3

the first morning

the next day the two girls awoke first. it was early, but somebody was already about in the yard.

lucy-ann peeped out of the window.

‘it’s effans,’ she said. ‘he must have been milking. dinah, come here. did you ever see such aglorious view in your life?’

the two girls knelt at the window. the sun was streaming across the valley below through theopening between two mountains, but the rest of the vale was in shadow. in the distance manymountains reared their great heads, getting bluer and bluer the further they were away. the skywas blue without a cloud.

‘holiday weather – real holiday weather!’ said dinah happily. ‘i hope mother lets us gopicnicking today.’

‘there’s one thing about this holiday,’ said lucy-ann, ‘we shan’t have any awful adventures,because aunt allie is absolutely determined to go with us, or send bill with us, wherever we go.’

‘well, we’ve had our share of adventures,’ said dinah, beginning to dress. ‘more than mostchildren ever have. i don’t mind if we don’t have one this time. hurry, lucy-ann, then we can getto the bathroom before the boys. don’t make too much row because mother doesn’t want to bewakened too early.’

lucy-ann popped her head in at the boys’ room on the way to the bathroom. they were stillsound asleep. kiki took her head from under her wing as she heard lucy-ann at the door, but shesaid nothing, only yawned. lucy-ann looked closely at philip’s bed.

snowy the kid was still there, cuddled into the crook of philip’s knees! lucy-ann’s heartwarmed to philip. what an extraordinary boy he was, to have every creature so fond of him, and tobe able to do anything he liked with them. the little kid raised its head and looked at lucy-ann.

she fled to the bathroom and washed with dinah. they soon heard the boys getting up, andkiki’s voice telling somebody to wipe his feet.

‘she’s probably teaching a few manners to snowy,’ giggled lucy-ann. ‘kiki always tries toteach things to all philip’s pets. oh, dinah – do you remember how funny she was with huffin andpuffin, the two puffins we found when we had our last adventure?’

‘arr,’ said dinah, making the noise the puffins used to make. kiki heard them. arrrrr!’ shecalled from the boys’ bedroom. ‘arrrrr!’ then she went off into a cackle of laughter, and snowythe kid stared at her in alarm.

‘maa-aa-aa!’ said the kid.

‘maa-aa-aa!’ said kiki, and the kid looked all round for another kid. the boys laughed.

kiki, always encouraged when people laughed, swelled up her throat to make the noise of a carchanging gear, her favourite noise of the moment, but philip stopped her hurriedly.

‘stop it, kiki! we’ve had enough of that noise. do forget it!’

‘god save the queen!’ said kiki, in a dismal voice. ‘wipe your feet, blow your nose.’

‘come on,’ said the girls, putting their heads in. ‘slowcoaches!’

they all went downstairs just as mrs evans was setting the last touches to the breakfast-table. itwas loaded almost as much as the supper-table the night before. jugs of creamy milk stood aboutthe table, warm from the milking, and big bowls of raspberries had appeared again.

‘i shan’t know what to have,’ groaned jack, sitting down with kiki on his shoulder. ‘i can smelleggs and bacon – and there’s cereal to have with raspberries and cream – and ham – and tomatoes– and gosh, is that cream cheese? cream cheese for breakfast, how super!’

snowy the kid tried to get on to philip’s knee as he sat down to breakfast. he pushed him off.

‘no, snowy, not at meal-times. i’m too busy then. go and say good morning to your mother. shemust wonder where you are.’

kiki was at work on the raspberries. mrs evans had actually put a plate aside for kiki’s ownbreakfast. she and effans beamed at the bird. they both thought she was wonderful.

‘look you, whateffer!’ said kiki, and dipped her beak into the raspberries again. it was rapidlybecoming pink with the juice.

the children had an extremely good meal before bill or mrs mannering came down. theevans’ had had theirs already – in fact they seemed to have done a day’s work, judging by the listof things that evans talked about – he had cleaned out the pigs, groomed the horses, milked thecows, fetched in the eggs, been to see the cow-herd and a dozen other things besides.

‘mrs evans, do you know where the donkeys are that we arranged to have, for riding in themountains?’ asked philip, when he had finished his breakfast and snowy was once more in hisarms.

‘ah, trefor the shepherd will tell you,’ said mrs evans. ‘it iss his brother, look you, that has thedonkeys. he is to bring them here for you.’

‘can’t we go and fetch them and ride them back?’ said jack.

‘indeed to gootness, trefor’s brother lives thirty miles away!’ said effans. ‘you could not walkthere, whateffer. you go and see trefor today and ask him what has he done about your donkeys.’

mrs mannering and bill appeared at that moment, looking fresh and trim after their goodnight’s sleep in the sharp mountain air.

‘any breakfast left for us?’ said bill with a grin.

mrs evans hurried to fry bacon and eggs again, and soon the big kitchen was full of the savourysmell.

‘golly, if i stay here and smell that i shall feel hungry all over again,’ said philip. ‘bill, we’regoing up to see trefor the shepherd to ask about our donkeys. mother, can we have a picnic in themountains as soon as the donkeys come?’

‘yes – when i’m sure i can keep on my donkey all right,’ said his mother. ‘if mine’s a very fatdonkey i shall slide off!’

‘they are not fat,’ effans assured her. ‘they are used in the mountains and they are strong andsmall. sometimes we use ponies, but trefor’s brother breeds donkeys, and they are just as good.’

‘well, we’ll go and have a talk with trefor,’ said philip, getting up and letting snowy fall offhis knee. ‘come on, everyone! kiki, do you want to be left with the raspberries? you greedybird!’

kiki flew to jack’s shoulder, and the party set off up the path that effans had pointed out tothem. snowy bounded with them, turning a deaf ear to his mother’s bleats. already he seemed oneof the company, petted by them all, though kiki was not altogether pleased to have anothercreature taking up so much of the children’s attention.

they went up the steep little path. the sun was up higher now and was hot. the children woreonly thin blouses or shirts, and shorts, but they felt very warm. they came to a spring gushing outof the hillside and sat down to drink, and to cool their hands and feet. snowy drank too, and thencapered about lightly on his strong little legs, leaping from place to place almost as if he hadwings.

‘i wish i could leap like a goat,’ said jack lazily. ‘it looks so lovely and easy to spring up highinto the air like that, and land wherever you want to.’

philip suddenly made a grab at something that was slithering past him on the warm bank. dinahsat up at once. ‘what is it, what is it?’

‘this,’ said philip, and showed the others a silvery-grey, snake-like creature, with bright littleeyes.

dinah screamed at once. ‘a snake! philip, put it down. philip, it’ll bite you.’

‘it won’t,’ said philip calmly. ‘it’s not a snake – and anyway british snakes don’t bite unlessthey’re adders. i’ve told you that before. this is a slow-worm – and a very fine specimen too!’

the children looked in fascination as the silvery slow-worm wriggled over philip’s knees. itcertainly looked very like a snake, but it wasn’t. lucy-ann and jack knew that, but dinah alwaysforgot. she was so terrified of snakes that to her anything that glided along must belong to thesnake family.

‘it’s horrible,’ she said with a shudder. ‘let it go, philip. how do you know it’s not a snake?’

‘well – for one thing it blinks its eyes and no snake does that,’ said philip. ‘watch it. it blinkslike a lizard – and no wonder, because it belongs to the lizard family.’

as he spoke the little creature blinked its eyes. it stayed still on philip’s knee and made nofurther attempt to escape. philip put his hand over it and it stayed there quite happy.

‘i’ve never had a slow-worm for a pet,’ said philip. ‘i’ve a good mind …’

‘philip! if you dare to keep that snake for a pet i’ll tell mother to send you home!’ said dinah ingreat alarm.

‘dinah, it’s not a snake!’ said philip impatiently. ‘it’s a lizard – a legless lizard – quite harmlessand very interesting. i’m going to keep it for a pet if it’ll stay with me.’

‘stay with you! of course it will,’ said jack. ‘did you ever know an animal that wouldn’t? ishould hate to go to a jungle with you, philip – you’d have monkeys hanging lovingly round yourneck, and tigers purring at you, and snakes wrapping themselves round your legs, and …’

dinah gave a little scream. ‘don’t say such horrible things! philip, make that slow-worm goaway.’

instead he slipped it into his pocket. ‘now don’t worry, dinah,’ he said. ‘you don’t need tocome near me. i don’t expect it will stay with me because it won’t like my pocket – but i’ll justsee.’

they set off up the hill once more, dinah hanging back carefully. oh dear! philip would go andspoil the holiday by keeping something horrible again!