for dinner,” said Jack, going down to look at his lines.
“And custard!” said Nora, who had been doing some cooking with eggs and milk.
“Well, I feel just as hungry as if I’d been hard at work building all morning!” said Mike.
The afternoon passed by lazily. The boys slept. Nora read a book. Peggy got out her work-basket and began on the long, long task of mending up the old clothes Jack had brought back the night before. She thought they would be very useful indeed when the cold weather came. She wished she and Nora and Mike could get some of their clothes, too.
The hens clucked in the hen-yard. Daisy the cow mooed once or twice, feeling rather strange and lonely - but she seemed to be settling down very well.
“I hope she won’t moo too much,” thought Peggy, her needle flying in and out busily.
“She might give us away with her mooing if anyone came up the lake in a boat. But
thank goodness no one ever does'”
Everyone felt very fresh after their rest. They decided to have a walk round the island. Nora fed the hens and then they set off.
It was a fine little island. Trees grew thickly down to the water-side all round.
The steep hill that rose in the middle was a warm, sunny place, covered with rabbit runs and burrows. The grassy piece beyond the hill was full of little wild flowers, and birds sang in the bushes around. The children peeped into the dark caves that ran into the hillside, but did not feel like exploring them just then, for they had no candles with them.
“I’ll take you to the place where wild raspberries grow,” said Jack. He led them round the hill to the west side, and there, in the blazing sun, the children saw scores of raspberry canes, tangled and thick.
“Jack! There are some getting ripe already!” cried Nora, in delight. She pointed to where spots of bright red dotted the canes. The children squeezed their way through and began to pick the raspberries. How sweet and juicy they were!
“We’ll have some of these with cream each day,” said Peggy. “I can skim the cream off the cow’s milk, and we will have raspberries and cream for suppers. Oooh!”
“Oooh!” said everyone, eating as fast as they could.
“Are there any wild strawberries on the island, too?” asked Nora.
“Yes,” said Jack, “but they don’t come till later. “We’ll look for those in August and September.”
“I do think this is a lovely island,” said Peggy happily. “We’ve a splendid house of our own - hens - a cow, wild fruit growing - fresh water each day!”
“It’s all right now it’s warm weather,” said Jack. “It won’t be quite so glorious when the cold winds begin to blow! But winter is a long way off yet.”
They climbed up the west side of the hill, which was very rocky. They came to a big rock right on the very top, and sat there. The rock was so warm that it almost burnt them. From far down below the blue spire of smoke rose up from their fire.
“Let’s play a game,” said Jack. “Let’s play...”
But what game Jack wanted the others never knew - for Jack suddenly stopped, sat up very straight, and stared fixedly down the blue, sparkling lake. The others sat up and stared, too. And what they saw gave them a dreadful shock!
“Some people in a boat!” said Jack. “Do you see them? Away down there!”
“Yes,” said Mike, going pale. “Are they after us, do you think?”
“No,” said Jack, after a while. “I think I can hear a gramophone - and if it was anyone after us they surely wouldn’t bring that! They are probably just trippers, from the village at the other end of the lake.”
“Do you think they’ll come to the island?” asked Peggy.
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “They may - but anyway it would only be for a little while. If we can hide all traces of our being here they won’t know a thing about us.”
“Come on, then,” said Mike, slipping off the rock. “We’d better hurry. It won’t be long before they’re here.”
The children hurried down to the beach. Jack and Mike stamped out the fire, and carried the charred wood to the bushes. They scattered clean sand over the place where they had the fire. They picked up all their belongings and hid them.
“I don’t think anyone would find Willow House,” said Jack. “The trees really are too thick all round it for any tripper to bother to squeeze through.”
“What about the hens?” said Peggy.
“We’ll catch them and pop them into a sack just for now,” said Jack. “The hen-yard will have to stay. I don’t think anyone will find it - it’s well hidden. But we certainly couldn’t have the hens clucking away there!”
“And Daisy the cow?” said Peggy, looking worried.
“We’ll watch and see which side of the island the trippers come,” said Jack. “As far as I know, there is only one landing-place, and that is our beach. As Daisy is right on the other side of the island, they are not likely to see her unless they go exploring. And let’s hope they don’t do that!”
“Where shall we hide?” said Nora.
“We’ll keep a look-out from the hill, hidden in the bracken,” said Jack. “If the trippers begin to wander about, we must just creep about in the bracken and trust to luck they won’t see us. There’s one thing - they won’t be looking for us, if they are trippers. They won’t guess there is anyone else here at all!”
“Will they find the things in the cave-larder?” asked Nora, helping to catch the squawking hens.
“Peggy, get some heather and bracken and stuff up the opening to the cave-larder,” said Jack. Peggy ran off at once. Jack put the hens gently into the sack one by one and ran up the hill with them. He went to the other side of the hill and came to one of the caves he knew. He called to Nora, who was just behind him.
“Nora! Sit at the little opening here and see that the hens don’t get out! I’m going to empty them out of the sack into the cave!”
With much squawking and scuffing and clucking the scared hens hopped out of the sack and ran into the little cave. Nora sat down at the entrance, hidden by the bracken that grew there. No hen could get out whilst she was there.
“The boat is going round the island,” whispered Jack as he parted the bracken at the top of the hill and looked down to the lake below. “They can’t find a place to land.
They’re going round to our little beach! Well - Daisy the cow is safe, if they don’t go exploring! Hope she doesn’t moo!”
Chapter IX - The Trippers Come to the Island
Nora sat crouched against the entrance of the little cave. She could hear the six hens inside, clucking softly as they scratched about. Jack knelt near her, peering through the bracken, trying to see what the boat was doing.
“Mike has rowed our own boat to where the brambles fall over the water, and has pushed it under them,” said Jack, in a low voice. “I don’t know where he is now. I can’t see him.”
“Where’s Peggy?” whispered Nora.
“Here I am,” said a low voice, and Peggy’s head popped above the bracken a little way down the hill. “I say - isn’t this horrid? I do wish those people would go away.”
The