The Castle of Adventure Page 6

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Dinah disbelievingly. She couldn’t see any difference at all.

  ‘The second one is bigger than the first,’ said Jack. ‘The female golden eagle is always the bigger of the two; bigger wing-span too. Golly, I do feel thrilled.’

  ‘You ought to have snapped that eagle sitting on the crag,’ said Philip. Jack gave an exclamation of annoyance.

  ‘Blow! I never even thought of my camera! I was so absorbed in watching the birds. What marvellous pictures I could take!’

  The two birds were now only specks in the sky, for they had soared up to an immense height. ‘It would be a jolly good chance to explore this crag for their nest whilst they are safely up there,’ said Jack. ‘It’s funny they don’t seem scared of us, isn’t it? I suppose they know hardly anything of man, always living up here on this hilltop.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what’s happened to Button,’ said Philip anxiously. ‘He went down that hole and he’s not back yet.’

  ‘Probably scaring a family of rabbits out of their senses!’ said Jack. ‘He’ll come back all right. I’m not surprised he went down a rabbit-hole when he heard that scream. I’d have gone down one myself if I could! It was an awful noise.’

  The boys began to climb up again. It was fairly stiff going for the little crag was steep and rocky. Its top was almost as high as the nearby tower.

  On the western side, well hidden in a little hollow, Jack found what he wanted – the eagles’ nest!

  ‘Look!’ he said, ‘look! Did you ever see such an enormous thing, Philip! It must be six feet wide at the bottom!’

  The boys looked at the great nest on the broad ledge of rock. It was about two feet high, made of twigs and small boughs, with heather tucked in between. The cup of the nest was almost a foot and a half across, and very well lined with moss, grass and bits of heather.

  ‘There’s a young one in the nest!’ said Jack, in delight. ‘Quite a big bird too – must be more than three months old, and ready to fly.’

  The young bird crouched down in the nest when it heard Jack’s voice. It was already so big that Philip would hardly have known it was a nestling. But Jack’s sure eye had noticed the white bases of the feathers, telling him that this was a young eagle, and not an old one.

  Kiki flew inquisitively to the nest. She gave a yelp like the eagle had made. The young bird looked up enquiringly, recognised the sound but not the maker of it.

  ‘Your camera, quick!’ whispered Philip, and Jack began to adjust his camera with quick, eager fingers.

  ‘Quick, the old eagles are coming back,’ whispered Philip, and Jack gave a glance upwards. The eagles had remembered their young one, and seeing the boys so near the nest were coming down to see what was happening.

  Jack snapped the camera just in time, for Kiki flew off almost immediately to meet the eagles, screaming a welcome.

  ‘Better get down now,’ said Philip, thinking that the two old eagles looked pretty fierce. ‘My word, I wish we could take pictures of that young one learning to fly. It looks as if it will take off from the nest any day now.’

  With the two eagles gliding not far above them the boys climbed down as hastily as they could. ‘Did you get a snap?’ asked Lucy-Ann eagerly, and Jack nodded. He looked excited.

  ‘I shall have to come back again,’ he said. ‘Do you know, I might get finer close-up pictures of eagles than anyone has ever got before? Think of that! I’d make a lot of money out of them, I daresay, and I’d have them in all kind of nature magazines.’

  ‘Oh, Jack – do take some more pictures then,’ said Lucy-Ann, her eyes shining.

  ‘I’d have to almost live up here, to take good ones,’ said Jack. ‘It’s no good just coming up on the off-chance. If only I could spend a few days here!’

  ‘Well – I suppose you could, if you wanted to,’ said Philip. ‘I expect Mother would let you, if you told her about the eagles. It would be quite safe up here, and we could bring you food.’

  ‘Can’t we all come and stay up here for a few days?’ said Lucy-Ann, who didn’t want her brother to be away from them. ‘Why can’t we?’

  ‘Well – you know we can’t leave my mother all alone down there,’ said Philip. ‘She’d think it was jolly mean.’

  ‘Oh yes – of course,’ said Lucy-Ann, going rather red. ‘I never thought of that. How awful of me!’

  ‘All the same, I don’t see why I shouldn’t come up here for a few days,’ said Jack, finding the idea more and more exciting as he thought about it. ‘I could make a hide, you know – and . . .’

  ‘What’s a hide?’ asked Tassie, speaking for almost the first time that morning.

  ‘A hide? Oh, it’s a place I should rig up to hide myself and my camera in,’ said Jack. ‘Then, when the eagles had got used to it, I could take as many pictures of them as I wanted to, without showing myself or putting them on their guard. I should make my hide somewhere on this crag, within good view of that nest. Golly, I might take a whole set of pictures showing the young eagle learning to fly!’

  ‘Well, ask Mother if you can come up, then,’ said Philip. ‘I’d come up and be with you, only I think one of us boys ought to be down at the cottage to help bring the wood in for the fire and things like that.’

  ‘I could do that,’ said Dinah, eager to get rid of the toad for a few days. She wouldn’t go near Philip as long as he had the toad about him.

  ‘Well, you can’t,’ said Philip. ‘Jack will have Kiki for company and we’ll come up and see him every day. Come on, now – let’s explore the lower parts of the castle a bit more.’

  So they made their way back across the yard into the lower parts of the great building, expecting to see the same vast empty rooms there as they had seen above. But what a surprise they got!

  10

  A curious thing

  They went into a great doorway, and walked across the dark hall, which echoed strangely with their footsteps. From outside came the yelping scream of the eagles again.

  ‘I expect it was the screams of the eagles that the villagers heard year after year up here,’ said Jack, as he made his way to a stout door that led off the hall. He opened it – and then stood still in surprise.

  This room was furnished! It had once been a kind of sitting room or drawing room, and the mouldy old furniture was still there, though the children could not imagine why it had been left!

  They stood and stared into the old, forgotten room in silence. It was such a odd feeling to gaze on this musty-smelling, quiet room, lighted by four slit windows and one wide one, through which sunlight came. It lit up the layers of dust on the sofas and vast table, and touched the enormous webs and hanging cobwebs that were made by scores of busy spiders through the years.

  Dinah shivered. When the others went further into the room, walking on tiptoe and talking in whispers, she did not follow. Lucy-Ann patted a chair and at once a cloud of dust arose, making her choke. Philip pulled at a cover on one of the sofas, and it fell to pieces in his hands. It was quite rotten.

  ‘What a weird old room!’ he said. ‘I feel as if I was back a hundred years or so. Time has stood still here. I do wonder why this room was left like this.’

  They went out and into the next one. That was quite empty. But the third one, smaller, and evidently used as a dining-room, was again furnished. And again the spiders’ webs stretched everywhere and hung down in long grey threads from the high ceilings. There was a great sideboard in the room, and when the children curiously opened one of the doors, they saw old china and pieces of silver there – or what must have been silver, for now the cruets and sauce-boats were so terribly tarnished that they might have been made of anything.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ said Lucy-Ann, quoting Alice in Wonderland. ‘Why have these rooms been left like this?’

  ‘I expect the wicked old man Tassie told us about just lived in a few rooms, and these were the ones,’ said Jack. ‘Mabye he went away, meaning to come back, and never did. And
nobody dared to come here – or perhaps nobody even knew the rooms had been left furnished. It’s a mystery!’

  The little fox cub went sniffing round all the rooms raising clouds of dust, and choking now and again. Kiki did not seem to like the rooms. She stayed on Jack’s shoulder, quite silent.

  They came to the kitchen. This was a simply enormous place, with a great cooking range at the back. Iron saucepans and an iron kettle were still there. Philip tried to lift one, but it was immensely heavy.

  ‘Cooks must have had very strong arms in the old days!’ he said. ‘Look – is that a pump by the old sink? I suppose they had to pump their water up.’

  They crossed over to the sink. The old-fashioned pump had a handle, which had to be worked up and down in order to bring water from some deep-down well.

  Philip stared at it in a puzzled manner, his eyes going to a puddle on the floor, just below the pump.

  ‘What’s the matter, Philip?’ said Jack.

  ‘Nothing much – but where did that water come from?’ said Philip. ‘See, it’s in a puddle – it can only have been there a day or two, or it would have dried up.’

  Jack looked up to the dark old ceiling, as if he expected to see a leak in the roof there. But there was none, of course! He looked down at the puddle again, and he too felt puzzled. ‘Let’s pump a bit and see if water comes up,’ he said, and stretched out his hand. ‘Maybe the thing is out of order now.’

  Before he could reach the handle Philip knocked his hand aside, with an exclamation. Jack looked at him in surprise.

  ‘See here, Freckles,’ said Philip, frowning in bewilderment, ‘the handle of the pump isn’t covered with dust like everything else is. It’s rubbed clean just where you’d take hold of it to pump.’

  Dinah felt a little prickle of fright go down her back. Whatever did Philip mean? Who could pump up water in an old empty castle?

  They all stared at the pump handle, and saw that Philip was right. Button began to lap up the puddle of water on the stone floor. He was thirsty.

  ‘Wait, Button, I’ll pump you some fresh water,’ said Philip, and he took hold of the pump handle. He worked it up and down vigorously, and fresh, clear water poured in gushes into the huge old sink. Some of it splashed out into the puddle already on the floor.

  ‘That’s how that puddle was made,’ said Jack, watching carefully. ‘By the splashes of the water from the sink. But that means someone must have pumped up water here in the last few days!’

  Tassie’s eyes grew big with fright. ‘The wicked old man’s still here!’ she said, and looked fearfully over her shoulder as if she expected him to walk into the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Tassie,’ said Philip impatiently. ‘The old man’s dead and gone years and years ago. Do you know if any of the villagers ever come up here?’

  ‘No, oh no!’ said Tassie. ‘They are afraid of the castle. They say it is a bad place.’

  The five children certainly felt that it had a strange, brooding air about it. They felt that they wanted to go out into the sunshine. Kiki suddenly gave a mournful groan that made them all jump.

  ‘Don’t, Kiki!’ said Jack crossly. ‘Philip, what do you make of this? Who’s been pumping up the water? Can there be anyone in the castle now?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t seen signs of anyone at all,’ said Philip. ‘And why should anyone be here, anyway? There’s nothing for them to live on – no food or anything. I think myself that probably some rambler came up here in curiosity, wandered about, and got himself a drink of water from the pump before he went.’

  This seemed the most likely explanation.

  ‘But how did he get in?’ said Dinah, after a moment or two.

  That was a puzzler. ‘There must be some way,’ said Jack.

  ‘There isn’t,’ said Tassie. ‘I’ve been all round the castle, and I know. There isn’t any way of getting in.’

  ‘Well, there must be,’ said Philip, and dismissed the subject, feeling that they would all be better to be out in the open air, having their tea. ‘Come on – let’s find a comfortable place in the courtyard and have our tea. I’m jolly hungry again.’

  They went into the hot and sunny courtyard. There was little breeze there, for it was enclosed by the high walls. They sat down and Dinah undid the tea packet. There was plenty there for everyone – but all the lemonade had been drunk at dinnertime.

  ‘I’m so thirsty I simply must have something to drink with my sandwiches,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘My tongue will hang out like a dog’s in a minute.’

  Everyone felt the same – but nobody particularly wanted to go into that big lonely kitchen and bring back water in the cardboard cups.

  ‘I know – we’ll see if the spring that runs down to our cottage is anywhere about,’ said Philip. ‘It’s supposed to begin in this courtyard, I know. It should be somewhere down at the bottom of it.’

  He got up and Button went with him. It was Button who found the spring. It gushed out near the wall that ran round the castle, almost at the foot of the tower at the top of which the children had had their dinner. It was not a big spring but the water was cold and clear. Button lapped it eagerly.

  Philip filled two cups and called to Jack to bring more. Jack and Tassie came up with the other cups. Jack looked with interest at the bubbling spring. It gushed out from a hole in the rock, and then disappeared again under a tangle of brambles, into a kind of little tunnel that ran below the tower.

  ‘I suppose it goes right underneath the tower, and comes out again further on down the hillside,’ thought the boy. ‘It collects more and more water on the way, from the inside of the hill, and by the time it reaches Spring Cottage it is quite a big spring, ready to become a proper little stream.’

  The children enjoyed the icy-cold water. They finished all the tea, and lay back in the sun, watching the golden eagles, who were once more soaring upwards on wide wings.

  ‘This has been an exciting sort of day,’ said Philip lazily. ‘What do you feel now about spending a few days here, Jack – won’t you be too lonely?’

  ‘I’ll have Kiki and the eagles,’ said Jack. ‘And all the rabbits round about too!’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to be here all alone now,’ said Dinah. ‘Not until I knew who pumped that water! I should feel creepy all the time.’

  ‘That’s nothing new,’ said Philip. ‘You feel creepy if you even see the tip of a worm coming out of a hole. Life must be nothing but creepiness to you. Now if only you’d get used to having toads crawling over you, or a hedgehog in your pocket, or a beetle or two, you’d soon stop feeling creepy.’

  ‘Oh don’t!’ said Dinah, shivering at the thought of beetles crawling over her. ‘You’re an awful boy. Jack, you won’t really stay here by yourself, will you?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Jack, with a laugh. ‘I’m not scared. I think Philip’s right when he says it was probably only some rambler who pumped himself a spot of water. After all, if we’re curious enough to make our way in here other people may be too.’

  ‘Yes, but how did they come?’ persisted Dinah.

  ‘Same way as old Button came in, I expect,’ said Philip.

  Dinah stared at him. ‘Well – how did Button get in?’ she said. ‘Find out that, and we don’t need to use the plank every time!’

  ‘Oh – down a rabbit-hole, I should think, and up another,’ said Philip, refusing to take her seriously. Dinah gave an angry exclamation.

  ‘Do talk sense! Button could go up a rabbit-hole all right, but a man couldn’t. You know that quite well.’

  ‘Of course – why didn’t I think of that before?’ said Philip aggravatingly, and dodged as Dinah threw a clod of earth at him.

  ‘Here! Some of that went in my eye,’ said Jack, sitting up. ‘Stop it, you two. I know what we’ll do. We’ll leave old Button behind here when we go across the plank, and we’ll watch and see where he comes out. Then we can use his entrance, if it’s possible, the next time we come!’


  ‘Yes – that’s a good idea,’ said Lucy-Ann, and Tassie nodded too. The little girl was puzzled to know how Button had got into the castle. She felt so certain that there was no way in besides the two doors, and the window through which they themselves had come.

  ‘Come on – time to go home,’ said Jack, and they all got up. ‘I’ll be back here tomorrow, I hope!’

  11

  An unexpected meeting

  They went back into the castle and up the wide stone stair. Dinah felt a little uncomfortable and kept close to the others. So did Tassie. They went down the wide corridor and looked into room after room to find the one with the plank.

  ‘Golly! Don’t say it’s gone!’ said Jack, after they had looked into about six rooms. ‘This is odd. I’m sure the room wasn’t as far along as this.’

  But it was – for in the very next room they saw the edge of their plank on the stone sill. They hurried over to it. It was dark in that room. They all wished heartily they had a torch, and determined to bring both torches and candles with them next time!

  Jack went across first, with Kiki clutching his shoulder, murmuring something about putting the kettle on. He got across safely, and then caught hold of the rope on the other side. He helped Lucy-Ann across, then Dinah and then Tassie. Lucy-Ann slipped hurriedly down the cliffside, followed by Dinah. Tassie leapt down like a goat, without even touching the rope.

  Then came Philip, and poor little Button was left behind, yelping shrilly.

  ‘You go your own way and join us outside the castle!’ called back Philip. Button jumped up to the sill but kept falling back. He could not reach it. The children heard him barking away by himself as they made their way down the tunnel-like passage into the sunshine.

  ‘I may have to go back for Button, you know, if he doesn’t come after us,’ said Philip. ‘I couldn’t really leave him behind. But foxes are so sharp – I bet he’ll come rushing after us in a minute.’

  ‘Keep a good lookout then,’ said Jack, ‘because we want to know where he gets in and out, so that we can use the place ourselves.’