Читать книгу The Ragamuffin Mystery - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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Before long they were all on their way. Mr. Martin’s car was a big one, and there was plenty of room for them all. The caravan swayed along behind, and Mr. Martin had to keep remembering that his car was pulling it, and try not to swing round corners too fast!

They drove until lunch-time, and then had a picnic by the roadside, in a little wood. They looked at the map again. “Soon be by the sea,” said Mr. Martin, following the map with his fingers. “Then we’ll look out for a likely spot for you. We’ll drive straight through all the big seaside towns, and dawdle along the coast looking for what we want.”

“This is fun!” said Diana. “Oh, Miranda—you’ll be sick! Barney, that’s the fourth plum she’s taken.”

Barney took away the plum, and Miranda flew into a rage. She leapt on to his head, pulling one of his ears till he shouted. Then she was sorry and tried to creep down his neck, under his shirt.

“Really, you can’t help laughing at the naughty little thing!” said Miss Pepper. “What we shall do when Snubby arrives with that mad spaniel Loony, I don’t know! There’ll be no peace for anybody!”

“Well, I must say I’m as pleased we haven’t that pair in the car with us yet,” said Mr. Martin, rolling up the map. “A mad dog, an idiotic boy, and a naughty monkey would certainly be too much for any driver!”

They drove off again. They came to a big seaside town, packed with trippers, noisy and full of litter. “Straight through here,” said Mr. Martin firmly. “And the next one too. After that we come to a lonely part of the coast, and we’ll keep our eyes open.”

Through that town they went, and then right through the next, without stopping. Ah—now they were leaving behind the crowded part of the coast, and coming to deserted bays, lonely sweeps of sand, tiny villages, fishing hamlets. Hills rose up from the coast, and the car had to take a roundabout route, going slowly because of the caravan behind it.

“This looks more like what we want,” said Diana, looking out of the car window at the sea on one side and hills on the other. “Mr. Martin—do you think we could stop for an ice-cream sometime? I’m simply too hot for words, even with all the windows open!”

“Good idea!” said Mr. Martin, and he stopped at the next village—a tiny place that ran down to the sea. But there was no shop that sold ice-cream! “You go on to Penrhyndendraith,” said the woman they asked. “That’s got a fine ice-cream shop there. And if the young ones want a bathe, you tell them to go to Merlin’s Cove—there’s the finest bathing there in the kingdom.”

“That sounds fine,” said Roger, and they once more drove on. Round the coast they went, with the sea splashing on one side, and the mountains on the other—for now the hills had grown higher, and some of them towered up into the sky.

“Grand country!” said Mr. Martin. “Now—where is this Penny-denny-draith place. Ah—that looks like it—see, built on a slope of the hill.”

They came to Penrhyndendraith. It was a truly picturesque place, a fishing village, with a dozen or so old cottages built along the seafront and others straggling up the slope of the hill behind.

Above the cottages on the hill rose a strange old place with curious turrets and towers. It was set right against a cliff-like hill, so that the back of it had no windows at all. Some of it was falling to pieces, and it looked in places as if only the ivy held it together!

A signboard was set over the great old doorway, but it was too far away for the children to read what was on it. Diana was more interested in finding the ice-cream shop than in looking at the half-ruined building on the hill. She jogged Mr. Martin’s arm gently. “Look—would that be where the ice-cream shop is?” she asked, and pointed to the crooked row of cottages.

Mr. Martin stopped the car near them. “Well, as I can see only one that looks like a shop, that must be it!” he said. “Yes—see what it says over the door. ‘Myfanwy Jones, General Dealer’.”

“And look—it says ‘Ice-Cream’!” said Roger. “In the corner of the window, see? Come on—let’s get out of the car.”

So out they jumped and went to the little shop. What a curious place it was! Inside it was very dark, and there was little space to stand, because of the hundreds of things that the shop sold! The goods were piled on the floor, they hung from the walls, they swung from the ceiling!

“It must sell simply everything in the world!” said Diana in astonishment. “Eatables, drinkables, china, pots and pans, fishing-nets, pails, potatoes, spades, stools—goodness, Miss Pepper, it’s like a shop out of an old fairy-tale!”

“And here’s the witch!” whispered Roger, and got a frown from Miss Pepper, as an old old woman waddled behind the small counter. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, and her snowy white hair was tucked away under a little cap of black net. But old though she looked, her eyes were startlingly bright and piercing.

She spoke to them in Welsh, which they didn’t understand. Diana pointed to a card that said “Ice-Cream” and the old lady nodded, and smiled suddenly.

“Two? Three? Four?” she said in English.

“Oooh—twenty!” said Roger at once, and everyone laughed, the old woman too.

“How big are your ice-creams?” asked Diana. The old woman took a scoop and scooped some from an ice-box—a good large helping, which she slapped between wafers.

“Ah—I think two each will be enough for the children,” said Miss Pepper, “and one each for the grown-ups. What about Miranda, Barney?”

“Oh, one for her,” said Barney. “She’ll probably put most of it on the top of her head, because she’s so hot!”

“There is a big seat outside,” said the old lady, nodding her head, as the children took the ice-creams, and they took the hint and went to sit on the hard old wooden bench.

“Not much taste—but very creamy and deliciously cold,” said Barney. “Miranda, please go and sit on the ground. I do not like you to dribble ice-cream all down my neck. Nor do I like it held against my ear. Sit on the ground!”

The little monkey leapt down to the ground, chattering, holding her ice-cream tightly in her paw. The old lady, who was very interested in Miranda, came out to watch her.

“Very good little monkey,” she said, in her lilting Welsh voice. “You come far?”

“Quite a long way,” said Barney.

“You go far?” said the old lady.

“We don’t know. We are looking for somewhere quiet to stay,” said Barney. “Somewhere near here, perhaps. It is such lovely country. We don’t want a big place, with big hotels—but perhaps a quiet old inn, and ...”

“Ah, then you go up there, see?” said the old lady, and pointed up to the strange, half-ruined place they had seen on the hills. “Quiet, very quiet—and the food, it is so good, so good. And here, it is beautiful, with the sea so blue, and the sand so white, and ...”

“But—is that old place occupied then?” said Mr. Martin, astonished. “I thought it was just an empty ruin.”

“No, no—my son, he keeps it,” said the old lady proudly. “It is an inn, sir, you understand? And what food! Big men come there, sir, important men—they say how good the food, how good!”

Nobody could believe that important people would stay at the half-ruined place. The old woman saw that they did not believe her, and she grasped Mr. Martin’s arm.

“I speak the truth,” she said. “To my son’s inn come Sir Richard Ballinor, and Professor Hallinan, and ...”

Mr. Martin knew those names. “One is a famous botanist, and the other is a well-known ornithologist—a man who studies birds,” he told the astonished children. He turned to the old lady.

“There are many flowers here, then?” he said. “And rare birds?”

“Yes, many, many—up in the hills—and round the coves and on the cliffs,” said the old lady, nodding her head. “Big men come to study them, I tell you, sir. My son, he knows them all. His cooking pleases them, sir, it is good, very good. You go to stay there too, sir? He has not many people now, it is a good time. Very good cooking, sir.”

“Well—we might as well go up and see the old place,” said Mr. Martin, taking out some money to pay for the ice-creams. “Thanks very much, Mrs. Jones. We enjoyed your ice-creams. Is there a road up to the old inn?”

“It is very rough, sir. You must go slowly,” said the old woman, smiling delightedly at the thought that they were really going to see her son’s place. “Cooking very good, sir, very very good.”

They all went off to their car. “She’s got good cooking on the brain,” said Roger. “I wonder what the old place is like? It might be fun to stay there—there’s all we want here, really—fine bathing ...”

“Wonderful walks, I should think,” said Barney, who loved walking. “And a jolly fine view.”

“Fishing,” said Roger, watching a small fishing-boat on the bay, its sails filling out with the wind.

“No trippers,” said Miss Pepper.

“And birds for me!” said Diana happily.

“You and your birds!” said Roger scornfully, and Diana immediately gave him a punch.

“Well—up to the inn we go!” said Mr. Martin, as they started off slowly up the steep track, leaving the caravan behind for the time being. “And what shall we find there, I wonder?”