The Happy Adventurers by Lydia Miller Middleton (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

her skirts rolled up and her feet bare. A wide sun-hat covered her head, and her brown curls were fastened back with a clasp, which made her look older, Mollie thought.

The two children were hauling a large, square, flat object down to the sea, Hugh pulling in front with ropes, and Prudence pushing behind.

“I do believe it’s the raft,” thought Mollie. “This must be Brighton, and I suppose the summer holidays have come round again. It is a little difficult to keep up with Time here. I do wish Dick could come!”

Grizzel was sitting on the beach close beside her, and seemed to be gathering shells from a little pale-rose patch on the sand at her feet. She was very absorbed in her task, but she looked up at Mollie with a smile, apparently not at all surprised to see her there. She was dressed, like Prue, in a turned-up overall and wore a wide hat, which hid the red curls from view and gave her an unfamiliar look. Bridget was sitting not far from Grizzel, busily doing crochet-work and singing a song about a wild Irish boy, while her eyes wandered after Baby, who was singing a little song of her own invention about a poor lonely whale who had a loving heart. Higher up the beach, at the foot of the sandhills, Mollie could see Professor and Mrs. Campbell, one reading aloud and the other sewing.

“Where shall I go first?” Mollie asked herself, “I think I’ll go and see what Hugh and Prudence are doing.”

She found, when she began to walk, that she was bare-legged and bunchy about the skirts like the other girls, and that her head was covered with a sun-hat like theirs, a tanned Panama straw, light as a feather, and shading her eyes from the glare of sea and sand. The sun was very hot and the sand was warm under her feet.

“Hullo! Here’s Mollie the Jolly!” exclaimed Hugh, as she drew near. “Come along and lend a hand—we are just about to launch the good ship Nancy Lee on her trial trip.”

Mollie examined the raft with deep interest. It was really very neatly made, the planks straight and smooth, and firmly held together by cross-bars underneath. There was a mast in the exact centre, with a sail at present close-reefed, and there was a pair of old oars which, Hugh explained, had been purchased from a boatman of his acquaintance. All round the raft were bunches of corks, several hundreds at least.

“Did Prue and Grizzel find all those?” Mollie asked.

“We all collected ‘em,” Hugh replied; “lots of people gave us corks—jolly old winebibbers they must be,” he added ungratefully. “Now then—with a long, long pull and a strong, strong pull!”

They got to the edge of the water, and the two girls waded in as far as they could go without getting their clothes wet, before the raft finally took to her natural element and rocked up and down on the smoothly rippling wavelets. A gentle breeze was blowing off the sea, but the tide was running out, which, Hugh remarked, was a good plan, as the raft would go out to sea with the tide and come back with the wind in her sail. He thought, however, that he would not carry any passengers on the first trip—in fact, to begin with, he would harness himself to his craft and pull her both out and in, “just till I see how she goes; she’s got to find her sea-legs.”

The girls watched the raft and its owner depart into deep water; they saw Hugh climb on board, and decided that the passengers who sailed aboard the Nancy Lee would be most suitably attired in bathing-dresses, as she appeared to slide along as much below the ocean as above it. After standing for some minutes they wandered along towards Grizzel, who was still sitting by the pale rosy patch on the sand. When they sat down beside her Mollie saw that the shells she was gathering were so tiny that they were hardly larger than a pin’s head, and yet they were perfect in form and colour; she thought she had never seen anything more exquisite.

“We thread them and make necklaces,” Prudence explained; “they are so thin that you can stick a needle through them quite easily; they come in beds like this all along the beach. There are lots of lovely shells here, and sea-eggs too. We collect them sometimes, but our collections have such a way of getting lost somehow, they are always beginning over again and ending too soon.”

“Can you say ‘She sells sea-shells’ twenty times running, as fast as lightning?” asked Grizzel.

“Not running as fast as lightning,” Mollie answered, “but I could say it if I were walking rather slowly.”

“I couldn’t,” said Grizzel, taking no notice of Mollie’s flippancy, “if I were to crawl at the rate of half an inch a year I should be saying ‘She shells sea-shells’ the whole time.”

“You are talking nonsense,” said Prudence. “Come up and see Papa and Mamma.”

Mollie was greeted kindly by the older people. She had forgotten to ask if she was supposed to be a visitor or only spending the day with the Campbells, but gathered from Mamma’s conversation that she was paying a visit and had arrived that morning. She wondered again how they heard about her coming; the children appeared to take her for granted, but, of course, they knew she was a Time-traveller!

As the girls sat by their elders, idly playing with the silvery sand and chatting to each other, a large steamship came in view, coming from the north and heading southwest. They all stopped working and talking as they watched her steaming along, a trail of smoke blowing behind her, smudging the blue sky with clouds, black at first and gradually fading to grey.

“That’s the English mail,” Papa said at last; “she was due to leave the Semaphore at three o’clock to-day.”

They were silent again; the great ship drew nearer—now she was almost opposite.

“Oh—John—_Home!“_ Mamma said. There was a tremble in her voice that made Prudence and Mollie look up—there were tears in her eyes.

“I know, little wife, I know,” Papa answered softly, putting a hand over the white hands which had dropped the busy needle.

The girls rose to their feet and left Papa and Mamma. They went down to the edge of the shore, and stood watching the ship as she began to slip over the horizon.

“Now she has begun to go down the Big Hill,” said Prue. “She will sail for miles and miles and thousands of miles, and for days and nights and weeks across all that sea. I wonder if some children on the other side will be playing on that beach, and will watch her funnel climb over the top of the hill again and say: ‘Here comes the Australian mail!’”

Mollie did not answer. She could not remember ever taking much interest in the Australian mail. But in future she determined she would always watch when she had the chance, and wave a friendly hand to the incoming ships.

Soon there was nothing to be seen of the big steamer but a trail of smoke, which lingered long in the sky.

Prudence had fallen into a day-dream; and Mollie’s eyes were roaming over the blue sea, when suddenly she caught sight of the raft bobbing about on the little waves, sometimes above and sometimes below. In the water in front of the raft she could see Hugh’s head, like a round black ball—and—yes, she was not mistaken, there were two other round black balls which must also be heads. That was rather odd, she thought; she had not noticed any other boys about.

“Look, Prue!” she exclaimed, catching Prue by the arm, “look—there is Hugh, and he has got someone with him—oh, do you think he has rescued some drowning sailors?”

Prue came out of her day-dream with a jerk, and brought her thoughts and her eyes back to earth, or rather to sea.

“Yes, he has someone with him,” she said. “How funny!”

As they gazed, the three swimmers turned round and, with a good deal of ducking and slipping, climbed aboard the raft, which triumphantly survived and remained afloat, though decidedly wet about the deck. They proceeded to unfurl the sail, which one boy held while the other two took to the oars, and, after some hard work, the Nancy Lee was safely beached. Grizzel joined Mollie and Prudence, and the three girls watched the three boys, not offering to go and help with the raft because they felt a little shy of the strangers.

Presently one of them turned round—and Mollie gave a jump. The boy’s hair hung over his forehead in wet, black streaks, and he was dressed, or rather undressed, in a swimming-suit, the rest of him being wet, white skin; but in spite of this unusual appearance Mollie was almost sure—in fact she was quite sure—that it was Young Outram. And the other boy—who kept his back turned in a provoking way as he examined the raft—why, that boy—yes, it surely was Dick! Mollie squealed and caught Prue by the arm:

“It’s Dick and Jerry Outram!” she exclaimed, jumping up and down with excitement. “Oh, Prue—have they swum all the way from London without any clothes?”

Prudence laughed. “Mollie, you are a goose! Do you think they could swim fourteen thousand miles?”

“Well how—? Oh, I forgot! It is so hard to remember about Time-travelling here! Oh, Prue, how exciting it is!”

At that moment Dick looked round and saw his sister. Both boys came racing along the sand towards the girls, kicking up their heels like young colts.

“Cheerio!” cried Dick, as he pranced up. “What price school! How’s this for a rag? Jolly old beano, I call it!”

“What does he say?” asked Grizzel.

“He says that school isn’t much of a place, and that this is a great lark, and that he enjoys being here immensely,” translated Mollie. “Some psychical phenomena!” exclaimed Young Outram, prancing up in his turn.

“I’m afraid we haven’t got any,” said Prudence politely.

“And you forgot to say ‘Please’ if we had,” said Grizzel, with a frown.

“What do they say?” asked Young Outram, looking puzzled.

“Prudence thought you were asking for some what’s-its-name-how- much,” Mollie explained again.

“What does he mean then?” Grizzel asked.

“He means that this is the loveliest magic that he ever heard of,” said Mollie. “You shouldn’t use such long words, Jerry, and they aren’t true either, for this is not thingummy phenomena, it is simply common everyday magic.”

“There is no such thing as common magic,” said Jerry.

“There is,” said Mollie.

“There isn’t,” said Jerry.

“What do you call it when your mother gives you a dirty little brown onion to put in the ground and you bring it back to her turned into a parrot-tulip?” asked Mollie.

“Oh—if you—”

“Stow it, Young Outram, you blighter,” Dick interrupted. “Don’t be such a silly old Juggins, making them ratty first go-off like that. Keep your hair on, Mollie, and don’t get the hump over nothing. If you must jaw about parrots, jaw about the dossy chap we spotted in school; you are simply talking hot air, both of you.”

“What does he say?” asked Hugh, who had come up by this time.

“I wish to goodness you boys would speak plain English,” Mollie said impatiently. “I don’t want to spend all my time explaining you to the others.”

“Irry yourry tawrry lierry tharry weerry wirry tawrry lierry thirry, arry therry yourry woerry urrystarry wurry wurry tharry weerry sayrry,” said Grizzel, rather angrily and very rapidly.

“What does she say?”