't want
breakfast, he needn't have any. He'll come back when he's finished his hunting,
I suppose.'
'Anne! Can you get on with the doings if
Dick and I go to the farmhouse and see what food they've got?' asked Julian.
'The time's getting on, and if we're going for a walk or anything today, we
don't want to start too late.'
'Right,' said Anne. 'You go too, George.  Take Timmy. He wants a walk.'
George was only too pleased to get out of
the washing-up. She and the boys, with Timmy trotting in front, set off to the
farmhouse. Anne got on with her jobs, humming softly to herself in the
sunshine. She soon finished them, and then looked to see if the others were
coming back. There was no sign of them, or of Mr Luffy either.
Til go for a walk on my own,' thought Anne.
Til follow that little stream uphill and see where it begins. That would be
fun. I can't possibly lose my way if I keep by the water.'
She set off in the sunshine and came to the
little brown stream that gurgled down the hill. She scrambled through the
heather beside it, following its course uphill. She liked all the little green
ferns and the cushions of velvety moss that edged it. She tasted the water - it
was cold and sweet and clean.
Feeling very happy all by herself, Anne
walked on and on. She came at last to a big mound of a hill-top. The little
stream began there, half-way up the mound. It came gurgling out of the heathery
hillside, edged with moss, and made its chattering way far down the hill.
'So
that's where you begin, is it?' said Anne. She flung herself down on the
heather, hot with her climb. It was nice there, with the sun on her face, and
the sound of the trickling water nearby.
She lay listening to the humming bees and
the water. And then she heard another sound. She took no notice of it at all at
first.
Then she sat up, frightened. 'The noise is
underground! Deep, deep underground! It rumbles and roars. Oh, what is going to
happen? Is there going to be an earthquake!'
The rumbling seemed to come nearer and
nearer.
Anne didn't even dare to get up and run.
She sat there and trembled.
Then there came an unearthly shriek, and
not far off a most astonishing thing happened. A great cloud of white smoke
came right out of the ground and hung in the air before the wind blew it away.
Anne was simply horrified. It was so sudden, so very unexpected on this quiet
hillside. The rumbling noise went on for a while and then gradually faded away.
Anne leapt to her feet in a panic. She fled
down the hill, screaming loudly: 'It's a volcano! Help! Help! I've been sitting
on a volcano. It's going to burst, it's sending out smoke. Help, help, it's a
VOLCANO!'
She tore down the hillside, caught her foot
on a tuft of heather and went rolling over and over, sobbing. She came to rest
at last, and then heard an anxious voice calling:
'Who's that? What's the matter?'
It was Mr Luffy's voice. Anne screamed to
him in relief. 'Mr Luffy! Come and save me! There's a volcano here!'
There was such terror in her voice that Mr
Luffy came racing to her at once. He sat down beside the trembling girl and put
his arm round her. 'Whatever's the matter?' he said. 'What's frightened you?'
Anne told him again. 'Up there- do you see?
That's a volcano, Mr Luffy. It trembled and rumbled and then it shot up clouds
of smoke. Oh quick, before it sends out red hot cinders!'
'Now, now!' said Mr Luffy, and to Anne's
surprise and relief he actually laughed. 'Do you mean to tell me you don't know
what that was?'
'No, I don't,' said Anne.
'Well,' said Mr Luffy, 'under this big moor
run two or three long tunnels to take trains from one valley to
another. Didn't you know? They make the
rumbling noise you heard, and the sudden smoke you saw was the smoke sent up by
a train below. There are big vent-holes here and there in the moor for the
smoke to escape from.'
'Oh, good gracious me!' said Anne, going
rather red. 'I didn't even know there were trains under here. What an extraordinary
thing! I really did think I was sitting on a volcano, Mr Luffy. You won't tell
the others will you. They would laugh at me dreadfully.'
'I won't say a word,' said Mr Luffy. 'And
now I think we'll go back. Have you had breakfast? I'm terribly hungry. I went
out early after a rather rare butterfly I saw flying by my tent.'
'We've had breakfast ages ago,' said Anne.

And some tomatoes and fried bread.'
'Aha! It sounds good,' said Mr Luffy. 'Now
- not a word about volcanoes. That's our secret.'
And off they went to the tents, where the
others were wondering what in the world had become of Anne. Little did they
know she had been 'sitting on a volcano'!
4
Spook-trains
The boys and George were full of talk about
the farm.  'Pretty farmhouse, nice little dairy,
well-kept sheds. And even a grand piano in the drawing-room.'
'Gracious! You wouldn't think they'd make
enough money to buy a thing like that, would you?' said Anne, turning over the
bacon in the pan.
'The farmer's got a fine car,' went on
Julian. 'Brand new. Must have cost him a pretty penny. His boy showed it to us.
And he showed us some jolly good new farm machinery too.'
'Very interesting,' said Mr Luffy. 'I
wonder how they make their money, farming that bit of land? The last people
were hard-working folk, but they certainly couldn't have afforded a new car or
a grand piano.'
'And you should have seen the lorries
they've got!' said Dick. 'Beauties! Old army ones, I should think. The boy said
his father's going to use them for carting things from the farm to the market.'
'What things?' said Mr Luffy, looking
across at the little farmhouse. 'I shouldn't have thought they needed an army
of lorries for that! An old farm wagon would carry all their produce.'
'Well, that's what he told us,' said Dick.
'Everything certainly looked very prosperous, I must say. He must be a jolly
good farmer.'
'We got eggs and butter and fruit, and even
some bacon,' said George. 'The boy's mother didn't seem worried about how much
we had, and she hardly charged us anything. We didn't see the farmer.'
Mr Luffy was now eating his breakfast. He
was certainly very hungry. He brushed away the flies that hung round his head,
and when one settled on his right ear he waggled it violently. The fly flew off
in surprise.
'Oh, do that again!' begged Anne. 'How do
you do it? Do you think if I practised hard for weeks I could make my ear
move?'
'No, I don't think so,' said Mr Luffy,
finishing his breakfast. 'Well, I've got some writing to do now. What are you
going to do? Go for a walk?'
'We might as well take a picnic lunch and
go off somewhere,' said Julian. 'How about it?'
'Yes," said Dick. 'Can you pack us
dinner and tea, Anne? We'll help. What about hard-boiled eggs?'
It wasn't long before they had a picnic meal
packed in greaseproof paper.
'You won't get lost, will you?' said Mr
Luffy.
'Oh no, sir,' said Julian, with a laugh.
'I've got a compass, anyway, and a jolly good bump of locality, too. I usually
know the way to go. We'll see you this evening, when we get back.'
'You won't get lost, Mr Luffy, will you?'
asked Anne, looking worried.
'Don't be cheeky, Anne,' said Dick, rather
horrified at Anne's question. But she really meant it. Mr Luffy was so
absent-minded that she could quite well picture him wandering off and not being
able to find his way back.
He smiled at her. 'No,' he said. 'I know my
way about here all right-I know every stream and path and er-volcano!'
Anne giggled. The others stared at Mr
Luffy, wondering what in the world he meant, but neither he nor Anne told them.
They said good-bye and set off.
'It's heavenly walking today,' said Anne.
'Shall we follow a path if we find one or not?'
'Might as well,' said Julian. 'It'll be a
bit tiring scrambling through heather all the day.'
So when they did unexpectedly come across a
path they followed it. 'It's just a shepherd's path, I expect,' said Dick. 'I
bet it's a lonely job, looking after sheep up on these desolate heathery
hills.'
They went on for some way, enjoying the
stretches of bright heather, the lizards that darted quickly away from their
feet and the hosts of butterflies of all kinds that hovered and fluttered. Anne
loved the little blue ones best and made up her mind to ask Mr Luffy what all their
names were.
They had their lunch on a hill-top
overlooking a vast stretch of heather, with grey-white blobs in it here and
there - the sheep that wandered everywhere.
And, in the very middle of the meal, Anne
heard the same rumbling she had heard before, and then, not far off, out
spouted some white smoke from the ground. George went quite pale. Timmy leapt
to his feet, growling and barking, his tail down. The boys roared with
laughter.
'It's all right, Anne and George. It's only
the trains underground here. We knew they ran under the moors and we thought
we'd see what you did when you first heard them rumbling, and saw the smoke.'
'I'm not a bit frightened,' said Anne, and
the boys looked at her, astonished. It was George who was the scared one!
Usually it was quite the other way round.
George got back her colour and laughed. She
called Timmy. 'It's all right, Tim. Come here. You know
what trains are, don't you?'
The children discussed the trains. It
really did seem strange to think of trains in those hollowed-out tunnels down
below the moors - the people in them, reading their newspapers and talking -
down in tunnels where the sun never shone at all.
'Come on,' said Julian, at last. 'Let's go
on. We'll walk to the top of the next slope, and then I think we ought to turn
back.'
They found a little path that Julian said
must be a rabbit-path, because it was so narrow, and set off, chattering and
laughing. They climbed through the heather to the top of the next slope. And at
the top they got quite a surprise.
Down in the valley below was a silent and
deserted stretch of railway lines! They appeared out of the black hole of a
tunnel-mouth, ran for about half a mile, and then ended in what seemed to be a
kind of railway yard.
'Look at that,' said Julian- 'Old derelict
lines - not used any more, I should think. I suppose that tunnel's out of date,
too.'
'Let's go down and have a squint,' said
Dick. 'Come on! We've got plenty of time, and we can easily go back a shorter
way.'
They set off down the hill to the lines.
They arrived some way from the tunnel-mouth, and followed the lines to the
deserted railway yard. There seemed to be nobody about at all.
'Look,' said Dick, 'there are some old wagons
on that set of lines over there. They look as if they haven't been used for a
hundred years. Let's give them a shove and set them going!'
'Oh, no!' said Anne, afraid. But the two
boys and George, who had always longed to play about with
real railway trucks, ran over to where
three or four stood on the lines. Dick and Julian shoved hard at one. It moved.
It ran a little way and crashed into the buffers of another. It made a terrific
noise in the silent yard.
A door flew open in a tiny hut at the side
of the yard, and a terrifying figure came out. It was a one-legged man, with a
wooden peg for his other leg, two great arms that might quite well belong to a
gorilla, and a face as red as a tomato, except where grey whiskers grew.
 Instead out came a husky, hoarse whisper:
'What you doing? Ain't it bad enough to
hear spook-trains a-running at night, without hearing them in the daytime,
too?'
The four children stared at him. They
thought he must be quite mad. He came nearer to them, and his wooden leg
tip-tapped oddly. He swung his great arms loosely. He peered at the children as
if he could hardly see them.
'I've broken me glasses,' he said, and to
their astonishment and dismay two tears ran down his cheeks. 'Poor old
Wooden-Leg Sam, he's broken his glasses. Nobody cares about Wooden-Leg Sam now,
nobody at all.'
There didn't seem anything to say to all
this. Anne felt sorry for the funny old man, but she kept well behind Julian.
Sam peered at them again. 'Haven't you got
tongues in your heads? Am I seeing things again, or are you there?'
'We're here and we're real,' said Julian.
'We happened to see this old railway yard and we came down to have a look at
it. Who are you?'
'I told you - I'm Wooden-Leg Sam,' said the
old man impatiently. 'The watchman, see? Though what there is to watch here,
beats me. Do they think I'm going to watch for these spook-trains? Well, I'm
not. Not me, Sam Wooden-Leg. I've seen many strange things in my life, yes, and
been scared by them too, and I'm not watching for any more spook-trains.'
The children listened curiously. 'What
spook-trains?' asked Julian.
Wooden-Leg Sam came closer. He looked all
round as if he thought there might be someone listening, and then spoke in a
hoarser whisper than usual.
'Spook-trains, I tell you. Trains that come
out of that tunnel at night all by themselves, and go back all by themselves.
Nobody in them. One night they'll come for old Sam Wooden-Leg-but, see, I'm
smart, I am. I lock myself into my hut and get under the bed. And I blow my
candle out so those spook-trains don't know I'm there.'
Anne shivered. She pulled at Julian's hand.
'Julian! Let's go. I don't like it. It sounds all peculiar and horrid. What
does he mean?'
The old man seemed suddenly to change his
mood. He picked up a large cinder and threw it at Dick, hitting him on the
head. 'You clear out! I'm watchman here. And what did They tell me? They told
me to chase away anyone that came. Clear out, I tell you!'
In terror Anne fled away. Timmy growled and
would have leapt at the strange old watchman, but George had her hand on his
collar. Dick rubbed his head where the cinder had hit him.
'We're going,' he said, soothingly to Sam.
It was plain that the old fellow was a bit funny in the head. 'We didn't mean
to trespass. You look after your spook-trains. We won't interfere with you!'
The boys and George turned away, and caught
up with Anne. 'What did he mean?' she asked, scared. 'What are spook-trains?
Trains that aren't real? Does he really see them at night?'
'He just imagines them,' said Julian. 'I
expect being there all alone in that deserted old railway yard has made him
think strange things. Don't worry, Anne. There are no such things as
spook-trains.'
'But he spoke as if there were,' said Anne,
'he really did. I'd hate to see a spook-train. Wouldn't you Ju?'
'No. I'd love to see one," said
Julian, and he turned to Dick. 'Wouldn't you, Dick? Shall we come one night and
watch? Just to see?'
5
Back at camp again
The children and Timmy left the deserted
railway yard behind them and climbed up the heathery slope to find their way
back to their camping-place. The boys could not stop talking about Wooden-Leg
Sam and the strange things he said.
'It's a funny business altogether,' said
Julian. 'I wonder why that yard isn't used any more - and where that tunnel
leads to - and if trains ever do run there.'
'I
expect there's quite an ordinary explanation,' said Dick. 'It's just that
Wooden-Leg Sam made it all seem so weird. If there had been a proper watchman
we shouldn't have thought there was anything strange about it at all.'
'Perhaps the boy at the farm would know,'
said Julian. 'We'll ask him tomorrow. I'm afraid there aren't any spook-trains
really - but, gosh, I'd love to go and watch for one, if there were any.'
'I wish you wouldn't talk like that,' said
Anne, unhappily. 'You know, it makes me feel as if you want another adventure.
And I don't.'
'Well, there won't be any adventure, so
don't worry,' said Dick, comfortingly. 'And, anyway, if there was an adventure
you could always go and hold old Luffy's hand. He wouldn't see an adventure if
it was right under his nose.
'Shepherd or something, I should think,'
said Julian. He shouted out cheerfully. 'Good afternoon! Nice day it's been!'
The old man on the path just above them
nodded his head. He was either a shepherd or farm labourer of some sort. He
waited for them to come up.
'Have you seen any of my sheep down along there?'
he asked them. 'They've got red crosses on them.'
'No. There aren't any down there,' said
Julian. 'But there are some further along the hill. We've been down to the
railway yard and we'd have seen any sheep on the slope below.'
'Don't you go down there,' said the old
shepherd, his faded blue eyes looking into Julian's. 'That's a bad place, that
is.'
'Well, we've been hearing about
spook-trains!' said Julian, with a laugh. 'Is that what you mean?'
'Ay. There're trains that nobody knows of
running out of that tunnel,' said the shepherd. 'Many's the time I've heard
them when I've been up here at night with my sheep. That tunnel hasn't been
used for thirty years - but the trains, they still come out of it, just as they
used to.'
'How do you know? Have you seen them?'
asked Julian, a cold shiver creeping down his spine quite suddenly.
'No. I've only heard them,' said the old
man. 'Choo, choo, they go, and they jangle and clank. But they don't whistle
any more. Old Wooden-Leg Sam reckons they're spook-trains, with nobody to drive
them and nobody to tend them. Don't you go down to that place. It's bad and
scary.'
Julian caught sight of Anne's scared face.
He
laughed loudly. 'What a tale! I don't
believe in spook-trains - and neither do you, shepherd. Dick, have you got the
tea in your bag? Let's find a nice place and have some sandwiches and cake.
Will you join us, shepherd?'
'No, thank you kindly,' said the old man,
moving off. Til be after my sheep. Always wandering they are, and they keep me
wandering, too. Good day, sir, and don't go down to that bad place.'
Julian found a good spot out of sight of
'that bad place', and they all sat down. 'All a lot of nonsense, 'said Julian,
who wanted Anne to feel happier again. 'We can easily ask the farmer's boy
about it tomorrow. I expect it's all a silly tale made up by that old
one-legged fellow, and passed on to the shepherd.'
'I expect so,' said Dick. 'You noticed that
the shepherd had never actually seen the trains, Julian? Only heard them. Well,
sound travels far at night, and I expect what he heard was simply the rumblings
of the trains that go underground here. There's one going somewhere now! I can
feel the ground trembling!'
They all could. It was a peculiar feeling.
The rumbling stopped at last and they sat and ate their tea, watching Timmy
scraping at a rabbit-hole and trying his hardest to get down it. He covered
them with sandy soil as he burrowed, and nothing would stop him. He seemed to
have gone completely deaf.
'Look here, if we don't get Timmy out of
that hole now he'll be gone down so far that we'll have to drag him out by his
tail,' said Julian, getting up. 'Timmy! TIM-MY! The rabbit's miles away. Come
on out.'
It took both George and Julian to get him
out. He was most indignant. He looked at them as if to say: ' Well, what
spoil-sports! Almost got him and you drag me out!'
He shook himself, and bits of grit and sand
flew out of his hair. He took a step towards the hole again, but George caught
hold of his tail. 'No, Timmy. Home now!'
'He's looking for a spook-train,' said
Dick, and that made everyone laugh, even Anne.
They set off back to the camping-place,
pleasantly tired, with Timmy following rather sulkily at their heels. When they
at last got back they saw Mr Luffy sitting waiting for them. The blue smoke
from his pipe curled up into the air.
'Hallo, hallo!' he said, and his brown eyes
looked up at them from under his shaggy eyebrows. 'I was beginning to wonder if
you'd got lost.
Timmy wagged his tail politely. 'Woof,' he
agreed, and went to drink out of the bucket of water. Anne stopped him just in
time.
'No, Timmy! You're not to drink out of our
washing-up water. There's yours, in the dish over there.'
Timmy went to his dish and lapped. He
thought Anne was very fussy. Anne asked Mr Luffy if he would like any supper.
'We're not having a proper supper,' she
said. 'We had tea so late. But I'll cook you something if you like, Mr Luffy.'
'Very kind of you. But I've had an enormous
tea,' said Mr Luffy. 'I've brought up a fruit cake for you, from my own larder.
Shall we share it for supper? And I've got a bottle of lime juice, too, which
will taste grand with some of the stream water.'
The boys went off to get some fresh stream
water for drinking. Anne got out some plates and cut slices of the cake.
'Well,' said Mr Luffy. 'Had a nice walk?'
'Yes/ said Anne, 'except that we met a
strange one-legged man who told us he saw spook-trains.'
Mr Luffy laughed. 'Well, well! He must be a
cousin of a little girl I know who thought she was sitting on a volcano.'
Anne giggled. 'You're not to tease me. No,
honestly, Mr Luffy, this old man was a watchman at a sort of old railway yard -
not used now - and he said when the spook-trains came, he blew out his light
and got under his bed so that they shouldn't get him.'
'Poor old fellow,' said Mr Luffy. 'I hope
he didn't frighten you.'
'He did a bit,' said Anne.  Tomorrow we're going to the farm to ask
the boy there if he's heard of the spook-trains, too. We met an old shepherd
who said he'd heard them but not seen them.'
'Well, well - it all sounds most
interesting,' said Mr Luffy. 'But these exciting stories usually have a very
tame explanation, you know. Now would you like to see what I found today? A
very rare and interesting little beetle.'
He opened a small square tin and showed a
shiny beetle to Anne. It had green feelers and a red fiery spot near its
tail-end. It was a lovely little thing.
'Now that's much more exciting to me than
half a dozen spook-trains,' he told Anne. 'Spook-trains won't keep me awake at
night - but thinking of this little beetle-fellow here certainly will.'
'I don't very much like beetles,' said
Anne. 'But this one certainly is pretty. Do you really like hunting about all
day for insects, and watching them, Mr Luffy?'
'Yes, very much,' said Mr Luffy. 'Ah, here
come the
boys with the water. Now we'll hand the
cake round, shall we? Where's George? Oh, there she is, changing her shoes.'
George had a blister, and she had been
putting a strip of plaster on her heel. She came up when the boys arrived and
the cake was handed round. They sat in a circle, munching, while the sun
gradually went down in a blaze of red.
'Nice day tomorrow again,' said Julian.
'What shall we do?'
'We'll have to go to the farm first,' said
Dick. The farmer's wife said she'd let us have some more bread if we turned up
in the morning. And we could do with more eggs if we can get them. We took
eight hard-boiled ones with us today and we've only one or two left. And who's
eaten all the tomatoes, I'd like to know?'
'All of you,' said Anne at once. 'You're
perfect pigs over the tomatoes.'
'I'm afraid I'm one of the pigs,'
apologised Mr Luffy. 'I think you fried me six for my breakfast, Anne.'
'That's all right,' said Anne. 'You didn't
have as many as the others, even so! We can easily get some more.'
It was pleasant sitting there, eating and
talking, and drinking lime juice and stream water. They were all tired, and it
was nice to think of the cosy sleeping-bags. Timmy lifted his head and gave a
vast yawn, showing an enormous amount of teeth.
'Timmy! I could see right down to your tail
then!' said George.  You've made us all yawn.'
So he had. Even Mr Luffy was yawning. He
got up. 'Well, I'm going to turn in,' he said. 'Good night.
We'll make plans tomorrow morning. I'll
bring up some breakfast for you, if you like. I've got some tins of sardines.'
'Oh, thanks,' said Anne. 'And there's some
of this cake left. I hope you won't think that's too funny a breakfast, Mr
Luffy - sardines and fruit cake?'
'Not a bit. It sounds a most sensible
meal,' came Mr Luffy's voice from down the hillside. 'Good night!'
The children sat there a few minutes
longer. The sun went right out of sight. The wind grew a little chilly. Timmy
yawned enormously again.
'Come on,' said Julian. 'Time we turned in.
Thank goodness Timmy didn't come into our tent and walk all over me last night.
Good night, girls. It's going to be a heavenly night - but as I shall be asleep
in about two shakes of a duck's tail, I shan't see much of it!'
The girls went into their tent. They were
soon in their sleeping-bags. Just before they went to sleep Anne felt the
slight shivering of the earth that meant a train was running underground
somewhere. She could hear no rumbling sound. She fell asleep thinking ofit.
The boys were not asleep. They, too, had
felt the trembling of the earth beneath them, and it had reminded them of the
old railway yard.
'Funny about those spook-trains, Dick,'
said Julian, sleepily. 'Wonder if there is anything in it.'
'No. How could there be?' said Dick. 'All
the same we'll go to the farm tomorrow and have a chat with that boy. He lives
on the moors and he ought to know the truth.'
'The real truth is that Wooden-Leg Sam is
potty, and imagines all he says, and the old shepherd is ready to believe in
anything strange,' said Julian.
'I expect you're right,' said Dick. 'Oh my
goodness, what's that?'
A dark shape stood looking in at the
tent-flap. It gave a little whine.
'Oh, it's you, Timmy. Would you mind not
coming and pretending you're a spook-train or something?' said Dick.  Go away.'
Timmy put a paw on Julian. Julian yelled
out to George. 'George! Call this dog of yours, will you? He's just about to
turn himself round twenty times on my middle, and curl himself up for the night.'
There was no answer from George. Timmy,
feeling that he was not wanted, disappeared. He went back to George and curled
himself up on her feet. He put his nose down on his paws and slept.
'Spooky Timmy,' murmured Julian,
re-arranging himself. 'Timmy spooky - no, I mean - oh dear, what do I mean?'
'Shut up,' said Dick. 'What with you and
Timmy messing about, I can't get - to - sleep!' But he could and he did -
almost before he had finished speaking. Silence fell on the little camp, and
nobody noticed when the next train rumbled underground - not even Timmy!
6
Day at the farm
The next day the children were up very
early, as early as Mr Luffy, and they all had breakfast together. Mr Luffy had
a map of the moorlands, and he studied it carefully after breakfast.
'I think I'll go off for the whole day,' he
said to Julian, who was sitting beside him. 'See that little valley marked here
- Crowleg Vale - well, I have heard that there are some of the rarest beetles
in Britain to be found there. I think I'll take my gear and go along. What are
you four going to do?'
'Five,' said George at once. 'You've
forgotten Timmy.'
'So I have. I beg his pardon,' said Mr
Luffy, solemnly. 'Well - what are you going to do?'
'We'll go over to the farm and get more
food,' said Julian. 'And ask that farm-boy if he's heard the tale of the
spook-trains. And perhaps look round the farm and get to know the animals
there. I always like a farm.'
'Right,' said Mr Luffy, beginning to light
his pipe. 'Don't worry about me if I'm not back till dusk. When I'm bug-hunting
I lose count of the time.'
'You're sure you won't get lost?' said
Anne, anxiously. She didn't really feel that Mr Luffy could take proper care of
himself.
'Oh yes. My right ear always warns me if
I'm losing my way,' said Mr Luffy. 'It waggles hard.'
He waggled it at Anne and she laughed. '\
wish you'd tell me how you do that,' she said. 'I'm sure you know. You can't
think how thrilled the girls at school would be if I learnt that trick. They'd
think it was super.'
Mr Luffy grinned and got up. 'Well, so
long,' he said. 'I'm off before Anne makes me give her a lesson in
ear-waggles.'
He went off down the slope to his own tent.
George and Anne washed-up, while the boys tightened some tent ropes that had
come loose, and generally tidied up.
'I suppose it's quite all right leaving
everything unguarded like this,' said Anne, anxiously.
'Well, we did yesterday,' said Dick. 'And
who's likely to come and take anything up here in this wild and lonely spot,
I'd like to know? You don't imagine a spook-train will come along and bundle
everything into its luggage-van, do you, Anne?'
Anne giggled. 'Don't be silly. I just
wondered if we ought to leave Timmy on guard, that's all.'
'Leave Timmy!' said George, amazed. 'You
don't really think I'd leave Timmy behind every time we go off anywhere, Anne?
 'Well, I suppose nobody will come along here. Throw over that tea-cloth,
George, if you've finished with it.'
Soon the tea-cloths were hanging over the
gorse bushes to dry in the sun. Everything was put away neatly in the tents. Mr
Luffy had called a loud goodbye and gone. Now the five were ready to go off to
the farm.
Anne took a basket, and gave one to Julian
too. 'To bring back the food,' said she. 'Are you ready to go now?'
They set off over the heather, their knees
brushing through the honeyed flowers, and sending scores of busy bees into the
air. It was a lovely day again, and the children felt free and happy.
They came to the trim little farm. Men were
at work in the fields, but Julian did not think they were very industrious. He
looked about for the farm-boy.
The boy came out of a shed and whistled to
them. 'Hallo! You come for some more eggs? I've collected quite a lot for you.'
He stared at Anne. 'You didn't come
yesterday. What's your name?'
'Anne,' said Anne. 'What's yours?'
'Jock,' said the boy, with a grin. He was
rather a nice boy, Anne thought, with straw-coloured hair, blue eyes, and
rather a red face which looked very good-tempered.
'Where's your mother?' said Julian. 'Can we
get some bread and other things from her today? We ate an awful lot of our food
yesterday, and we want to stock up our larder again!'
'She's busy just now in the dairy,' said
Jock. 'Are you in a hurry? Come and see my pups.'
They all walked off with him to a shed. In
there, right at the end, was a big box lined with straw.  She growled at Timmy fiercely, and he backed
hurriedly out of the shed. He had met fierce mother-dogs before, and he didn't
like them!
 It cuddled into her arms and
made funny little whining noises.
'! wish it was mine,' said Anne. 'I should
call it Cuddle.'
'What a frightful name for a dog,' said
George scornfully. 'Just the kind of silly name you would think of, Anne. Let
me hold it. Are they all yours, Jock?'
'Yes,' said Jock, proudly. 'The mother's
mine, you see. Her name's Biddy.'
Biddy pricked up her ears at her name and
looked up at Jock out of bright, alert eyes. He fondled her silky head.
'I've had her for four years,' he said.
'When we were at Owl Farm, old Farmer Burrows gave her to me when she was eight
weeks old.'
'Oh - were you at another farm before this
one, then?' asked Anne. 'Have you always lived on a farm? Aren't you lucky!'
'I've only lived on two,' said Jock. 'Owl
Farm and this one. Mum and I had to leave Owl Farm when Dad died, and we went
to live in a town for a year. I hated that. I was glad when we came here.'
'But I thought your father was here!' said
Dick, puzzled.
'That's my stepfather,' said Jock. 'He's no
farmer, though!' He looked round and lowered his voice. 'He doesn't know much
about farming. It's my mother that tells the men what to do. Still, he gives her
plenty of money to do everything well, and we've got fine machinery and wagons
and things. Like to see the dairy? It's slap up-to-date and Mum loves working
in it.'
Jock took the four children to the shining,
spotless dairy. His mother was at work there with a girl. She nodded and smiled
at the children. 'Good morning! Hungry again? I'll pack you up plenty of food
when I've finished in the dairy. Would you like to stay and have dinner with my
Jock? He's lonely enough here
in the holidays, with no other boy to keep
him company.'
'Oh, yes - do let's!' cried Anne, in
delight. Td like that. Can we, Ju?'
'Yes. Thank you very much, Mrs - er - Mrs .
. .' said Julian.
Tm Mrs Andrews,' said Jock's mother. 'But
Jock is Jock Robins - he's the son of my first husband, a farmer. Well, stay to
dinner all of you, and I'll see if I can give you a meal that will keep you
going for the rest of the day!'
This sounded good. The four children felt
thrilled, and Timmy wagged his tail hard. He liked Mrs Andrews.
'Come on,' saidjqck, joyfully. Til take you
all round the farm, into every corner. It's not very big, but we're going to
make it the best little farm on the moorlands. My stepfather doesn't seem to
take much interest in the work of the farm, but he'sjolly generous when it
comes to handing out money to Mum to buy everything she wants.'
It certainly seemed to the children that
the machinery on the farm was absolutely up-to-date. They examined the combine,
they went into the little cowshed and admired the clean stone floor with white
brick walls, they climbed into the red-painted wagons, and they wished they
could try the two motor-tractors that stood side by side in a barn.
'You've got plenty of men here to work the
farm,' said Julian. 'I shouldn't have thought there was enough for so many to
do on this small place.'
'They're not good workers,' said Jock, his
face creasing into frowns. 'Mum's always getting wild with them. They just
don't know what to do. Dad gives her plenty of men to work the farm, but he
always chooses the wrong ones! They don't
seem to like farm-work, and they're always running off to the nearest town
whenever they can. There's only one good fellow and he's old. See him over
there? His name's Will.'
The
children looked at Will.  They
liked the look of him.
'Yes. He looks like a farm-worker,' said
Julian. 'The others don't.'
'He won't work with them,' said Jock. 'He
just says rude things to them, and calls them ninnies and idjits.'
'What's an idjit?' asked Anne.
 He walked up
to old Will. 'Good morning,' he said. 'You're very busy. There's always a lot
to do on a farm, isn't there?'
The old fellow looked at Dick out of his
very blue eyes, and went on with his work. 'Plenty to do and plenty of folk to
do it, and not much done,' he said, in a croaking kind of voice. 'Never thought
I'd be put to work with ninnies and idjits. Not ninnies and idjits!'
'There! What did I tell you?' said Jock,
with a grin. 'He's always calling the other men that, so wejust have to let him
work right away from them. Still, I must say he's about right - most of the
fellows here don't know the first thing about work on a farm. I wish my
stepfather would let us have a few proper workers instead of these fellows.'
'Where's your stepfather?' said Julian,
thinking he must be rather peculiar to pour money into a little moorland farm
like this, and yet choose the wrong kind of workers.
'He's away for the day,' said Jock. 'Thank
goodness!' he added, with a sideways look at the others.
'Why? Don't you like him?' asked Dick.
'He's all right,' said Jock. 'But he's not
a farmer, though he makes out he's always wanted to be - and what's more he
doesn't like me one bit. I try to like him for Mum's sake. But I'm always glad
when he's out of the way.'
'Your mother's nice,' said George.
'Oh,
yes - Mum's grand,' said Jock. 'You don't know what it means to her to have a
little farm of her ; own again, and to
be able to run it with the proper machinery and all.'
They came to a large barn. The door was
locked.  'Lorries! You can peek
through that hole here at them. Don't know why my stepfather wanted to buy up
so many, but I suppose he got them cheap - he loves to get things cheap and
sell them dear! He did say they'd be useful on the farm, to take goods to the
market.' i
'Yes - you told us that when we were here
yesterday, ' said Dick. 'But you've got heaps of wagons for that!'
'Yes. I reckon they weren't bought for the
farm at all, but for holding here till prices went high and he I could make a lot of money,' said Jock,
lowering his voice. 'I don't tell Mum that. So long as she gets what she wants
for the farm, I'm going to hold my tongue.'
i
The children were very interested in all
this. They wished they could see Mr Andrews. He must be a peculiar sort of
fellow, they thought. Anne tried to |
imagine what he was like.
'Big and tall and dark and frowny,' she
thought. 'Rather frightening and impatient, and he certainly won't like
children. People like that never do.' >
They spent a very pleasant morning poking
about \ the little farm. They went back
to see Biddy the collie [
and her pups. Timmy stood patiently outside
the shed, with his tail down. He didn't like George to take so much interest in
other dogs.
A bell rang loudly. 'Good! Dinner!' said
Jock. 'We'd better wash. We're all filthy. Hope you feel hungry, because I
guess Mum's got a super dinner for us.'
'I feel terribly hungry,' said Anne. 'It
seems ages since we had breakfast. I've almost forgotten it!'
They all felt the same. They went into the
farmhouse and were surprised to find a very nice little bathroom to wash in.
Mrs Andrews was there, putting out a clean roller towel.
'Fine little bathroom, isn't it?' she said.
'My husband had it put in for me. First proper bathroom I've ever had!'
A glorious smell rose up from the kitchen
downstairs. 'Come on!' said Jock, seizing the soap. 'Let's hurry. We'll be down
in a minute, Mum!'
And they were. Nobody was going to dawdle
over washing when a grand meal lay waiting for them downstairs!
7
Mr Andrews comes home
They all sat down to dinner. There was a
big meat-pie, a cold ham, salad, potatoes in their jackets, and homemade
pickles. It really was difficult to know what to choose.
'Have some of both,' said Mrs Andrews,
cutting the meat-pie. 'Begin with the pie and go on with the ham. That's the
best of living on a farm, you know - you do get plenty to eat.'
After the first course there were plums and
thick cream, or jam tarts and the same cream. Everyone tucked in hungrily.
'I've never had such a lovely dinner in my
life,' said Anne, at last. 'I wish I could eat some more but I can't. It was
super, Mrs Andrews.'
'Smashing,' said Dick. That was his
favourite word these holidays. 'Absolutely smashing.'
'Woof,' said Timmy, agreeing. He had had a
fine plateful of meaty bones, biscuits and gravy, and he had licked up every
crumb and every drop. Now he felt he would like to have a snooze in the sun and
not do a thing for the rest of the day.
The children felt rather like that, too.
Mrs Andrews handed them a chocolate each and sent them out of doors. 'You go
and have a rest now,' she said. 'Talk to Jock. He doesn't get enough company of
his own age in the holidays. You can stay on to tea, if you like.'
'Oh, thanks,' said everyone, although they
all felt
that they wouldn't even be able to manage a
biscuit. But it was so pleasant at the farm that they felt they would like to
stay as long as they could.
'May we borrow one of Biddy's puppies to
have with us?' asked Anne.
'If Biddy doesn't mind,' said Mrs Andrews,
beginning to clear away. 'And if Timmy doesn't eat it up!'
'Timmy wouldn't dream of it!' said George
at once. 'You go and get the puppy, Anne. We'll find a nice place in the sun.'
Anne went off to get the puppy. Biddy
didn't seem to mind a bit. Anne cuddled the fat little thing against her, and
went off to the others, feeling very happy. The boys had found a fine place
against a haystack, and sat leaning against it, the sun shining down warmly on
them.
'Those men of yours seem to take a jolly
good lunch-hour off,' said Julian, not seeing any of them about.
Jock gave a snort. 'They're bone lazy. I'd
sack the lot if I were my stepfather. Mum's told him how badly the men work,
but he doesn't say a word to them. I've given up bothering. I don't pay their
wages - if I did, I'd sack the whole lot!'
'Let's ask Jock about the spook-trains,'
said George, fondling Timmy's ears. 'It would be fun to talk about them.'
'Spook-trains? Whatever are they?' asked
Jock, his eyes wide with surprise. 'Never heard of them!'
'Haven't you really?' asked Dick. 'Well,
you don't live very far from them, Jock!'
'Tell me about them,' said Jock.
'Spook-trains - no, I've never heard of one of those.'
'Well, I'll tell you what we know,' said
Julian. 'Actually we thought you'd be able to tell us much
more about them than we know ourselves.'
He began to tell Jock about their visit to
the deserted railway yard, and Wooden-Leg Sam, and his peculiar behaviour. Jock
listened, enthralled.
'Coo! I wish I'd been with you. Let's all
go there together, shall we?' he said. 'This was quite an adventure you had,
wasn't it?  Have you?'
The four children looked at one another,
and Timmy looked at George. Adventures! What didn't they know about them? They
had had so many.
'Yes. We've had heaps of adventures - real
ones -smashing ones,' said Dick. 'We've been down in dungeons, we've been lost
in caves, we've found secret passages, we've looked for treasure - well, I
can't tell you what we've done! It would take too long.'
'No, it wouldn't,' said Jock eagerly. 'You
tell me. Go on. Did you all have the adventures? Little Anne, here, too?'
'Yes, all of us,' said George. 'And Timmy
as well. He rescued us heaps of times from danger. Didn't you,
T1" "l>
Tim?
'Woof, woof,' said Timmy, and thumped his
tail against the hay.
They began to tell Jock about their many
adventures. He was a very, very good listener. His eyes almost fell out of his
head, and he went brick-red whenever they came to an exciting part.
'My word!' he said at last. 'I've never
heard such things in my life before. Aren't you lucky? You just go about having
adventures all the time, don't you? I say -do you think you'll have one here,
these hols?'
Julian laughed. 'No. Whatever kind of
adventure would there be on these lonely moorlands? Why, you
yourself have lived here for three years,
and haven't even had a tiny adventure.'
Jock sighed. That's true. I haven't.' Then
his eyes brightened again. 'But see here - what about those spook-trains you've
been asking me about? Perhaps you'll have an adventure with those?'
'Oh, no, I don't want to,' said Anne, in a
horrified voice. 'An adventure with spook-trains would be simply horrid.'
'I'd like to go down to that old railway
yard with you and see Wooden-Leg Sam,' said Jock longingly. 'Why, that would be
a real adventure to me, you know -just talking to a funny old man like that,
and wondering if he was suddenly going to throw cinders at us. Take me with you
next time you go.'
'Well -1 don't know that we meant to go
again,' said Julian. 'There's really nothing much in his story except
imagination - the old watchman's gone peculiar in the head through being alone
there so much, guarding a yard where nothing and nobody ever comes. He's just
remembering the trains that used to go in and out before the line was given
up.'
'But the shepherd said the same as Sam,'
said Jock. 'I say - what about going down there one night and watching for a
spook-train!'
'NO!'
said Anne, in horror.
'You needn't come,' said Jock. 'Just us
three boys.'
'And me,' said George at once. 'I'm as good
as any boy, and I'm not going to be left out. Timmy's coming, too.'
'Oh, please don't make these awful plans,'
begged poor Anne.
Nobody took the least notice of her. Julian
looked at Jock's excited face. 'Well,' he said, 'if we do go there
again, we'll tell you. And if we think
we'll go watching for spook-trains, we'll take you with us.'
Jock looked as if he could hug Julian.
'That would be terrific,' he said. 'Thanks a lot. Spook-trains! I say, just
suppose we really did see one! Who'd be driving it? Where would it come from?'
'Out of the tunnel, Wooden-Leg Sam says,'
said Dick. 'But I don't see how we'd spot it, except by the noise it made,
because apparently the spook-trains only arrive in the dark of the night. Never
in the daytime. We wouldn't see much, even if we were there.'
It was such an exciting subject to Jock
that he persisted in talking about it all the afternoon. Anne got tired of
listening, and went to sleep with Biddy's puppy in her arms. Timmy curled up by
George and went to sleep too. He wanted to go for a walk, but he could see that
there was no hope with all this talking going on.
It was tea-time before any of them had
expected it. The bell rang, and Jock looked most surprised.
'Tea! Would you believe it? Well, I have
had an exciting afternoon talking about all this. And look here, if you don't
make up your minds to go spook-train hunting I'll jolly well go off by myself.
If only I could have an adventure like the kind you've had, I'd be happy.'
They went in to tea, after waking Anne up
with difficulty. She took the puppy back to Biddy, who received it gladly and
licked it all over.
Julian was surprised to find that he was
quite hungry again. 'Well,' he said, as he sat down at the table, 'I didn't
imagine I'd feel hungry again for a week - but I do. What a marvellous tea, Mrs
Andrews. Isn't Jock lucky to have meals like this always!'
There were home-made scones with new honey.
There were slices of bread thickly spread with butter, and new-made cream
cheese to go with it. There was sticky brown gingerbread, hot from the oven,
and a big solid fruit cake that looked almost like a plum pudding when it was
cut, it was so black.
'Oh dear! I wish now I hadn't had so much
dinner,' sighed Anne.
Mrs Andrews laughed. 'You eat what you can,
and I'll give you some to take away, too,' she said. 'You can have some cream
cheese, and the scones and honey - and some of the bread I made this morning.
And maybe you'd like a slab of the gingerbread. I made plenty.'
'Oh, thanks,' said Julian. 'We'll be all
right tomorrow with all that.  I wish I
lived on your farm.'
There was the sound of a car coming slowly
up the rough track to the farmhouse, and Mrs Andrews looked up. 'That's Mr
Andrews come back,' she said. 'My husband, you know, Jock's stepfather.'
Julian thought she looked a little worried.
Perhaps Mr Andrews didn't like children and wouldn't be pleased to see them
sitting round his table when he came home tired.
'Would you like us to go, Mrs Andrews?' he
asked politely. 'Perhaps Mr Andrews would like a bit of peace for his meal when
he comes in - and we're rather a crowd, aren't we?'
 'No, you can
stay. I'll get him a meal in the other room if he'd like it.'
Mr Andrews came in. He wasn't in the least
like Anne or the others had imagined him to be. He was a short, dark little
man, with a weak face and a nose
much too big for it. He looked harassed and
bad-tempered, and stopped short when he saw the five children.
'Hallo, dear,' said Mrs Andrews. 'Jock's
got his friends here today. Would you like a bit of tea in your room? I can
easily put a tray there.'
'Well,' said Mr Andrews, smiling a watery
kind of smile, 'perhaps it would be best. I've had a worrying kind of day, and
not much to eat.'
Til get you a tray of ham and pickles and
bread,' said his wife. 'It won't take a minute. You go and wash.'
Mr Andrews went out.  She had imagined someone big
and burly, strong and clever, who was always going about doing grand deals and
making a lot of money. Well, he must be cleverer than he looked, to make enough
money to give Mrs Andrews all she.needed for her farm.
Mrs Andrews bustled about with this and
that, laying a tray with a snow-white cloth, and plates of food. Mr Andrews
could be heard in the bathroom, splashing as he washed. Then he came downstairs
and put his head in at the door. 'My meal ready?' he asked. 'Well, Jock - had a
good day?'
'Yes, thanks,' said Jock, as his stepfather
took the tray from his mother and turned to go. 'We went all round the farm
this morning - and we talked and talked this afternoon. And oh, I say - do you
know anything about spook-trains, sir?'
Mr Andrews was just going out of the door.
He turned in surprise. 'Spook-trains? What are you talking about?'
'Well, Julian says there's an old deserted
railway yard a good way from here, and spook-trains are supposed to come out of
the tunnel there in the dark of
night,' said Jock. 'Have you heard of
them?'
Mr Andrews stood stock still, his eyes on
his stepson. He looked dismayed and shocked.
'I'll have my tea here after all,' he said.
'Well, to think you've heard of those spook-trains! I've been careful not to
mention them to your mother or to you, Jock, for fear of scaring you!'
'Gee!' said Dick. 'Are they really true
then? They can't be.'
'You tell me all you know, and how you know
about it,' said Mr Andrews, sitting down at the table with his tray. 'Go on.
Don't miss out a thing. I want to hear everything.'
Julian hesitated. 'Oh - there's nothing
really to tell, sir -just a lot of nonsense.'
'You tell it me!' almost shouted Mr
Andrews. 'Then I'll tell you a few things.  He repeated some of his words
again.
'Go on! You tell me all you know. And then
I'll tell you!'
Julian decided to tell, very shortly, what
had happened at the old railway yard, and what Wooden-Leg Sam had said. He made
the tale sound rather bald and dull. Mr Andrews listened to it with the
greatest interest, never once taking his eyes off Julian.
Then he sat back and drank a whole cup of
strong tea in one gulp. The children waited for him to speak, wondering what he
had to say.
'Now,' he said, making his voice sound
important and impressive, 'you listen to me. Don't any of you ever go down to
that yard again. It's a bad place.'
'Why?' asked Julian. 'What do you mean - a
bad place?'
'Things have happened there - years and
years ago,' said Mr Andrews. 'Bad things. Accidents. It was all shut up after
that and the tunnel wasn't used any more. See? Nobody was allowed to go there,
and nobody did, because they were scared. They knew it was a bad place, where
bad things happen.'
Anne felt frightened. 'But Mr Andrews - you
don't mean there really are spook-trains, do you?' she asked, her face rather
pale.
Mr Andrews pursed up his lips and nodded
very solemnly indeed. 'That's just what I do mean. Spook-trains come and go.
Nobody knows why. But it's bad luck to be there when they come. They might take
you away, see?'
Julian laughed. 'Oh - not as bad as that,
sir, surely! Anyway, you're frightening Anne, so let's change the subject. I
don't believe in spook-trains.'
But Mr Andrews didn't seem to want to stop
talking about the trains. 'Wooden-Leg Sam was right to hide himself when they
come along,' he said. 'I don't know how he manages to stay on in a bad place
like that. Never knowing when a train is going to come creeping out of that
tunnel in the darkness.'
Julian was not going to have Anne
frightened any more. He got up from the table and turned to Mrs Andrews.
'Thank you very much for a lovely day and
lovely food!' he said. 'We must go now. Come along, Anne.'
'Wait a minute,' said Mr Andrews. 'I just
want to warn you all very solemnly that you mustn't go down to that railway
yard. You hear me, Jock? You might never come back. Old Wooden-Leg Sam's mad,
and well he may be, with spook-trains coming along in the dead of night. It's a
bad and dangerous place. You're not to go near it!'
'Well - thank you for the warning, sir,'
said Julian, politely, suddenly disliking the small man with the big nose very
much indeed. 'We'll be going. Goodbye, Mrs Andrews. Good-bye, Jock. Come along
tomorrow and have a picnic with us, will you?'
'Oh, thanks! Yes, I will,' said Jock. 'But
wait a minute - aren't you going to take any food with you?'
'Yes, of course they are,' said Mrs
Andrews, getting up from her chair. She had been listening to the
conversation with a look of puzzled wonder
on her face. She went out into the scullery, where there was a big, cold
larder. Julian followed her. He carried the two baskets.
Til give you plenty,' said Mrs Andrews,
putting loaves, butter, and cream cheese into the baskets. 'I know what
appetites you youngsters get. Now don't you be too scared at what my husband's
just been saying - I saw that little Anne was frightened. I've never heard of
the spook-trains, and I've been here for three years. I don't reckon there's
much in the tale, you know, for all my husband's so set on warning you not to
go down to the yard.'
Julian said nothing. He thought that Mr
Andrews had behaved rather oddly about the whole story. Was he one of the kind
of people who believed in all sorts of silly things and got scared himself? He
looked weak enough! Julian found himself wondering how a nice woman like Mrs
Andrews could have married such a poor specimen of a man. Still, he was a
generous fellow, judging by all Jock had said, and perhaps Jock's mother felt
grateful to him for giving her the farm and the money to run it with. That must
be it.
Julian thanked Mrs Andrews, and insisted on
paying her, though she would have given him the food for nothing. She came into
the kitchen with him and he saw that the others had already gone outside. Only
Mr Andrews was left, eating ham and pickles.
'Good-bye, sir,' said Julian politely.
'Good-bye. And you remember what I've told
you, boy,' said Mr Andrews. 'Bad luck comes to people who see the spook-trains
- yes, terrible bad luck. You keep away from them.'
Julian gave a polite smile and went out. It
was evening now and the sun was setting behind the
moorland hills, though it still had a long
way to go before it disappeared. He caught up with the others. Jock was with
them.
'I'm just coming half-way with you,' said
Jock. 'I say! My stepfather was pretty scary about those trains, wasn't he?'
'I felt pretty scary too, when he was
warning us about them,' said Anne. 'I shan't go down to that yard again, ever.
Will you, George?'
'If the boys did, I would,' said George,
who didn't look very much as if she wanted to, all the same.
'Are you going to the yard again?' asked
Jock, eagerly. 'I'm not scared. Not a bit. It would be an adventure to go and
watch for a spook-train.'
'We might go,' said Julian. 'We'll take you
with us, if we do. But the girls aren't to come.'
'Well, I like that!' said George angrily.
'As if you could leave me behind! When have I been scared of anything? I'm as
brave as any of you.'
'Yes. I know. You can come as soon as we
find out it's all a silly story,' said Julian.
'I shall come whenever you go,' flashed
back George. 'Don't you dare to leave me out. I'll never speak to you again if
you do.'
Jock looked most surprised at this sudden
flare-up of temper from George. He didn't know how fierce she could be!
'I don't see why George shouldn't come,' he
said. 'I bet she'd be every bit as good as a boy. I thought she was one when I
first saw her.'
George gave him one of her sweetest smiles.
He couldn't have said anything she liked better! But Julian would not change
his mind.
'I mean what I say. The girls won't come if
we do go, so that's that. For one thing, Anne certainly
wouldn't want to come, and if George came
without her she'd be left all alone up at the camp. She wouldn't like that.'
'She could have Mr Luffy's company,' said
George, looking sulky again.
'Idiot! As if we'd want to tell Mr'Luffy we
were going off exploring deserted railway yards watched over by a mad,
one-legged fellow who swears there are spook-trains!' said Julian. 'He'd stop
us going. You know what grown-ups are like. Or he'd come with us, which would
be worse.'
'Yes. He'd see moths all the time, not
spook-trains,' said Dick, with a grin.
'I'd better go back now,' said Jock. 'It's
been a grand day. I'll come up tomorrow and picnic with you. Good-bye.'
They called good-bye to Jock, and went on
their way to the camp. It was quite nice to see it again, waiting for them, the
two tents flapping a little in the breeze. Anne pushed her way through the
tent-flap, anxious to see that everything was untouched.
Inside the tent it was very hot. Anne
decided to put the food they had brought under the bottom of the big gorse
bush. It would be cooler there. She was soon busy about her little jobs. The
boys went down to see if Mr Luffy was back, but he wasn't.
'Anne! We're going to bathe in the stream!'
they called. 'We feel hot and dirty. Are you coming? George is coming too.'
'No, I won't come,' Anne called back. 'I've
got lots of things to do.'
The boys grinned at one another. Anne did
so enjoy 'playing house'. So they left her to it, and went to the stream, from
which yells and howls and shrieks soon came. The water was colder than they
expected, and
nobody liked to lie down in it - but
everyone was well and truly splashed, and the icy-cold drops falling on their
hot bodies made them squeal and yell. Timmy didn't in the least mind the
iciness of the water. He rolled over and over in it, enjoying himself.
'Look at him, showing off!' said Dick.
'Aha, Timmy, if I could bathe in a fur coat like you, I wouldn't mind the cold
water either.'
'Woof,' said Timmy, and climbed up the
shallow bank. He shook himself violently and thousands of icy-cold silvery
drops flew from him and landed on the three shivering children. They yelled and
chased him away.
It was a pleasant, lazy evening. Mr Luffy
didn't appear at all. Anne got a light meal of bread and cream cheese and a
piece of gingerbread. Nobody felt like facing another big meal that day. They
lay in the heather and talked comfortably.
'This is the kind of holiday I like,' said
Dick.
'So do I,' said Anne. 'Except for the
spook-trains. That's spoilt it a bit for me.'
'Don't be silly, Anne,' said George. 'If
they are not real it's just a silly story, and if they are real, well, it might
be an adventure.'
There was a little silence. 'Are we going
down to the yard again?' asked Dick lazily.
'Yes, I think so,' said Julian. 'I'm not
going to be scared off it by weird warnings from Pa Andrews.'
'Then I vote we go one night and wait to
see if a spook-train does come along,' said Dick.
'I shall come too,' said George.
'No, you won't,' said Julian. 'You'll stay
with Anne.'
George said nothing, but everyone could
feel mutiny in the air.
'Do we tell Mr Luffy, or don't we?' said
Dick.
'You know we've said we wouldn't,' said
Julian. He yawned. 'I'm getting sleepy. And the sun has gone, so it will soon
be dark. I wonder where old Luffy is?'
'Do you think I'd better wait up and see if
he wants something to eat?' said Anne, anxiously.
'No. Not unless you want to keep awake till
midnight!' said Julian. 'He'll have got some food down in his tent. He'll be
all right. I'm going to turn in. Coming, Dick?'
The boys were soon in their sleeping-bags.
The girls lay in the heather for a little while longer, listening to the
lonely-sounding cry of the curlews going home in the dusk. Then they, too, went
into their own tent.
Once safely in their sleeping-bags, the two
boys felt suddenly wide awake. They began to talk in low voices.
'Shall we take Jock down to see the yard in
the daytime? Or shall we go one night and watch for the Train from Nowhere?'
said Julian.
'I vote we go and watch at night,' said
Dick. 'We'll never see a spook-train in the daytime. Wooden-Leg Sam is an
interesting old chap, especially when he chucks cinders about - but I don't
know that I like him enough to go and visit him again!'
'Well - if Jock badly wants to go and have
a snoop round tomorrow morning when he comes, we'd better take him,' said
Julian. 'We can always go one night, too, if we want to.'
'Right. We'll wait and see what Jock says,'
said Dick. They talked a little longer and then felt sleepy. Dick was just
dropping off when he heard something coming wriggling through the heather. A
head was stuck through the opening of the tent.
   Do you hear?'
The head in the opening moved a little but
didn't go away. Dick raised himself up on one elbow.
'Put one paw inside my tent and you'll be
sent rolling down the hill!' he said. 'I love you very much in the daytime, but
I'm not fond of you at night - not when I'm in a sleeping-bag anyway. Scoot!'
The head made a peculiar apologetic sound.
Then it spoke. 'Er - you're awake, I see. Are all of you all right - the girls
too? I'm only just back.'
'Gosh! It's Mr Luffy,' said Dick, filled
with horror. 'I say, sir - I'm most awfully sorry - I thought you were Timmy,
come to flop himself down on top of me, like he often does. So sorry, sir.'
'Don't mention it!' said the shadowy head
with a chuckle. 'Glad you're all right. See you tomorrow!'
9
Night visitor
Mr Luffy slept very late the next morning
and nobody liked to disturb him. The girls yelled with laughter when they heard
how Dick had spoken to him the night before, thinking he was Timmy the dog.
'He was very decent about it,' said Dick.
'Seemed to think it was quite amusing. I hope he'll still think so this morning!'
They were all sitting eating their
breakfast - ham, tomatoes, and the bread Mrs Andrews had given them the day
before. Timmy collected the bits as usual, and wondered if George would let him
have a lick of the cream cheese she was now putting on her bread. Timmy loved
cheese. He looked at the lump in the dish and sighed all over George. He could
easily eat that in one mouthful! How he wished he could.
'I wonder what time Jock will come up,'
said George. 'If he came up pretty soon, we could go for a nice long walk over
the moors, and picnic somewhere. Jock ought to know some fine walks.'
'Yes. We'll mess about till he comes, and
then tell him he's to be our guide and take us to the nicest walk he knows,'
said Anne. 'Oh Timmy, you beast -you've taken my nice lump of cream cheese
right out of my fingers!'
'Well, you were waving it about under his
nose, so what could you expect?' said George. 'He thought you were giving it to
him.'
'Well, he §han't have any more. It's too
precious,' said Anne. 'Oh, dear -1 wish we didn't eat so much. We keep bringing
in stacks of food, and it hardly lasts any time.'
'I bet Jock will bring some more,' said
Dick. 'He's a sensible sort of fellow. Did you get a peep into that enormous
larder of his mother's? It's like a great cave, goes right back into the wall,
with dozens of stone shelves - and all filled with food. No wonder Jock's
tubby.'
'Is he? I never noticed,' said Anne. 'Is
that him whistling?'
It wasn't. It was a curlew, very high up.
'Too early for him yet,' said Julian. 'Shall we help you to clear up, Anne?'
'No. That's my job and George's,' said Anne
firmly. 'You go down and see if Mr Luffy is awake. He can have a bit of ham and
a few tomatoes, if he likes.'
They went down to Mr Luffy's tent. He was
awake, sitting at the entrance, eating some kind of breakfast. He waved a
sandwich at them.
'Hallo, there! I'm late this morning. I had
a job getting back. I went much too far. Sorry I woke you up last night, Dick.'
'You
didn't. I wasn't asleep,' said Dick, going rather red. 'Did you have a good
day, Mr Luffy?'
'Bit disappointing. Didn't find quite all
the creatures I'd hoped,' said Mr Luffy. 'What about you? Did you have a good
day?'
'Fine,' said Dick, and described it. Mr
Luffy seemed very interested in everything, even in Mr Andrews's rather
frightening warning about the railway yard.
'Silly chap he sounds,' said Mr Luffy,
shaking the crumbs off his front. 'All the same - I should keep away from the yard,
if I were you. Stories don't get
about for nothing, you know. No smoke
without fire!'
'Why, sir - surely you don't believe
there's anything spooky about the trains there?' said Dick, in surprise.
'Oh, no - I doubt if there are any trains,'
said Mr Luffy. 'But when a place has got a bad name it's usually best to keep
away from it.'
'I suppose so, sir,' said Dick and Julian
together. Then they hastily changed the subject, afraid that Mr Luffy, like Mr
Andrews, might also be going to forbid them to visit the railway yard. And the
more they were warned about it and forbidden to go, the more they felt that
they really must!
'Well, we must get back,' said Dick.  Are you going out, too,
sir?'
'Not today,' said Mr Luffy. 'My legs are
tired and stiff with so much scrambling about yesterday, and I want to mount
some of the specimens I found. Also I'd like to meet your farm friend - what's
his name -Jock?'
'Yes, sir,' said Julian. 'Right. We'll
bring him along as soon as he comes, then off we'll go. You'll be left in peace
all day!'
But Jock didn't come. The children waited
for him all the morning and he didn't turn up.
'Funny,' said Julian. 'He knows where the
camp is, because we pointed it out to him when he came half-way home with us
yesterday. Perhaps he'll come this afternoon.'
But he didn't come in the afternoon either,
nor did
he come after tea. Julian debated whether
or not to go and see what was up, but decided against it. There must be some
good reason why Jock hadn't come, and Mrs Andrews wouldn't want them all
visiting her two days running.
It was a disappointing day. They didn't
like to leave the tents and go for even a short stroll in case Jock came. Mr
Luffy was busy all day long with his specimens. He was sorry Jock had
disappointed them. 'He'll come tomorrow,' he said. 'Have you got enough food?
There's some in that tin over there if you want it.'
'Oh, no, thank you, sir,' said Julian.
'We've plenty really. We're going to have a game of cards. Like to join us?'
'Yes, I think I will,' said Mr Luffy,
getting up and stretching himself. 'Can you play rummy?'
They could - and they beat poor Mr Luffy
handsomely, because he couldn't play at all. He blamed his luck on his bad
cards, but he enjoyed the game immensely. He said the only thing that really
put him off was the way that Timmy stood behind him and breathed down his neck
all the time.
'I kept feeling certain that Timmy thought
he knew how to play my cards better than I could,' he complained. 'And whenever
I did something wrong, he breathed down my neck harder than usual.'
Everyone laughed, and George privately
thought that Timmy would probably play very much better than Mr Luffy if only
he could hold the cards.
Jock didn't come at all. They put the cards
away when they could no longer see them, and Mr Luffy announced that he was
going to bed. 'It was very late when I got back last night,' he said. 'I really
must have an early night.'
The others thought they would go to bed
too. The thought of their cosy sleeping-bags was always a nice one when
darkness came on.
The,girls crept into their bags and Timmy
flopped down on George. The boys were in their bags about the same time and
Dick gave a loud yawn.
'Good night, Ju,' he said, and fell fast
asleep. Julian was soon asleep too. In fact, everyone was sound asleep when
Timmy gave a little growl. It was such a small growl that neither of the girls
heard it, and certainly Dick and Julian didn't, away in their tent.
Timmy raised his head and listened
intently. Then he gave another small growl. He listened again. Finally he got
up, shook himself, still without waking George, and stalked out of the tent,
his ears cocked and his tail up. He had heard somebody or something, and
although he thought it was all right, he was going to make sure.
Dick was sound asleep when he felt
something brushing against the outside of his tent. He awoke at once and sat
up. He looked at the tent opening. A shadow appeared there and looked in.
Was it Timmy? Was it Mr Luffy? He mustn't
make a mistake this time. He waited for the shadow to speak. But it didn't! It
just stayed there as if it were listening for some movement inside the tent.
Dick didn't like it.
'Timmy!' he said at last, in a low voice.
Then the shadow spoke: 'Dick? Or is it
Julian? It's Jock here. I've got Timmy beside me. Can I come in?'
'Jockl' said Dick, in surprise. 'Whatever
have you come at this time of night for? And why didn't you come today? We
waited ages for you.'
'Yes. I know I'm awfully sorry,' said
Jock's voice, and the boy wriggled himself into the tent. Dick poked Julian
awake.
'Julian! Here's Jock - and Timmy.  Here, Jock, see if you can squeeze inside my sleeping-bag - there's
room for us both, I think.'
'Oh, thanks,' said Jock, and squeezed
inside with difficulty. 'How warm it is! I say, I'm terribly sorry I didn't
come today - but my stepfather suddenly announced he wanted me to go somewhere
with him for the whole day. Can't think why. He doesn't bother about me as a
rule.'
'That was mean of him, seeing that he knew
you were to come on a picnic with us,' said Julian. 'Was it something
important?'
'No. Not at all,' said Jock. 'He drove off
to Endersfield - that's about forty miles away - parked me in the public
library there, saying he'd be back in a few minutes - and he didn't come back
till past tea-time! I had some sandwiches with me, luckily. I felt pretty angry
about it, I can tell you.'
'Never mind. Come tomorrow instead,' said
Dick.
'I can't,' said Jock in despair. 'He's gone
and arranged for me to meet the son of some friend of his-a boy called Cecil
Dearlove - what a name! I'm to spend the day with this frightful boy. The worst
of it is Mum's quite pleased about it. She never thinks my stepfather takes
enough notice of me - good thing he doesn't, /think.'
'Oh blow - so you won't be able to come
tomorrow either,' said Julian. 'Well - what about the next day?'
'It should be all right,' said Jock. 'But
I've feeling I'll have dear love of a Cecil plonked on me for the day - to show
him the cows and the puppies, dear pet! Ugh! When I could be with you four and
Timmy.'
'It's bad luck,' said Julian. 'It really
is.'
'I thought I'd better come and tell you,'
said Jock. 'It's the first chance I've had, creeping up here tonight.
I've brought some more food for you, by the
way. I guessed you'd want some. I feel down in the dumps about that adventure -
you know, going to see the railway yard. I was going to ask you to take me
today.'
'Well - if you can't come tomorrow either -
and perhaps not the next day - what about going one night?' said Dick. 'Would
you like to come up tomorrow night, about this time? We won't tell the girls.
We'll just go off by ourselves, we three boys - and watch!'
Jock was too thrilled to say a word. He let
out a deep breath of joy. Dick laughed.
'Don't get too thrilled. We probably shan't
see a thing. Bring a torch if you've got one.
I'll probably be awake, but if I'm not, that'll wake me all right! And don't
say a word to anyone of course.'
'Rather not, 'said Jock, overjoyed. 'Well
-1 suppose I'd better be going. It was pretty weird coming over the moorland in
the dark. There's no moon, and the stars don't give much light. I've left the
food outside the tent. Better look out that Timmy doesn't get it.'
'Right. Thanks awfully,' said Julian. Jock
got out of Dick's sleeping-bag and went backwards out of the tent, with Timmy
obligingly licking his nose all the way. Jock then found the bag of food and
rolled it in to Julian, who put it safely under the groundsheet.
'Good night,' said Jock, in a low voice,
and they heard him scrambling over the heather. Timmy went with him, pleased at
this unexpected visitor, and the chance of a midnight walk. Jock was glad to
have the dog's company. Timmy went right to the farm with him and then bounded
back over the moorland to the camping-place, longing to pounce on the rabbits
he
could smell here and there, but wanting to
get back to George.
In the morning Anne was amazed to find the
food in her 'larder' under the gorse bush. Julian had popped it there to
surprise her. 'Look at this!' she cried, in astonishment. 'Meat-pies - more
tomatoes - eggs, wherever did they come from?'
'Spook-train brought them in the night,'
said Dick, with a grin.
'Volcano shot them up into the air,' said
Mr Luffy, who was also there. Anne threw a tea-cloth at him.
'Tell me how it came here,' she demanded.
'I was worried about what to give you all for breakfast - and now there's more
than we can possibly eat. Who put it there? George, do you know?'
But George didn't. She glanced at the
smiling faces of the two boys. 'I bet Jock was here last night,' she said to
them. 'Wasn't he?' And to herself she said: 'Yes - and somehow I think they've
planned something together.  I'll be on the
lookout from now on! Wherever you go, I go too!'
10
Hunt for a spook-train
That day passed pleasantly enough. The
children, Timmy, and Mr Luffy all went off to a pool high up on the moorlands.
It was called The Green Pool' because of its cucumber-green colour. Mr Luffy
explained that some curious chemicals found there caused the water to look
green.
'I hope we shan't come out looking green,
too,' said Dick, getting into his bathing trunks. 'Are you going to bathe, Mr
Luffy?'
Mr Luffy was. The children expected him to
be a very poor swimmer and to splash about at the edge and do very little- but
to their surprise he was magnificent in the water, and could swim faster even
than Julian.
They had great fun, and when they were
tired they came out to bask in the sun. The highroad ran alongside the green
pool, and the children watched a herd of sheep being driven along, then a car
or two came by, and finally a big army lorry. A boy sat beside the driver, and
to the children's surprise he waved wildly at them.
'Who was that?' said Julian astonished.
'Surely he doesn't know us?'
George's sharp eye had seen who it was. 'It
was Jock! Sitting beside the driver. And, look, here comes his stepfather's
fine new car. Jock's preferred to go with the lorry-driver instead of his
stepfather! I don't blame him, either!'
The bright new car came by, driven by Mr
Andrews. He didn't glance at the children by the wayside, but drove steadily on
after the lorry.
'Going to market, I suppose,' said Dick,
lying back again. 'Wonder what they're taking?'
'So do I,' said Mr Luffy. 'He must sell his
farm produce at very high prices to be able to buy that fine car and all the
machinery and gear you've told me about. Clever fellow, Mr Andrews!'
'He doesn't look at all clever,' said Anne.
'He looks rather a weak, feeble sort of man, really, Mr Luffy. I can't even
imagine him being clever enough to beat anyone down, or get the better of
them.'
'Very interesting,' said Mr Luffy. 'Well,
what about another dip before we have our dinner?'
It was a very nice day, and Mr Luffy was
very good company. He could make fine jokes very solemnly indeed, and only the
fact that his ear waggled violently showed the others that he too, was enjoying
the joke. His right ear seemed to love to join in the joke, even if Mr Luffy's
face was as solemn as Timmy's.
They arrived home at the camp about
tea-time and Anne got a fine tea ready.  As the evening came on Julian and Dick felt excitement rising in
them. In the daytime neither of them really believed a word about the
'spook-trains', but as the sun sank and long shadows crept down the hills they
felt pleasantly thrilled. Would they really see anything exciting that night?
It was a very dark night at first, because
clouds lay across the sky and hid even the stars. The boys said good night to
the girls and snuggled down into their sleeping-bags. They watched the sky
through the tent opening.
Gradually the big clouds thinned out. A few
stars
appeared. The clouds thinned still more and
fled away in rags. Soon the whole sky was bright with pin-points of light, and
a hundred thousand stars looked down on the moorlands.
'We shall have a bit of starlight to see
by,' whispered Julian. 'That's good. I don't want to stumble about over the
heather and break my ankle in rabbit-holes in the pitch darkness. Nor do I want
to use my torch on the way to the yard in case it's seen.'
'It's going to be fun!' Dick whispered
back. 'I hope Jock comes. It will be maddening if he doesn't.'
He did come. There was a scrambling over
the heather and once again a shadow appeared at the tent opening.
'Julian! Dick! I've come. Are you ready?'
It was Jock's voice, of course. Dick's
thumb pressed the switch of his torch and for a moment its light fell on Jock's
red, excited face, and then was switched off again.
'Hallo, Jock! So you were able to come,'
said Dick. 'I say, was that you in the lorry this morning, going by the green
pool?'
'Yes. Did you see me? I saw you and waved
like mad,' said Jock. 'I wanted to stop the lorry and get down and speak to
you, but the driver's an awful bad-tempered sort of fellow. He wouldn't hear of
stopping. Said my stepfather would be wild with him if he did. Did you see him
- my stepfather, I mean? He was in his car behind.'
'Were you off to market or something?'
asked Julian.
'I expect that's where the lorry was
going,' said Jock. 'It was empty, so I suppose my stepfather was going to pick
up something there. I came back in the car. The lorry was supposed to come
later.'
'How did you like Cecil Dearlove?' asked
Dick, grinning in the darkness.
'Awful! Worse than his name,' groaned Jock.
'Wanted me to play soldiers all the time! The frightful thing is I've got to
have him at the farm for the day tomorrow. Another day wasted. What shall I do
with him?'
'Roll him in the pig-sty,' suggested Dick.
'Or put him with Biddy's puppies and let him sleep there. Tell him to play
soldiers with them.'
Jock chuckled. 'I wish I could. The worst
of it is Mum is awfully pleased that my stepfather's got this Cecil boy for me
to be friends with. Don't let's talk about it.  'We didn't tell the girls. Anne doesn't want to come,
and I don't want George to leave Anne by herself. Now, let's be very, very
quiet till we're out of hearing.'
 The boys had
not undressed that night, except for their coats, so all they had to do was to
slip these on, and then crawl out of the tent.
'Which is the way - over there?' whispered
Jock. Julian took his arm and guided him. He hoped he wouldn't lose his way in
the starlit darkness. The moorland look so different at night!
'If we make for that hill you can dimly see
over there against the starlit sky, we should be going in the right direction,'
said Julian. So on they went, keeping towards the dark hill that rose up to the
west.
It seemed very much farther to the railway
yard at night than in the daytime. The three boys stumbled along, sometimes
almost falling as their feet caught in tufts of heather. They were glad when
they found
some sort of path they could keep on.
'This is about where we met the shepherd,'
said Dick, in a low voice. He didn't know why he spoke so quietly. He just felt
as if he must. 'I'm sure we can't be very far off now.'
'[Tiey went on for some way, and then
Julian pulled Dick by the arm. 'Look,' he said. 'Down there, I believe that's
the old yard. You can see the line* gleaming faintly here and there.'
They stood on the heathery slope above the
old yard, straining their eyes. Soon they could make out dim shapes. Yes, it
was the railway yard all right.
Jock clutched Julian's sleeve. 'Look -
there's a light down there! Do you see it?'
The boys looked - and, sure enough, down in
the yard towards the other side of it, was a small yellow light. They stared at
it.
'Oh - I think I know what it is,' said
Dick, at last. 'It's the light in the watchman's little hut - old Wooden-Leg
Sam's candle. Don't you think so, Ju?'
'Yes. You're right,' said Julian. 'I tell
you what we'll do - we'll creep right down into the yard, and go over to the
hut. We'll peep inside and see if old Sam is there. Then we'll hide somewhere
about and wait for the spook-train to come!'
They crept down the slope. Their eyes had
got used to the starlight by now, and they were beginning to see fairly well.
They got right down to the yard, where their feet made a noise on some cinders
there.
They stopped. 'Someone will hear us if we
make a row like this,' whispered Julian.
'Who will?' whispered back Dick. 'There's
no one here except old Sam in his hut!'
'How do you know there isn't?' said Julian.
'Good heavens, Jock, don't make such a row with your feet!'
They stood there, debating what was the
best thing to do. 'We'd better walk right round the edge of the yard,' said
Julian at last. 'As far as I remember, the grass has grown there. We'll walk on
that.'
So they made their way to the edge of the
yard. Sure enough, there was grass there, and they walked on it without a
sound. They went slowly and softly to where the light shone dimly in Sam's
little hut.
The window was high and small. It was just
about at the level of their heads, and the three boys cautiously eased
themselves along to it and looked in.
Wooden-Leg Sam was there. He sat sprawled
in a chair, smoking a pipe. He was reading a newspaper, squinting painfully as
he did so. He obviously had not had his broken glasses mended yet. On a chair
beside him was his wooden leg. He had unstrapped it, and there it lay.
'He's not expecting the spook-train
tonight, or he wouldn't have taken off his wooden leg,' whispered Dick.
The candlelight flickered and shadows
jumped about the tiny hut.  A cup without saucer or handle stood on the table, and a tin kettle
boiled on a rusty stove.
Sam put down his paper and rubbed his eyes.
He muttered something. The boys could not hear it, but they felt certain it was
something about his broken glasses.
'Are there many lines in this yard?'
whispered Jock, tired of looking in at old Sam. 'Where do they go to?'
'About half a mile or so up there is a
tunnel,' said Julian, pointing past Jock. 'The lines come from there and run
here, where they break up in many pairs - for
shunting and so on, in the old days, I
suppose, when this place was used.'
'Let's go up the lines to the tunnel,' said
Jock. 'Come on. There's nothing to be seen here. Let's walk up to the tunnel.'
'All right,' said Julian. 'We may as well.
I don't expect we'll see much up there either! I think these spook-trains are
all a tall story of old Sam's!'
They left the little hut with its forlorn
candlelight, and made their way round the yard again. Then they followed the
single-track line away from the yard and up towards the tunnel. It didn't seem
to matter walking on cinders now, and making a noise. They walked along,
talking in low voices.
And then things began to happen! A far-off
muffled noise came rumbling out of the tunnel, which was now so near that the
boys could see its black mouth. Julian heard it first. He stood still and
clutched Dick.
'I say! Listen! Can you hear that?'
The others listened. 'Yes,' said Dick. 'But
it's only a train going through one of the underground tunnels -the noise is
echoing out through this one.'
'It isn't. That noise is made by a train
coming through this tunnel'' said Julian. The noise grew louder and louder. A
clanking made itself heard too. The boys stepped off the lines and crouched
together by the side, waiting, hardly daring to breathe.
Could it be the spook-train? They watched
for the light of an engine-lamp to appear like a fiery eye in the tunnel. But
none came. It was darker than night in there! But the noise came nearer and
nearer and nearer. Could there be the, noise of a train without a train?
Julian's heart began to beat twice as fast, and Dick and Jock found themselves
clutching one another without knowing it.
The noise grew thunderous, and then out
from the tunnel came something long and black, with a dull glow in front that
passed quickly and was gone. The noise deafened the boys, and then the clanking
and rumbling grew less as the train, or whatever it was, passed by. The ground
trembled and then was still.
'Well, there you are,' said Julian, in a
rather trembly voice. 'The spook-train - without a light or a signal! Where's
it gone? To the yard, do you think?'
'Shall we go and see?' asked Dick. 'I
didn't see anyone in the cab, even in the glow of what must have been the fire
there - but there must be someone driving it! I say, what a weird thing, isn't
it? It sounded real enough, anyway.'
'We'll go to the yard,' said Jock, who, of
the three, seemed the least affected. 'Come on.'
 'Blow! I've twisted my ankle. Haifa minute!'
He sank down to the ground in great pain.
It was only a sharp twist, not a sprain, but for a few minutes Dick could, do
nothing but groan. The others dared not /eave him. /u/ian knelt by him,
offering to rub the ankle, but Dick wouldn't let him touch it. Jock stood by
anxiously.
It took about twenty minutes for Dick's
ankle to be strong enough for him to stand on again. With the help of the
others he got to his feet and tested his ankle. 'It's all right, I think. I can
walk on it - slowly. Now we'll go to the yard and see what's happening!'
But even as they started to walk slowly
back, they heard a noise coming up the lines from the far-away yard, 'Rumble,
rumble, rumble, jangle, clank!'
'It's coming back again!' said Julian.
'Stand still. Watch! It'll be going back into the tunnel!'
They stood still and watched and listened.
Again the noise came nearer and grew thunderous. They saw the glow of what
might be the fire in the cab, and then it passed. The train disappeared into
the blackness of the tunnel mouth and they heard the echo of its rumblings for
some time.
'Well, there you are! There is a
spook-train!' said Julian, trying to laugh, though he felt a good deal shaken.
'It came and it went - where from or where to, nobody knows! But we've heard it
and seen it, in the darkness of the night. And jolly creepy it was, too!'
11
Mostly about Jock
The three boys stood rather close together,
glad to feel each other in the darkness. They couldn't believe that they had
found what they had come looking for so doubtfully! What kind of a train was
this that had come rumbling out of the tunnel so mysteriously, and then, after
a pause at the yard, had gone just as mysteriously back again?
'If only I hadn't twisted my ankle, we
could have followed the train down the lines to the yard, and have gone quite
close to it there,' groaned Dick.  'I say\
We've seen the spook-train! I can hardly believe it. Does it go all by itself,
with nobody to drive it? Is it a real train?'
'Judging by the noise it made, it's real
all right,' said Julian. 'And it shot out smoke, too. All the same, it's jolly
strange. I can't say I like it much.'
'Let's go and see what's happened to
Wooden-Leg Sam,' said Dick. 'I bet he's under his bed!'
They made their way slowly back to the
yard, Dick limping a little, though his ankle was practically all right again.
When they came to the yard they looked towards Sam's hut. The light was there
no longer.
'He's blown it out and got under the bed!'
said Dick. 'Poor Sam! It really must be terrifying for him. Let's go and peep
into his hut.'
They went over to it and tried to see in at
the window. But there was nothing to be seen. The hut was in complete darkness.
Then suddenly a little flare flashed out somewhere near the floor.
'Look - there's Sam! He's lighting a
match,' said Julian. 'See - he's peeping out from under the bed. He looks
scared stiff. Let's tap on the window and ask him if he's all right.'
But that was quite the wrong thing to do!
As soon as Julian tapped sharply on the window, Sam gave an anguished yell and
retired hurriedly under the bed again, his wavering match-light going out.
'It's come for to take me!' they heard him
wailing. 'It's come for to take me! And me with my wooden leg off too.'
'We're only frightening the poor old
fellow,' said Dick. 'Come on. Let's leave him. He'll have a fit or something if
we call out to him. He honestly thinks the spook-train's come to get him.'
They wandered round the dark yard for a few
minutes, but there was nothing to find out in the darkness. No more rumbling
came to their ears. The spook-train was evidently not going to run again that
night.
'Let's go back,' said Julian. 'That really
was exciting! Honestly, my hair stood on end when that train came puffing out
of the tunnel. Where on earth did it come from? And what's the reason for it?'
They gave it up, and began to walk back to
the camp. The'y scrambled through the heather, tired but excited. 'Shall we
tell the girls we've seen the train?' said Dick.
'No,' said Julian. 'It would only scare
Anne, and George would be furious if she knew we'd gone without her. We'll wait
and see if we discover any-
thing more before we say anything, either
to the girls ortooldLuffy.'
'Right,' said Dick.  'Who would
I tell? My stepfather? Not likely! How furious he'd be if he knew we'd all
pooh-poohed his warnings and gone down to see the spook-train after all!'
He suddenly felt something warm against his
legs, and gave a startled cry: 'What's this? Get away!'
But the warm thing turned out to be Timmy,
who had come to meet the three boys. He pressed against each of them in turn
and whined a little.
 'Sorry, old thing, but we couldn't. George would never
have spoken to us again if we'd taken you, and left her behind! How would you
have liked spook-trains, Timmy? Would you have run into a corner somewhere and
hidden?'
'Woof,' said Timmy, scornfully. As if he would
be afraid of anything!
They reached their camping-place and began
to speak in whispers. 'Good-bye, Jock. Come up tomorrow if you can. Hope you
don't have that Cecil boy to cope with!'
'Good-bye! See you soon,' whispered Jock,
and disappeared into the darkness, with Timmy at his heels. Another chance of a
midnight walk? Good, thought Timmy, just what he'd like! It was hot in the
tent, and a scamper in the cool night air would be fine.
Timmy growled softly when they came near to
Olly's Farm, and stood still, the hackles on his neck rising up a little. Jock
put his hand on the dog's head and stopped.
'What's the matter, old boy? Burglars or
something?'
He strained his eyes in the darkness. Big
clouds now covered the stars and there was no light at all to see by. Jock made
out a dim light in one of the barns. He crept over to it to see what it was. It
went" out as he came near, and then he heard the sound of footsteps, the
quiet closing of the barn door, and the click of a padlock as it was locked.
Jock crept nearer - too near, for whoever
it was must have heard him and swung round, lashing out with his arm. He caught
Jock on the shoulder, and the boy overbalanced. He almost fell, and the man who
had struck him clutched hold of him. A flash-light was put on and he blinked in
the sudden light.
'It's you, Jock!' said an astonished voice,
rough and impatient.  He switched on his own torch and let the light fall on the man
who had caught him. It was Peters, one of the farm men, the one in whose lorry
he had ridden that very day.
'What's it to do with you?' said Peters, angrily.
'I had a breakdown, and I've only just got back. Look here - you're fully
dressed! Where have you been at this time of night? Did you hear me come in and
get up to see what was happening?'
'You never know!' said Jock cheekily. He
wasn't going to say anything that might make Peters suspicious of him. 'You
just never know!'
'Is that Biddy?' said Peters, seeing a dark
shadow slinking away. 'Do you mean to say you've been out with Biddy? What in
the world have you been doing?'
Jock thanked his lucky stars that Peters
hadn't
spotted it was Timmy, not Biddy. He moved
off without saying another word. Let Peters think what he liked!  If the man told
his stepfather he'd seen Jock, fully dressed in the middle of the night,
there'd be questions asked by both his mother and his stepfather, and Jock, who
was a truthful boy, would find things very difficult to explain.
He scuttled off to bed, climbing up the
pear-tree outside his window, and dropping quietly into his room. He opened his
door softly to hear if anyone was awake in the house, but all was dark and
silent.
'Blow Peters!' thought Jock. 'If he splits
on me, I'm for it!'
He got into bed, pondered over the curious
happenings of the night for a few minutes, and then slid into an uneasy sleep,
in which spook-trains, Peters, and Timmy kept doing most peculiar things. He
was glad to awake in the bright, sunny morning and find his mother shaking him.
'Get up, Jock! You're very late. Whatever's
made you so sleepy? We're half-way through breakfast!'
Peters, apparently, didn't say anything to
Jock's stepfather about seeing Jock in the night. Jock was very thankful. He
began to plan how to slip off to the others at the camp. He'd take them some
food! That would be a fine excuse.
'Mum, can I take a basket of stuff to the
campers?' he said, after breakfast. They must be running short now.'
'Well, that boy is coming,' said his
mother. 'What's his name - Cecil something?  You did enjoy your day with him yesterday, didn't you?'
Jock would have said quite a lot of
uncomplimentary things about dear Cecil if his stepfather had not been there,
sitting by the window reading the paper. As it was, he shrugged his shoulders
and made a face, hoping that his mother would understand his feelings. She did.
'What time is Cecil coming?' she said.
'Perhaps there's time for you to run to the camp with a basket.'
'I don't want him running off up there,'
said Mr Andrews, suddenly butting into the conversation, and putting down his
newspaper. 'Cecil may be here at any minute- and I know what Jock is! He'd
start talking to those kids and forget all about coming back. Cecil's father is
a great friend of mine, and Jock's got to be polite to him, and be here to
welcome him. There's to be no running off to that camp today.'
Jock looked sulky. Why must his stepfather
suddenly interfere in his plans like this? Rushing him off to the town, making
him take Cecil for a friend! Just when some other children had come into his
rather lonely life and livened it up, too! It was maddening.
'Perhaps I can go up to the camp myself
with some food,' said his mother, comfortingly. 'Or maybe the children will
come down for some.'
Jock was still sulky. He stalked out into
the yard and went to look for Biddy. She was with her pups who were now trying
to crawl round the shed after her. Jock hoped the campers would come to fetch
food themselves that day. Then at least he would get a word with them.
Cecil arrived by car. He was about the same
age as Jock, though he was small for twelve years old. He had curly hair which
was too long, and his grey flannel suit was very, very clean and well-pressed.
'Hallo!' he called to Jock. 'I've come.
What shall we play at? Soldiers?'
'No. Red Indians,' said Jock, who had
suddenly remembered his old Red Indian head-dress with masses of feathers round
it, and a trail of them falling down the back. He rushed indoors, grinning. He
changed into the whole suit, and put on his head-dress. He took his paint-box
and hurriedly painted a frightful pattern of red, blue and green on his face.
He found his tomahawk and went downstairs. He would play at Red Indians, and
scalp that annoying Pale-Face!
Cecil was wandering round by himself. To
his enormous horror, as he turned a corner, a most terrifying figure rose up
from behind a wall, gave a horrible yell and pounced on him, waving what looked
like a dangerous chopper.
Cecil turned and fled, howling loudly, with
Jock leaping madly after him, whooping for all he was worth, and thoroughly
enjoying himself. He had had to play at soldiers all the day before with dear
Cecil. He didn't see why Cecil shouldn't play Red Indians all day with him
today!
Just at that moment, the four campers
arrived to fetch food, with Timmy running beside them. They stopped in
amazement at the sight of Cecil running like the wind, howling dismally, and a
fully-dressed and painted Red Indian leaping fiercely after him.
Jock saw them, did a comical war-dance all
round them, much to Timmy's amazement, yelled dramatically, pretended to cut
off Timmy's tail and then tore after the vanishing Cecil.
The children began to laugh helplessly. 'Oh
dear!' said Anne, with tears of laughter in her eyes, 'that must be Cecil he's
after. I suppose this is Jock's revenge for having to play soldiers all day
with him yesterday.
Look, there they go round the pig-sty. Poor
Cecil. He really thinks he's going to be scalped!'
Cecil disappeared into the farm kitchen,
sobbing, and Mrs Andrews ran to comfort him.
'Hallo,' he said. 'I'm just having a nice
quiet time with dear Cecil. I'm so glad to see you. I wanted to come over, but
my stepfather said I wasn't to -1 must play with Cecil. Isn't he frightful?'
'Awful,' everyone agreed.
'I say, will your mother be furious with
you for frightening Cecil like that? Perhaps we'd better not ask her for any
food yet?' said Julian.
'Yes, you'd better wait a bit,' said Jock,
leading them to the sunny side of the haystack they had rested by before.
'Hallo, Timmy! Did you get back all right last night?'
Jock had completely forgotten that the
girls didn't know of the happenings of the night before. Both Anne and George
at once pricked up their ears. Julian frowned at Jock, and Dick gave him a
secret nudge.
'What's up?' said George, seeing all this
by-play. 'What happened last night?'
'Oh, I just came up to have a little
night-talk with the boys - and Timmy walked back with me,' said Jock, airily.
'Hope you didn't mind him coming, George.'
George flushed an angry red. 'You're keeping
something from me,' she said to the boys. 'Yes, you are. I know you are. I
believe you went off to the railway yard last night! Did you?'
There was an awkward silence. Julian shot
an annoyed look at poor Jock, who could have kicked himself.
'Go
on - tell me,' persisted George, an angry frown
on her forehead. 'You beasts! You did go!
And you never woke me up to go with you! Oh, I do think you're mean!'
'Did you see anything?' said Anne, her eyes
going from one boy to another. Each of the girls sensed that there had been
some kind of adventure in the night.
'Well,' began Julian. And then there was an
interruption. Cecil came round the haystack, his eyes red with crying. He
glared at Jock.
'Your father wants you,' he said. 'You're
to go at once.  Can't you hear your
father yelling for you? He's got a stick -but I'm not sorry for you! I hope he
whacks you hard!'
12
George loses her temper
Jock made a face at Cecil and got up. He
went slowly off round the haystack, and the others listened in silence for
whacks and yells. But none came.
'He frightened me,' said Cecil, sitting
down by the others.
'Poor icle ting,' said Dick at once.
'Darling baby,' said George.
'Mother's pet,' said Julian. Cecil glared
at them all. He got up again, very red.
'If I didn't know my manners, I'd smack
your faces,' he said, and marched off hurriedly, before his own could be
smacked.
The four sat in silence. They were sorry
for Jock. George was angry and sulky because she knew the others had gone off
without her the night before. Anne was worried. •
They all sat there for about ten minutes.
Then round the haystack came Jock's mother, looking distressed. She carried a
big basket of food.
The children all stood up politely. 'Good
morning, Mrs Andrews,' said Julian.
'I'm sorry I can't ask you to stop today,'
said Mrs Andrews. 'But Jock has really behaved very foolishly. I wouldn't let
Mr Andrews give him a hiding because it would only make Jock hate his
stepfather, and that would never do. So I've sent him up to bed for the day.
You won't be able to see him, I'm afraid. Here is some
food for you to take. Oh, dear - I'm really
very sorry about all this. I can't think what came over Jock to behave in such
a way. It's not a bit like him.'
Cecil's face appeared round the haystack,
looking rather smug. Julian grinned to himself.
'Would you like us to take Cecil for a nice
long walk over the moors?' he said. 'We can climb hills and jump over streams
and scramble through the heather. It would make such a nice day for him.'
Cecil's face immediately disappeared.
'Well,' said Mrs Andrews, 'that really
would be very kind of you. Now that Jock's been sent upstairs for the day
there's no one for Cecil to play with. But I'm afraid he's a bit of a mother's
boy, you know. You'll have to go carefully with him. Cecil! Cecil! Where are
you? Come and make friends with these children.'
But Cecil had gone. There was no answer at
all. He didn't want to make friends with 'these children'. He knew better than
that! Mrs Andrews went in search of him, but he had completely disappeared.
The four children were not at all
surprised. Julian, Dick and Anne grinned at one another. George stood with her
back to them, still sulky.
Mrs Andrews came back again, out of breath.
'I can't find him,' she said. 'Never mind. I'll find something for him to do
when he appears again.'
'Yes. Perhaps you've got some beads for him
to thread? Or a nice easy jigsaw puzzle to do?' said Julian, very politely. The
others giggled. A smile appeared on Mrs Andrews's face.
'Bad boy!' she said. 'Oh dear - poor Jock.
Well it's his own fault. Now good-bye, I must get on with my work.'
She ran off to the dairy. The children
looked round
the haystack. Mr Andrews was getting into
his car. He would soon be gone. They waited a few minutes till they heard the
car set off down the rough cart-track.
That's Jock's bedroom - where the pear-tree
is,' said Julian. 'Let's just have a word with him before we go. It's a shame.'