‘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.
‘If you dare to come in, I’ll smack your silly face,’
said Dick, thinking it was Timmy. ‘I know what you want, you perfect pest – you want to flop down on my tummy. You just turn yourself round and go away! 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. ‘We’re expecting Jock – that’s the boy at the farm – to come up for the day, and we thought we’d go out walking and take our food with us. 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. They held up their lunch until they were too hungry to wait any longer, and then they had it on the heather in front of their tents.
‘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.