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

'When are we going to start?' said Dick, asking the question that had been for some time in both their minds. 'I suppose it's too late to do anything tonight.'
'Start?' said Mrs Barrable, puzzled. 'Start what?'
'Sailing,' said Dick.
'But, my dears, we aren't going to sail ... Didn't I explain to your mother? We can't sail the Teasel with Brother Richard away ... I can't sail the Teasel by myself ... And you can't, either ... We're only going to use her as a houseboat ...'
There was a moment's dreadful silence. Castles in Spain came tumbling down. It was all a mistake. They were not going to learn sailing after all.
Dorothea made a tremendous effort.
'She'll be a very splendid houseboat,' she said.
'And there are lots of birds to look at,' said Dick.
'My dear children,' said Mrs Barrable. I am most dreadfully sorry.'

CHAPTER 3
NUMBER 7
Late in the afternoon Tom Dudgeon came sailing home.
Tom lowered his sail, and tied up the Titmouse. Then he went round the house towards the river, and in at the garden door, listening carefully. Asleep, or awake? Awake. He heard a chuckle, and his mother's laugh in the room that these holidays had become the nursery once again.
'Hullo, Mother,' he called, racing upstairs from the hall. 'How's our baby?'
'Our baby?' laughed his mother. 'Whose baby is he, I should like to know? The twins were in at lunch-time, and they seemed to think he was theirs. And your father calls him his. And you call him yours. And he's his mother's own baby all the time. Well, and how was it last night? Very cold? Very uncomfortable? You look all right...'
'It just couldn't have been better,' said Tom. 'It wasn't cold a bit in that sleeping-bag. And it wasn't uncomfortable really except for one bone.' He gave a bit of a rub to his right hip-bone which still felt rather bruised. 'Anyway,' he said, 'nobody expects floorboards to be like spring mattresses. And there was a snipe bleating long after dark. The awning works splendidly.'
'Where did you sleep?'
'In Wroxham Hall dyke.'
'And you went to Norwich this morning?'
'I got rope and paint and hinges and blocks, and there's about half a crown left, and they gave me the screws for nothing.'
'River pretty crowded coming down? Hardly yet, I suppose, though the visitors do seem to begin coming earlier every year.'
'Not an awful lot,' said Tom. 'There was one beast of a motor-cruiser made me slosh the bacon fat all over the place when I was cooking my dinner.'
'There was one yesterday,' said his mother, 'going up late in the evening, upset half Miss Millett's china in her little houseboat. She was talking of seeing the Bure Commissioners about it."
'Probably the same beasts coming down again,' said Tom. 'Most of them are pretty decent nowadays, but these beasts swooshed by with a stern wave as if they wanted to wash the banks down. I've got to get some hot water and clean those bottom-boards at once before the twins come."
'Coot Club meeting?' asked his mother. 'Like a jug of tea in the shed?'
'Very much,' said Tom. 'Hullo! There they are! All in a bunch, too. There's Flash.'' He had caught a glimpse of the white sails of the racing boats coming up the river.
Tom's mother held the new baby up at the nursery window to see the white sails go by. She and Tom stood listening at the window after the sails had disappeared. Higher up the river they heard two sharp reports, 'Bang! Bang!' almost at the same moment.
'Pretty close finish, anyhow,' said Tom. 'I'll dash down now, if you don't mind. They'll be along in a minute or two.'
Presently he heard them.
'Now then. Hop out, you two, and give her a push off. I'll put her to bed.' That was Uncle Frank (Mr Farland), who must for a moment have brought the Flash alongside the foot of the doctor's lawn.
'All right now?'
'All right.'
Push her off then. And don't be late for supper. Mrs McGinty'll be asking what I've done with you as it is.'
'Eh, mon, dinna tell me ye've droon't the puir wee bairrns.' That was Port's voice, talking Ginty language.
'Tell her we won't be late. Macaroni cheese tonight. Specially for you, A.P.' That was Starboard talking to her Aged Parent.
'Tell her the bairrns'll be hame in a bittock.' That was Port again.
'I'll tell her to lock you both out,' laughed Mr Farland.
Tom heard the running footsteps of the twins, and in another moment the two of them were at the door of the shed.
'Hullo, Tom!'
'Hullo! Who won?'
'We were second,' said Starboard, 'but it wasn't Daddy's fault. We had to go about and give them room just as we were getting level.'
'What about No. 7? Hatched yet?'
'Still sitting. At least I think so. She was when we went down. Coming up we were in the thick of things just there and we'd passed her before I could see.'
No. 7 was for two reasons the nest that mattered most of all those that the Coot Club had under its care. It belonged to a pair of coots, one of which was distinguished from all other coots by having a white feather on its wing in such a place that it could be seen from right across the river. Coots are common enough on the Norfolk Broads, but coots with white feathers where there ought to be none are not common at all, and ever since it had first been seen, this particular coot had been counted the club's sacred bird. Then, too, it had nested unusually early. It had begun sitting on its eggs long before any other coot on the reaches that the Coot Club (when not busy with something else) patrolled. Any day now its chicks might hatch out, and every member of the Coot Club was looking forward to seeing the sacred coot as the successful mother of a family, and to putting down the date of the hatching against nest No. 7 on die map they had made of their reaches of the river.
'The Death and Glories'll have seen all right,' said Port. 'They've been on patrol down there."
'They do know there's a meeting, don't they?' said Tom. 'It's no good having one with only half the club.'
'We told them, anyhow,' said Starboard. 'They ought to be here by now. They were well past Ranworth when we passed them last.'
'Here they are,' said Port.
There was a splash of oars, a rustling of reeds, and die old black ship's boat came pushing her way into the dyke. Under their gaudy handkerchiefs the faces of her crew looked much more worried than ever pirates' faces ought to be.