“I’ll see to it,” promised Peggy. Jack knew she would, for she was a most dependable girl.
“Every single thing must be taken to the caves today,” said Jack, “except just those few things we need for cooking, like a saucepan and kettle and so on. We can easily slip those away at the last minute. We will leave ourselves a candle or two in Willow House, because we can sleep there till we have to go to the caves.”
“Jack, what about the hen-yard?” asked Nora. “It really does look like a yard now, because the hens have scratched about so much.”
“That’s true,” said Jack. “Well, as soon as we know we’ve got to hide, Mike can pull up the fence round the hen-yard and store it in Willow House. Then he can scatter sand over the yard and cover it with heather. It’s a good thing you thought of that, Nora.”
“There’s one thing, even if we have to hide away for days, we’ve enough food!” said Peggy.
“What about Daisy, though?” said Mike. “She won’t have anything to eat. A cow eats such a lot.”
“We should have to take her out to feed at night,” said Jack. “And by the way, Peggy, don’t light the fire for cooking until the very last minute and stamp it out as soon as you have finished. A spire of smoke gives us away more than anything!”
“What about someone hopping up to the hill-top now?” said Mike. “The sun is getting high. We ought to keep a watch from now on.”
“Yes, we ought,” said Jack. “You take first watch, Mike. I’ll give you a call when it’s time to come down. We’ll take turns all the day long. Keep watch all round. We don’t know from which end of the lake a boat might come, though it’s more likely to be from the end I was at yesterday.”
Mike sped up the hill and sat down there. The lake lay blue below him. Not a swan, not a moorhen disturbed its surface. Certainly no boat was in sight. Mike settled down to watch carefully.
The others were busy. Everything was taken up to the caves in the hillside and stored there. Nora left a sack by the hen-yard ready to bundle the hens into when the time came. She also put a pile of sand by the yard, ready for Mike to scatter after the fences had been pulled up. Nora was no longer the careless little girl she had been. Nor was she lazy any more. She had learned that when she did badly everyone suffered, so now she did her best - and it was a very good best too.
After a while Jack went up to take Mike’s place on the hill-top. Mike set to work to sink the boat. She soon sank to the bottom of the water, under the bramble bushes. Mike felt sure that no one would ever know she was there.
Peggy went hunting round looking for anything that might give them away. She did not find very much, for all the children tidied up after any meal or game. Broken egg-shells were always buried, uneaten food was given to the hens, and it was only things like snippings of wool or cotton that the wind had blown away that could be found.
Peggy went on guard next and then Nora. It was dull work, sitting up on the hill-top doing nothing but watch, so Nora took her pencil and drawing-book and drew what she could see. That made the time go quickly. Peggy took her mending. She always had plenty of that to do, for every day somebody tore their clothes on brambles. After every stitch Peggy looked up and down the lake, but nothing could be seen.
That evening Mike was on guard, and he was just about to come down to get his supper when he saw something in the distance. He looked carefully. Could it be a boat? He called Jack.
“Jack! Come quickly! I can see something. Is it a boat, do you think?”
Everyone tore up the hill. Jack looked hard. “Well, if it’s a boat, it’s very small,” he said.
“It’s something black,” said Nora. “Whatever is it? Oh, I do hope it isn’t anyone coming now.”
The children watched, straining their eyes. And suddenly the thing they thought might be a small boat flew up into the air!
“It’s that black swan we saw the other day!” said Jack, with a squeal of laughter. “What a fright it gave us! Look, there it goes! Isn’t it a beauty?”
The children watched the lovely black swan flying slowly towards them, its wings making a curious whining noise as it came. Nora went rather red, for she remembered how frightened she had been the first time she had heard a swan flying over the island - but nobody teased her about it. They were all too thankful it was only a swan, not a boat.
“There’s no need to keep watch any more to-night,” said Jack, and they all went down the hill. Evening was almost on them. They sat by their fire and ate their supper, feeling happier than the day before. Perhaps after all no one would come to look for them - and anyway, they had done all they could now to get things ready in case anyone did come.
The next day the children kept watch in turn again, and the next. The third day, when Nora was on guard, she thought she saw people on the far side of the lake, where a thick wood grew. She whistled softly to Jack, and he came up and watched, too.
“Yes, you’re right, Nora,” he said at last. “There are people there - and they are certainly hunting for something or someone!”
They watched for a while and then called the others. There was no fire going, for Peggy had stamped it out. They all crowded on to the hill-top, their heads peeping out of the tall bracken that grew there.
“See over there!” said Jack. “The hunt is on! It will only be a day or two before they come over here. We must watch very carefully indeed!”
“Well, everything is ready,” said Peggy. “I wish they would come soon, if they are coming - I hate all this waiting about. It gives me a cold feeling in my tummy.”
“So it does in mine,” said Mike. “I’d like a hot-water bottle to carry about with me!”
That made everyone laugh. They watched for a while longer and then went down, leaving Jack on guard.
For two days nothing happened, though the children thought they could see people on the other side of the lake, beating about in the bushes and hunting. Mike went on guard in the morning and kept a keen watch. Nora fed the hens as usual and Jack milked Daisy.
And then Mike saw something! He stood up and looked - it was something at the far end of the lake, where Jack had gone marketing. It was a boat! No mistaking it this time - a boat it was, and a big one, too!
Mike called the others and they scrambled up. “Yes,” said Jack at once. “That’s a boat all right - with about four people in, too. Come on, there’s no time to be lost. There’s only one place a boat can come to here - and that’s our island. To your jobs, everyone, and don’t be frightened!”
The children hurried off. Jack went to get Daisy. Mike went to see to the hens and the hen-yard. Peggy scattered the dead remains of the fire, and caught up the kettle and the saucepan and any odds and ends of food on the beach to take to the cave. Nora ran to cover up their patches of growing seeds with bits of heather. Would they have time to do everything? Would they be well hidden before the boatload of people came to land on their secret island?
Jack got her safely through the narrow passage to the inner cave and left her there munching a turnip whilst he went to see if he could help the others. Before he left the outer cave he carefully rubbed away any traces of Daisy’s hoofmarks. He arranged the bracken carelessly over the entrance so that it did not seem as if anyone went in and out of it.
Mike arrived with the hens just then, and Jack gave him a hand. Mike squeezed himself into the little tiny cave that led by the low passage to the inner cave, for it had been arranged that only Jack and the cow should use the other entrance for fear that much use of it should show too plainly that people went in and out.
Jack passed him the sack of hens, and Mike crawled on hands and knees through the low passage and into the big inner cave where Daisy was. The hens did not like being pulled through the tiny passage and squawked dismally. But when Mike shook them out of the sack, and scattered grain for them to eat, they were quite happy again. Jack had lighted the lantern in the inner cave, and it cast its dim light down. Mike thought he had better stay in the cave, in case the hens found their way out again.
So he sat down, his heart thumping, and waited for the others. One by one they came, carrying odds and ends. Each child had done his or her job, and with scarlet cheeks and beating hearts they sat down together in the cave and looked at one another.
“They’re not at the island yet,” said Jack. “I took a look just now. They’ve got another quarter-mile to go. Now, is there anything we can possibly have forgotten?”
The children thought hard. The boat was sunk. The cow and the hens were in. The fire was out and well scattered. The hen-yard was covered with sand and heather. The yard-fence was taken up and stored in Willow House. The seed-patches were hidden. The milk-pail was taken from the spring.
“We’ve done everything!” said Peggy.
And then Mike jumped up in a fright. “My hat!” he said. “Where is it? I haven’t got it on! I must have left it somewhere!”
The others stared at him in dismay. His hat was certainly not on his head nor was it anywhere in the cave.
“You had it on this morning,” said Peggy. “I remember seeing it, and thinking it was getting very dirty and floppy. Oh, Mike dear! Where can you have left it? Think hard, for it is very important.”
“It might be the one thing that gives us away,” said Jack.
"There’s just time to go and look for it,” said Mike. “I’ll go and see if I can find it.”
He crawled through the narrow passage and out into the cave with the low entrance. He squeezed through that and went out into the sunlight. He could see the boat from where he was, being rowed through the water some distance away. He ran down the hill to the beach. He hunted there. He hunted round about the hen-yard. He hunted by the spring. He hunted everywhere! But he could not find that hat!
And then he wondered if it was anywhere near Willow House, for he had gone there that morning to store the hen-yard fences. He squeezed through the thickly growing trees and went to Willow House. There, beside the doorway, was his hat! The boy pushed it into his pocket, and made his way back up the hillside. Just as he got to the cave-entrance he heard the boat grinding on the beach below. The searchers had arrived.
He crawled into the big inner cave. The others greeted him excitedly.
“Did you find it, Mike?”
“Yes, thank goodness,” said Mike, taking his hat out of his pocket. “It was just by Willow House - but I don’t expect it would have been seen there, because Willow House is too well hidden among those thick trees to be found. Still, I’m glad I found it - I’d have been worried all the time if I hadn’t. The boat is on the beach now, Jack; I heard it being pulled in. There are four men in it.”
“I’m just a bit worried about the passage to this inner cave from the outer cave,” said Jack. “If that is found it’s all up with us. I was wondering if we could find a few rocks and stones and pile them up half-way through the passage, so that if anyone does come through there, he will find his way blocked and won’t guess there is another cave behind, where we are hiding!”
“That’s a fine idea, Jack,” said Mike. “It doesn’t matter about the other entrance, because no grown-up could possibly squeeze through there. Come on, everyone. Find rocks and stones and hard clods of earth and stop up the passage half-way through!”
The children worked hard, and before half an hour had gone by the passage was completely blocked up. No one could possibly guess there was a way through. It would be quite easy to unblock when the time came to go out.
“I’m going to crawl through to the cave with the small entrance and peep out to see if I can hear anything,” said Jack. So he crawled through and sat just inside the tiny, low-down entrance, trying to hear.
The men were certainly searching the island! Jack could hear their shouts easily.
“Someone’s been here!” shouted one man. “Look where they’ve made a fire.”
“Trippers, probably!” called back another man. “There’s an empty tin here, too - and a carton - just the sort of thing trippers leave about.”
“Hi! Look at this spring here!” called another voice. “Looks to me as if people have been tramping about here.”
Jack groaned. Surely there were not many foot-marks there!
“Well, if those children are here we’ll find them all right!” said a fourth voice. “It beats me how they could manage to live here, though, all alone, with no food, except what that boy could buy in the village!”
“I’m going over to the other side to look there,” yelled the first man. “Come with me, Tom. You go one side of the hill and I’ll go the other - and then, if the little beggars are dodging about to keep away from us, one of us will find them!”
Jack felt glad he was safely inside the cave. He stayed where he was till a whisper reached him from behind.
“Jack! We can hear voices. Is everything all right?”
“So far, Mike,” said Jack. “They are all hunting hard - but the only thing they seem to have found is a few footmarks round the spring. I’ll stay here for a bit and see what I can hear.”
The hunt went on. Nothing seemed to be found. The children had cleared everything up very well indeed.
But, as Jack sat just inside the cave, there came a shout from someone near the beach.
“Just look here! What do you make of this?”
Jack wondered whatever the man had found. He soon knew. The man had kicked aside the heather that had hidden the hen-yard - and had found the newly scattered sand!
“This looks as if something had been going on here,” said the man. “But goodness knows what! You know, I think those children are here somewhere. It’s up to us to find them. Clever little things, too, they must be, hiding away all traces of themselves like this!”
“We’d better beat through the bushes and the bracken,” said another man. “They may be hiding there. That’d be the likeliest place.”
Then Jack heard the men beating through the bracken, poking into every bush, trying their hardest to find a hidden child. But not one could they find.
Jack crawled back to the cave after two or three hours and told the others what had happened. They listened, alarmed to hear that the hen-yard had been discovered even though they had tried so hard to hide it.
“It’s time we had something to eat,” said Peggy. “We can’t light a fire in here, for we would be smoked out, but there are some rolls of bread I made yesterday, some wild strawberries, and a cold pudding. And lots of milk, of course.”