‘Yes, I do. But I don’t like it much when I’m in the middle of one,’ said Anne. ‘I don’t think I’m a very adventurous person, really.’
‘No, you’re not,’ said Julian, pulling Anne over a very steep bit. ‘But you’re a very nice little person, Anne, so don’t worry about it. And, anyway, you wouldn’t like to be left out of any of our adventures, would you?’
‘Oh no,’ said Anne. ‘I couldn’t bear it. Oh, look we’re at the bottom of the hill and there’s the lake, looking icy-cold!’
It wasn’t long before they were all in the water and suddenly there was Nobby too, waving and yelling. ‘I’m coming in! Lou and my uncle have gone off somewhere. Hurray!’
Barker and Growler were with Nobby, but not Pongo the chimpanzee. Nobby was soon in the water, swimming like a dog, and splashing George as soon as he got up to her.
‘We met Lou and your uncle as we came down,’ called George. ‘Shut up, Nobby, and let me talk to you. I said, we met Lou and your uncle just now going up into the hills.’
‘Up into the hills?’ said Nobby, astonished. ‘Whatever for? They don’t go and fetch things from the farm. The women do that, early each morning.’
‘Well, we met those two,’ said Dick swimming up. They seemed jolly surprised to see us. I hope they aren’t going to bother us any more.’
‘I’ve had a bad day,’ said Nobby, and he showed black bruises on his arms. ‘My uncle hit me like anything for making friends with you. He says I’m not to go talking to strangers no more.’
‘Why ever not?’ said Dick. ‘What a surly, selfish fellow he is! Well, you don’t seem to be taking much notice of him now!’
”Course not!’ said Nobby. ‘He’s safe up in the hills, isn’t he? I’ll have to be careful he doesn’t see me with you, that’s all. Nobody else at the camp will split on me they all hate Lou and Tiger Dan.’
‘We saw you out in your boat with Pongo,’ said Julian, swimming up to join in the conversation. ‘We thought that if ever you wanted to signal to us you could easily do it by going out in your boat, and waving a handkerchief or something. We’ve got field-glasses, and we can easily see you. We could come along down if you signalled. We’d know it would be safe.’
‘Right,’ said Nobby. ‘Come on, let’s have a race. Bet you I’m on the shore first!’
He wasn’t, of course, because he didn’t swim properly. Even Anne could race him. Soon they were all drying themselves vigorously.
‘Golly, I’m hungry!’ said Julian. ‘Come on up the hill with us, Nobby, and share our supper!’
CHAPTER TEN
A CURIOUS CHANGE OF MIND
Nobby felt very much tempted to go and have a meal up in the hills with the children. But he was afraid of meeting Lou and his uncle coming back from their walk.
‘We can easily look out for them and warn you if we see or hear them,’ said Dick, ‘and you can flop under a bush and hide till they go past. You may be sure we’ll be on the look-out for them ourselves, because we don’t want to meet them either!’
‘Well, I’ll come,’ said Nobby. ‘I’ll take Barker and Growler too. They’ll like to see Timmy.’
So all five of them, with the two dogs, set off up the hill. They climbed up short cuts at first, but they were soon panting, and decided to take the track, which, although longer, was easier to follow.
They all kept a sharp look-out for the two men, but they could see no sign of them. ‘We shall be at our caravans soon,’ said Julian. Then he heard Timmy barking in the distance. ‘Hallo! What’s old Tim barking for? I wonder if those fellows have been up to our caravans?’
‘Good thing we left Timmy on guard if so,’ said Dick. ‘We might have missed something if not.’
Then he went red, remembering that it was Nobby’s uncle he had been talking of. Nobby might feel upset and offended to hear someone speaking as if he thought Tiger Dan would commit a little robbery.
But Nobby wasn’t at all offended. ‘Don’t you worry about what you say of my uncle,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘He’s a bad lot. I know that. Anyway, he’s not really my uncle, you know. When my father and mother died, they left a little money for me and it turned out that they had asked Tiger Dan to look after me. So he took the money, called himself my uncle, and I’ve had to ‘be with him ever since.’
‘Was he in the same circus, then?’ asked Julian.
‘Oh yes. He and my father were both clowns,’ said Nobby. ‘Always have been clowns, in my family. But wait till I’m old enough, and I’ll do a bunk clear off and join another circus, where they’ll let me look after the horses. I’m mad on horses. But the fellow at our circus won’t often let me go near them. Jealous because I can handle them, I suppose!’
The children gazed at Nobby in wonder. He seemed an extraordinary boy to them one who walked about with a tame chimpanzee, exercised hordes of performing dogs, lived with the chief clown in the circus, could turn the most marvellous cart-wheels, and whose only ambition was to work with horses! What a boy! Dick half-envied him.
‘Haven’t you ever been to school?’ he asked Nobby.
The boy shook his head. ‘Never! I can’t write. And I can only read a bit. Most circus folk are like that, so nobody minds. Jumping Jiminy, I bet you’re all clever, though! I bet even little Anne can read a book!’
‘I’ve been able to read for years,’ said Anne. ‘And I’m up to fractions now in numbers.’
‘Coo! What’s fractions?’ said Nobby, impressed.
‘Well quarters and halves and seven-eighths, and things like that,’ said Anne. ‘But I’d rather be able to turn a cart-wheel like you can, Nobby, than know how to do fractions.’
‘Whatever is Timmy barking for?’ said George as they came near the clump of birch trees. Then she stopped suddenly, for she had seen two figures lying down in the grass below the trees. Lou and Tiger Dan!
It was too late for Nobby to hide. The men saw him at once. They got up and waited for the children to come near. George felt thankful that Timmy was within whistling distance. He would come at the first call or whistle, she knew.
Julian looked at the men. To his surprise they appeared to be quite amiable. A faint scowl came over Tiger Dan’s face when he caught sight of Nobby, but it passed at once.
‘Good evening,’ said Julian curtly, and would have passed on without another word, but Lou stepped up to him.
‘We see you’re camping up by here,’ said Lou, and smiled showing yellow teeth. ‘Ain’t you going over the hill?’
‘I don’t need to discuss my affairs with either you or your friend,’ said Julian, sounding extremely grown-up. ‘You told us to clear out from down below, and we have. What we do now is nothing to do with you.’
‘Ho yes, it is,’ said Tiger Dan, sounding as if he was being polite with great difficulty. ‘We come up here tonight to plan a place for some of our animals, see? And we don’t want you to be in no danger.’
‘We shan’t be,’ said Julian, scornfully. ‘And there is plenty of room on these hills for you and your animals and for us, too. You won’t scare us off, so don’t think it. We shall stay here as long as we want to and if we want help there’s the farmer and his men quite near by to say nothing of our dog.’
‘Did you leave that there dog on guard?’ asked Lou, as he heard Timmy barking again. ‘He ought to be destroyed, that dog of yours. He’s dangerous.’
‘He’s only dangerous to rogues and scamps,’ said George, joining in at once. ‘You keep away from our caravans when Timmy’s on guard. He’ll maul you if you go near.’
Lou began to lose his temper. ‘Well, are you going or ain’t you?’ he said. ‘We’ve told you we want this here bit of the hill. You can come down and camp by the lake again if you want to.’
‘Yes you come,’ said Tiger Dan to the children’s growing astonishment. ‘You come, see? You can bathe in the lake every day, then and Nobby here can show you round the camp, and you can make friends with all the animals, see?’
Now it was Nobby’s turn to look amazed.
‘Jumping Jiminy! Didn’t you beat me black and blue for making friends with these kids?’ he demanded. ‘What’s the game, now? You’ve never had animals up in the hills before. You’ve …’