"Ransome, Arthur - Swallows and Amazons 05 - Coot Club 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ransome Arthur)

Swallows and Amazons Forever

Coot Club

By Arthur Ransome


CONTENTS
COOT CLUB
1 Just in Time
2 Disappointment
3 Number 7
4 The Only Thing To Do
5 Aboard the Teasel
6 Put Yourself in His Place
7 Invitation
8 The Innocents
9 The Making of an Outlaw
10 Lying Low
11 Tom in Danger
12 Under the Enemy's Nose
13 The Titmouse Disguised
14 Neighbours at Potter Heigham
15 Port and Starboard Say Good-bye
16 Southward Bound
17 Port and Starboard Miss Their Ship
18 Through Yarmouth
19 Sir Garnet Obliges Friends
20 While the Wind Holds
21 Come Along and Welcome
22 The Return of the Native
23 Storm Over Oulton
24 Recall
25 The Rashness of the Admiral
26 The Titmouse in the Fog
27 William's Heroic Moment
28 Wreck and Salvage
29 Face to Face


Coot Club

CHAPTER I
JUST IN TIME
Thorpe Station at Norwich is a terminus. Trains from the middle of England and the south run in there, and if they are going on east and north by way of Wroxham, they run out of the station by the same way they ran in. Dick and Dorothea Callum had never been in Norfolk before, and for ten minutes they had been waiting in that station, sitting in the train, for fear it should go on again at once, as it had at Ipswich and Colchester and the few other stations at which it had stopped. The journey was nearly over. They had only a few more miles to go, but Dorothea, whose mind was always busy with scenes that might do for the books she meant to write, was full of the thought of how dreadful it would be if old Mrs Barrable, with whom they were going to stay, should be waiting on Wroxham Station and the train should arrive without them. So Dick and she had wasted ten whole minutes sitting in the carriage, looking out of the open window at the almost empty platform.
A whistle blew, and the guard waved a green flag.
'Bring your head in now, Dick,' said Dorothea, 'and close the window.'
But before Dick had time to pull the window up, they saw a boy come hurrying along the platform. He was heavily laden, with a paper parcel which he was hugging to himself so as to have that hand free for a large can of paint, while on the other arm he had slung a coil of new rope. He was hurrying along beside the train, looking into the windows of the carriages as if he were searching for someone he knew. And Dorothea noticed that, though it was a fine, dry spring day, he was wearing a pair of rubber knee-boots.
'He'll miss it if he doesn't get in,' said Dick.