“I don’t know what your mother’d say about it,” said Cook.
“Look here,” said Nancy. “Mother wouldn’t want them to go home. She’d planned everything. Only she never thought the G.A. would be here. They’re jolly well going to stay. They’ll be all right in the Dogs’ Home. The G.A. won’t know anything about them so there’ll be one thing less for her to complain to Mother about. And if we can only manage to be angels for ten whole days she won’t have anything to complain about at all. Come on.”
“She’ll be here at half past six,” said Cook suddenly. “And you’ve got the spare room looking like a nightmare.”
“You get at it right away,” said Nancy. “We’ll tear down the skulls and crossbones when we come back. We must just see if the Dogs’ Home’s fallen down.”
“But … ”
“Settled,” said Nancy. “It’s the only possible way. Come on, the Picts.”
And leaving Cook worriedly fingering Miss Turner’s letter, Nancy and Peggy, followed by Dorothea and Dick, went out of the kitchen, through the yard and turned right outside the Beckfoot gate along the road that led up the valley under the steep woods.
“But what is the Dogs’ Home?” Dorothea asked Peggy.
“You’ll see,” said Peggy.
CHAPTER IV
THE DOGS’ HOME
NANCY WAS racing ahead. “Hammocks,” she said over her shoulder. “You’ll do better in them than sleeping on the ground.”
“There might be a rat or two,” said Peggy.
“How far is it?” asked Dorothea.
“No way,” said Peggy. “That’s the beauty of it. It’s up in the wood just round the first bend.”
Dick and Dorothea knew the road that passed Beckfoot, turned inland to the bridge over the little river, and divided into two, one road going to the head of the lake, and the other going on up the valley and past High Topps over to Dundale. But they had never been up into the woods that sloped steeply down to it behind Beckfoot.
“If only it hasn’t tumbled down,” said Nancy.
“We haven’t been up there for ages,” said Peggy. “It’s where we used to go when we were young, before we had Amazon and before we discovered Wild Cat Island. It’s a jolly good place.”
“It’s a jolly good place to be hidden in,” said Nancy. “No one can see it from anywhere and we can slip up there ourselves if ever we can escape.”
“Just the place for badgers,” she said a moment later. “Or Britons, or whatever it was you said.”
“Picts,” said Dorothea.
“This way, the Picts!” said Nancy, and turned off the road through a gap in the low stone wall at the bottom of the wood.
Dick and Dorothea followed breathless, not so much because they were hurrying as because of the speed with which things were happening. Plans for a quiet life had been blown away in a moment. That letter from the Blacketts’ Great Aunt had changed everything. Why, even Cook, who had seemed so pleased to see them, had been as much upset by it as Peggy and Nancy. At breakfast they had been welcome visitors, but after the coming of that letter even Cook had not been able to pretend that it was not a pity they were there. What could the Great Aunt be like? And then a word from Dick about being badgers, a word from Dorothea about being Picts, and already they were looking for a hiding place. Better than going home, of course, but … a dogs’ home, kennels….
“Buck up, you Picts!” said Peggy.
There was a belt of tall pines and larches along the side of the road. A path from the gap in the wall led suddenly from sunshine into shadow. For twenty yards or so there was a clear track covered with brown needles. But beyond the pines and firs was coppice, oaks and hazels and silver birches, and the Picts could seldom see more than a yard or two ahead. For a little way the path was good enough under foot, and then, suddenly, it turned into something like the bed of a dried-up mountain stream, sharp-edged stones and rocks with here and there a tiny pool. Dick and Dorothea found it pretty hard going, stepping from one stone to another, and at the same time fending off the hazel branches.
“A bit of a beck crosses it higher up,” said Peggy, waiting for them. “That’s why it’s like this. When there’s a lot of rain the beck overflows and comes sluicing down here, and you have to wriggle up through the trees instead.”
“It’s all right,” said Dorothea. “Only it takes time. How much further?”
“Nearly there.”
“Where does the beck go?” asked Dick, remembering that he had seen no bridge. under the road and then through our coppice to the river.”
“It’s only a little one,” said Peggy. “It goes through a pipe under the road and then through our coppice to the river.”
They climbed on. Nancy, charging up the rough path with her arms before her face because of the branches, was already out of sight.
Suddenly they heard a joyful shout above them in the wood. “It hasn’t tumbled down yet.”
They came to the place where the beck crossed the path.
“Hullo,” said Peggy. “Somebody’s put down stepping stones. There never used to be any.”
On the other side of the beck some of the trees had been cleared long ago and in the open space was an ancient old hut, built of rough stones. A window gaped empty. The roof was covered with huge slates, green with moss. Here and there grass was growing on it, and there were ferns sprouting from between the stones of the chimney. Somebody, once upon a time, had painted the words “THE DOGS’ HOME” in big clumsy letters on the door. The paint had faded, but the words could still be read.
“It’s come down a bit on this side,” said Nancy, from behind the hut.
They went round and found her looking at a heap of stones that had fallen from the wall at the back.
“Lucky they built the walls so thick,” she said. “There’s plenty of it left. It’ll last another week anyway. And jolly lucky it isn’t the wall with the fireplace. If the inside’s all right it’ll do. Let’s see what it’s like.”
“Hullo,” said Peggy at the door. “Somebody’s been using it for something. The door’s tied up.”
“Rot,” said Nancy. “There’s nobody to use it.”
“Come and look,” said Peggy.
“It’s been tied up a long time,” said Dick. “You can see by the string.”
“IT HASN’T TUMBLED DOWN YET”
Once upon a time there had been a chain and perhaps a padlock to fasten the door from the outside. Nothing of that was left but a staple in the door and another in the doorpost. A bit of string had been put through the two staples and tied.
Nancy looked at it. “Tied in a bow,” she said. “No sailor anyhow. Nobody we know would tie the thing like that. But you’re quite right. Somebody has been using it. Look at those hinges.