"Blyton, Enid - Adv 01 - Adventurous Four" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

"You girls can sleep on this side of the tent, and Tom and I will take the other," he said. "There are plenty of rugs, luckily."
Nobody undressed. For one thing they had no night-clothes, and for another they didn't even think of it Life seemed quite different on an unknown island. Nobody even thought of going to wash--though Tom's hair smelt so much of old fish that Andy threatened to pour a kettle of water over it.
"I'll wash my head under the spring to-morrow morning," said Tom sleepily. "I really can't go now. I'm simply dropping asleep whilst I talk!"
They rolled themselves up in their rugs and lay flat on the heathery bed. It was beautifully soft and springy, and very comfortable once they had pressed down several sharp bits that stuck into them.
Tom was asleep at once. The girls lay awake for a minute or two. Jill felt very hot, for the tent was airless, and the four of them made quite a crowd in it. The -roof was not more than arm's length above their heads.
"Andy," said Jill, in a low voice. "I'm so hot. Could we get some air in, do you think?"
"Yes," said Andy. He raised one side of the sail and let the breeze in. It was lovely, for now the girls could see out. The moonlight lay on the hillside and everything was clear till the clouds sailed across the moon. Mary fell asleep as she watched bracken outside waving, in the wind. Then Jill fell asleep. Only Andy lay awake, leaning on his elbow, looking out down the hillside, and listening to the sound of the waves in the distance, under the cliff.
He was old enough to feel that this adventure might not turn out at all well. He wondered what would be the best thing to do for them all.
"We must certainly hang out a signal every day," he thought. "It might be seen by some passing ship. We must find a better place to live iirtoo, for if the weather should break up, this tent won't be any use. And I wonder if it's possible to get the ship off the rocks and patch her up. If we could do that, maybe we might have a shot at sailing home."
As he lay worrying about all these things his eyes closed. He was soon dreaming that he had got the boat off the rocks, but it changed into a large steamer that seemed to have hands and was fishing busily in a pool. There was such a strong smell of fish that Andy opened his sleepy eyes again--only to find that Tom's fishy-smelling head was just under his nose. Andy turned over, grinning. "What a silly sort of dream!" he thought--and then, in half a second, he was dreaming again.
All the children slept soundly that night, and even when the clouds piled up over the moon and a sharp downpour of rain came they didn't wake. The raindrops pattered over the tent, but did not soak through to the sleeping children. Some came through the side where Andy had raised the sail to let in the air, but the children felt nothing.
They awoke when the sun was fairly high--about eight o'clock in the morning. Andy as usual awoke first and rolled out of the tent quietly. But he had waked Tom, and when the boy yawned loudly the girls awoke too.
It was a fine sunny morning with clouds scudding across the sky like big pieces of cotton-wool. The first thing, of course, was breakfast--but it had to be caught!
So Andy and Tom went fishing on the rocks and the' girls managed to catch about twenty large prawns in a pool on the sandy shore. They cooked their catch and ate hungrily.
"I do feel dirty," said Jill. "I shall go and wash at the spring. Coming, Mary?"
"Yes," said Mary. "And I vote we all have a bathe to-day. That will clean us up a bit too."
They all felt cleaner after a rinse and splash in the spring. Tom and Andy made the fixing of the signal their next job. They found a good tree--at least, it was a good one for their purpose, for it had been struck by lightning at one time and now stood straight and bare OB the top of the cliff.
It took the two boys about an hour to climb the tree and fix the sail-signal. It flapped out well in the breeze and. Andy was sure it could be seen from a great distance. They climbed down again and went back to the girls.
"What about exploring the island now?" asked Tom. "I feel just like a good walk!"
"Well, the island may be too small for a good walk!" said Andy. '"We'll just see. Ready, you girls?"
They were all ready for their walk. First they climbed the bill and stood on the top, looking to see what they could spy.
From the top of the hill they could see all around their island--and certainly it was not very big--only about a mile and a half long and about a mile wide. They could see the blue water all around it.
But not far off were other islands! They lay in the sea, blue and misty in the distance. But as far, as the children could see, there were no houses or buildings of any kind on them. They seemed as desolate and lonely as their own island. The cries of sea-birds came as they stood on the hill, and big white gulls swooped around them--but except for that sound, and the far-off splash of waves, there was no other sound to be heard. No shout--no hoot of a horn--no drone of an aeroplane. They might be lost in the very middle of the ocean for all they could see or hear!
"I don't believe a single soul lives here on these islands," said Andy, his face rather grave. "Come on--let's go down to this side of the hill. We may as well find out all there is to know."
As they went down the hill and came to the level ground again, Tom stopped in astonishment "Look!" he said. "Potato plants!"
The children looked--and sure enough, growing completely wild around them were plants that looked exactly like potatoes! Andy pulled one up--and there, clinging to the roots, were a dozen or more small white potatoes!
"That's queer!" said Andy, staring round. "At some time or other there must have been people living here--and they grew potatoes. Some have seeded themselves and grown wild. But the thing is--if people lived here--where did they live? They must have lived somewhere!"
"How queer," said Tom, looking all round as if he expected houses to spring from the ground.
And then Jill gave a shout. "I believe I can see the chimney of a house! Look! Where the ground dips down suddenly over there."
The others looked. They saw that the ground did suddenly dip down into a kind of hollow, well protected from the wind--just the place where people might build a house. They tore over the rocky ground to the dip, expecting they hardly knew what.
And what a surprise they got when at last they reached the hollow and looked down into it!


CHAPTER 6
A Queer Little Home

THE four children stood at the top of the steep dip. The hollow ran right down to the sea--and in it was a cluster of small buildings!
But what strange buildings! The roofs were off, the chimneys were gone, all but the one they had seen, the walls were fallen in. and everything looked forlorn and deserted.
"Nothing but ruins!" said Tom, in astonishment. "Whatever happened to make the houses and shed fall to pieces like that?"
"I think I know," said Andy. "A year or two ago there came a great storm to these parts--so great that the people of our village fled inshore for miles, because the sea battered our houses and flooded our street. The storm must have been even worse on these unprotected islands here--and I should think the sea came into this hollow and battered the farm "to bits! Look at that chimney-stack there--all black and broken--that was struck by lightning, I should think."
The four children gazed down at the poor, hollow house and out-buildings. A little farm had once been there--a poor farm maybe, trying to grow a few potatoes in the rocky ground, to keep a few goats or cows, and to take from the sea enough fish to live on.
Now the folk had all gone, unable to battle with the great sea-storms that swept over their farm and destroyed their living.
"This explains the potatoes," said Jill. "That stretch of struggling potato plants must once have been a field."
"Let's jo down into the hollow and have a look round," said Andy. So down into the dip they scrambled and wandered round the ruined buildings. Nothing had been left--all the furniture had been taken away, and even the gates and doors removed. Seashore weeds grew up from the floors of the farmhouse.
"A boy must have lived here," said Andy, picking up a broken wooden train from a patch of weeds.
"And here's a broken cup," said Jill, bending over what had once been a rubbish-heap.
They wandered about and at last came to a lirfle wooden shack where perhaps a cow or two had been kept in the winter. For some reason it had escaped being beaten in by the waves, and still stood upright, its one window broken, and its floor covered with a creeping weed.
Andy looked at it carefully. "This wouldn't be a bad place to make into a little house for ourselves," he said. "I was thinking we'd have to try and build one somehow--but this will do if we patch it up a bit. The tent won't be any use at all if the weather breaks up--and also it's going to be a great nuisance to keep taking it down from the signal tree each night for our tent and putting it back again in the mornings."
"Oh yes!" said Tom in delight. "Let's make this our house! That would be fun. Then we could leave the sail flapping for our signal all the time."
They all went into the shack. It was not very large--more like a big bicycle shed, though the roof was higher. A wooden partition divided it into two.