The Secret of Spiggy Holes - Blyton Enid (читать онлайн полную книгу .txt) 📗

They slipped on their dressing-gowns and climbed the winding stairs to the boys’ room. Both the boys were in bed. “We’ve come to say good-night,” said Peggy. “Isn’t this a lovely place to stay in, Mike?”

“Lovely,” said Mike, with a huge yawn. “I like a room where the sun shines in from dawn to dusk, and has four windows to peep through!”

Peggy went to the window that looked up the cliff, away from the sea.

“That old house looks queer,” she said. “I don’t think I like it. Do you see its big tower, Mike? It is just like this little one, but taller and bigger. It seems as if that big tower is frowning down at ours.”

“You do have silly ideas, Peggy.” said Mike sleepily. “We’ll go and explore the grounds of the Old House sometime - and wouldn’t it be fun if the house was empty and we could go inside and see what the tower there was like!”

“I wonder what Spiggy the Smuggler was like,” said Nora.

“You’ll have Dimmy after you with a hair-brush to spank you with if you don’t go to bed,” said Jack, burying his head in his pillow. “I can’t think why you are so wide awake. Do go to bed.”

“All right,” said Peggy. “Good-night. See you tomorrow, sleepy heads!”

She and Nora slipped down the winding stairs into their own room. They got into bed. They were tiny little beds, but very comfortable.

“Now I’m going to think about all we’ve done to-day,” began Nora. But before she had thought more than twelve words her mind floated off into sleep, and she didn’t move until the morning. The sun came in from the opposite window then, and Peggy and Nora were awakened by somebody tickling them.

“Oooh, don’t!” squealed Nora. “Mike, stop! What do you want?”

“Come and bathe before breakfast,” said Mike. “Get up, lazybones. It’s seven o’clock. Breakfast isn’t till eight, so we’ve lots of time.”

Nora and Peggy sat up, quite wide awake. They looked round their sunny room with its four quaint windows. They could see four bits of bright blue sky, and they could hear the sound of the waves breaking at the cliff-foot. They felt so full of happiness that they had to sing.

“Here we are at Spiggy Holes,

Here we are at Spiggy -

Here we are at Spiggy Holes,

Pop goes the weasel!” yelled Nora to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

The others took up the silly song and they all went downstairs in their bathing-costumes, roaring the tune. Miss Dimity put her head out of the kitchen.

“Dear me, it’s you!” she said. “I thought it was the canary singing.”

The children squealed with laughter and rushed down the steep path to the beach. They flung themselves into the water.

“Now our holidays really have begun!” said Mike, as he splashed Peggy. “What fun we’re going to have!”

Inside the Old House

The first few days of the summer holiday slipped away happily. The children explored the beach, which was a most exciting one, but rather dangerous. The tide came right up to the cliffs when it was in, and filled most of the caves.

“We shall have to be careful not to get caught in any of these caves when the tide is coming in,” said Jack. “It would be very difficult to get out.”

Miss Dimity warned them too, and told them many stories of people who had explored the caves, forgetting about the tide, and who had had to be rescued by boats when they found that they could not get out of the caves.

The bathing was lovely at low tide. The children had to promise not to bathe at high tide, for then the waves were very big, and Dimmy was afraid the children might be dashed against the rocks. But it was lovely to bathe at low tide. The rock pools were deep and warm. The sand was smooth and golden, and felt pleasant to their bare feet.

“You need not wear your sand-shoes here,” Dimmy told them. “No trippers ever come to Spiggy Holes, leaving their litter and broken glass behind them!”

So they went barefoot, and loved to feel the sand between their toes. The farm-lad, who came to do Dimmy’s garden for her, lent them his boat, and the four children had a wonderful time at low tide, boating around the rocks and all about the craggy coast.

One day there was a very high tide indeed. The waves splashed against the cliffs and all the caves were full of water. There was nothing to do down on the beach, because, for one thing, there was no beach, and for another Dimmy said it was dangerous to go down the cliff-path when the tides were high because the spray made the path slippery, and they might easily slip down and fall into the high water.

“Well, what shall we do then?” said Jack, wandering out into the garden, and picking some pea-pads. He split the pads and emptied the peas into his mouth. Dimmy had a lovely garden - full of peas and beans and lettuces and gooseberries and late cherries and early plums. None of the children could help picking something as they went through it every day.

“I know what we’ll do!” said Mike. “We’ll go and explore the garden of the Old House. Come on!”

They passed the farm-lad, George, who was busy digging up some potatoes. Nora called to him.

“Hallo! We’re going to explore the garden of the Old House. Nobody lives there, do they, George?”

“That house has been empty this twenty years.” said George. “Maybe more. The garden is like a forest!”

“It will be fun to explore it then,” said Peggy. They ran up the slope of the cliff towards the Old House. They were all in sun-suits and shady hats, but even so they were very hot. Soon they came to a high wall that ran all round the big garden of the Old House.

“We can’t climb over this,” said Jack, looking up at the wall, which was three times as tall as he was. “What are we going to do?”

“What about going in through the gates?” said Mike, with a grin. “Or do you feel it would be more exciting to break your leg trying to climb that wall, Jack?”

Everybody laughed. “Well, it would be more exciting to climb the wall,” said Jack, giving Mike a friendly punch. “But we’ll go and find the gates.”

The gates were locked, but the children easily climbed over them. They jumped to the ground on the other side.

There was a long, dark drive in front of them, winding its way below tall, overhanging trees to the front door. The drive was completely overgrown with nettles and thistles, and the children stopped in dismay.

“I say!” said Jack. “We want to be dressed in macintoshes and gum-boots to make our way through these stinging, prickly things! If we push through them we shall get terribly stung!“

“Well, look,” said Nora, pointing to the left. “There’s a better way off to the left there - only just tall grass, and no nettles. Let’s go that way.”

So they went to the left, making their way through shrubberies and over-grown beds. It was a very large garden, and very exciting, for there were all kinds of fruit trees that had not been pruned for years, but whose fruit was sweet and delicious.

The children picked some ripe plums and enjoyed the sweet juice. “Nobody lives here, so it can’t matter having a few plums,” said Nora. “The wasps would have them if we didn’t. Isn’t it hot in this garden!”

“Let’s go and see what the house is like.” said Jack. So they pushed their way through the long sprays of overgrown rose-bushes and went up to the house. It was built of white stone, and was very solid and strong. It had rather small windows, very dirty indeed, and the rooms looked dark and dreary when the children looked through the glass.

They came to the round tower built on to one side of the house, just as the tower of Peep-Hole was built on to Miss Dimity’s house.

“This is an enormous tower,” said Mike, in surprise. “It’s three times as big as ours! My word, I’d like to go up it! The view over the sea must be marvellous!”

“Let’s see if we can get into the house,” said Peggy. She tried some of the windows, but they were fast shut. Mike tried a door set deep into the wall of the tower but that was locked and bolted inside.