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

'Am I mistaken?' she asked, 'or is there a speed limit of five miles an hour through Horning village? I think I have seen the notices.'
'No boats to go above five miles per hour,' said Mr Tedder, 'not between the board t'other side of the Ferry and t'other board at top of Horning Reach.'
'This motor-cruiser,' said Mrs Barrable, 'seems to make a practice of disregarding the speed limit as well as the convenience and safety of other users of the river. I have noticed it before, and today I think I have been fortunate not to have been swamped by it. Do I lay an information with you, or must I see the Bure Commissioners ... ?'
Mr Tedder turned again, but he and the old lady and the pug were alone. The people from the cruiser, with their yachting-caps, their berets and their bright pyjamas were hurrying angrily back to their vessel. The three small boys were standing open-mouthed in the Death and Glory, wondering at the sudden collapse of the enemy.
'I wouldn't do nothin' about it, ma'am,' said Mr Tedder slowly. 'They hear what you say.'
'Thank you, officer,' said Mrs Barrable, 'I think you're perfectly right. No, William!'
William had felt the quarrel in the air, and, as the Margo-letla's engine started up and she swung away from the staithe and upstream, he had allowed himself a single bark.
'Least said, soonest mended,' said Mr Tedder, though not thinking of William. 'Takes all sorts to make a world, but fare to me as we could do without some of 'em. There's been trouble up at Wroxham with that lot, making such a noise by the bridge nobody in the hotels could get their sleep. But where's the use? Here today they are and gone tomorrow. Casting off their moorings? Now who's going to do a thing like that? More likely they forget to make 'em fast.'

CHAPTER 9
THE MAKING OF AN OUTLAW
That afternoon there was not wind enough to stir the flame of a candle when Tom and the twins rowed down the river in the Titmouse. 'We'd better all go in one boat,' Tom had said, 'and then I can hop into the reeds if we hear the Margoletta, and you can hang about and pick me up again when they've gone by.' That morning's happenings on Horning Staithe had shown the Coots that it was no good thinking that the Hullabaloos were of the kind that forgive and forget. So the three of them together rowed slowly down the river, looking at the nests as they passed them, and rejoicing to see that the coot with the white feather, on No. 7 nest, was sitting as steadily as if she had never been disturbed.
'Hullo,' said Tom, when at last they came in sight of the Teasel, 'they've taken the awning down.'
'Mustn't let them think us quite incapable,' Mrs Barrable had said when she came back from her shopping, and she and Dick and Dorothea between them had folded up the awning and stowed it in the forepeak, and lowered the cabin roof, and washed down the decks with the mop and generally done their best to make the Teasel look as if she were ready for a voyage.
'She's a jolly fine boat,' said Starboard. 'It's a pity those kids can't sail.'
'There they are,' said Tom.
Dick and Dorothea had come out of the cabin and were standing in the well. Dorothea was waving. Dick was looking anxiously round the Teasel. They had done the best they could, but he felt sure that something or other ought to have been stowed a little differently. Well, it was too late to alter anything now. Dorothea was finding, all of a sudden, that now that these sailing twins were close at hand, she did not know what to say to them. She found it easy enough to make up stories in which everybody talked and talked. Indeed, already, since yesterday, she had gone through half a dozen imaginary scenes in which she and Dick met and made friends with Port and Starboard. And now here they were, and she could not get one single word out of her mouth and was quite glad that William was doing all the talking and doing it very loud.
The Titmouse slid alongside.
'How do you do?' said Tom, as Mrs Barrable came out of the cabin, and William stopped barking, remembered that Tom was a friend, and came and licked the hand with which he was keeping the Titmouse from bumping the Teasel.
'I am so glad you managed to come,' said Mrs Barrable. 'These are Dick and Dorothea. And one of you two is Nell and the other is Bess, and one is Port and the other is Starboard, and the two of you are twins, and I don't know yet which is which.'
'It's quite easy, really,' said Starboard.
'Once you know,' said Port.
'Oh, yes,' said Mrs Barrable. 'I remember now. Nell's the one with curly hair.'
'And the right-handed one,' said Tom. 'That's why she's Starboard, and Bess is left-handed and so she's Port. It comes very handy for sailing.'
'Not much sailing for anybody today,' said Mrs Barrable, looking up the glassy river.
And then, before they had even had time to shake hands, something happened which Dorothea had not imagined in any of her scenes, something which turned them all into old friends working together.
'Why look,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Isn't that those piratical bird-protectors?'
Round the bend of the river above the Teasel's moorings, just where, last night, Mrs Barrable had seen Tom racing down in his old Dreadnought, and then the Margoletta roaring after him, came the old black ship's boat, Joe standing in the stern and steering, Pete and Bill rowing like galley-slaves so that there was a white ripple of bubbling water under her forefoot.
'They're in a mighty hurry,' said Starboard.
'Something's up,' said Tom.
'It's those Hullabaloos again,' said Port.
'Easy,' shouted Joe, as the Death and Glory swept down the river. The sweating galley-slaves bent forward, panting, over their lifted oars.
'It's that cruiser," called Joe, swinging his vessel round. 'A man from Rodley's come down to see my Dad, and we ask him. He don't know when that lot's giving up the Margoletta. But they're coming down river. Changed a battery they have.'
'They must use a lot of electricity,' said Dick, more to himself than to anybody else, 'with a wireless like that going on all the time.'
'The doctor tell us where you was,' said Joe. 'Down here any time they may be.'
Tom looked at the reeds.
I'll just have to hide again,' he said. 'And you three had better clear off, or we'll be getting the Teasel mixed up in it too.'
'Tom mustn't let himself be caught,' explained Port, 'because it would be so awful for the doctor.'
'It's Coot Club business, anyhow,' said Starboard, 'and we're just not going to have him caught.'
'If he's going to skipper the Teasel, it's our business, too,' said Mrs Barrable, and laughed when she saw Dick and Dorothea both staring at her. 'We may be going to manage a voyage after all,' she said, 'if the Coot Club can turn you two into sailors ... And this is no place for first sailing lessons, out in the open river. If those Hullabaloos are coming down again, they shan't find any of us. We'll vanish, pirates and all.'
'But how?' said Tom.
'Into Ranworth Broad,' said Mrs Barrable.
'No wind,' said Starboard, looking up the river on which the only ripple was made by a water-hen swimming across.
'We could quant,' [To quant is to pole a boat along. A quant is a long pole used for quanting] said Tom, 'but don't you think I'd better just hide?'
'They can't search the Teasel,' said Mrs Barrable. 'You come aboard and you can always slip into the cabin. Don't let's lose time. Have you three pirates got a rope?'
'We've a good 'un.'
I'll look after Titmouse," said Port. 'You'll want Starboard to steer while you quant.'
Tom and Starboard climbed aboard the Teasel. Bill and Pete brought the Death and Glory near enough for Joe to throw Tom the long rope they always carried with them in hope of salvage work. Many a time it had come in useful when they had found beginners who had got themselves aground in their hired boats and did not know how to get off. The rope uncoiled in the air. The end fell across the foredeck. Tom had it as it fell and made it fast round the mast.
'Come on, you,' cried Starboard to Dick, as she jumped ashore to get up the anchors. 'And what about the gangplank?'
'We'll take it with us,' said Mrs Barrable. 'William would miss it at the next place.'