Lone pine five unabridge.., p.1
Lone Pine Five Unabridged, page 1
Lone Pine Five
Malcolm Saville
Illustrated by BERTRAM PRANCE
LONDON
GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED TOWER HOUSE, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.2
© MALCOLM SAVILLE 1949
First Published ----- 1949
Second Impression ----- 1950
Third Impression ----- 1957
Fourth Impression ----- 1960
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY COX AND WYMAN LTD., LONDON, READING AND FAKENHAM
The Lone Pine Club
The Lone Pine Club was started by some boys and girls at a lonely farmhouse called Witchend in the highlands of Shropshire. If you have not read the four books about their adventures you will probably enjoy this story more if you know something about the Club and its members before you begin. The members are remarkable because they do not grow up. Readers who have already known them for some time do not want them to get any older, so they will continue to have adventures at their present ages.
The rules of the Club, which were originally signed in blood, were very simple and are set out in full in "Mystery at Witchend." The most important was "To be true to each other whatever happens," and this, as most people would agree, is a good maxim for us all. The other rules included one about kindness to animals, and an honest statement that the Club was for "exploring, watching birds and trailing strangers."
So far the members have trailed strangers much more frequently than they have watched birds! The headquarters of the Club are at a cunningly hidden camp under a lonely pine tree in the Witchend valley, but another meeting-place was established in an old barn at a farm on the Stiperstones known as Seven Gates. This is mentioned in this story and is known as "H.Q.2."
The Lone Piners' secret signal to each other is a whistled imitation of the peewit's lonely call.
The Members
DAVID MORTON. The captain of the Club. He is sixteen and sometimes, to his more impetuous friends, seems rather annoyingly steady! But he is a born leader and has never let his friends down. While his father was in the R.A.F. during the war he came with his mother to live at Witchend and has one brother and sister, who are twins. Now the Mortons live nearer London, but come to Witchend whenever they can.
RICHARD ("DICKIE") MORTON and MARY MORTON. These two are ten, and although they now go to separate boarding schools, they are inseparable at all other times. They are alike in looks and speech, and occasionally, in an uncanny way, in thought. Dickie is cheeky, but with a great sense of fun. Mary is perhaps the leader of the two, for although inclined to be a dreamer, she is more level-headed. They are often extremely irritating to their friends, and particularly to grown-ups, but they have the outstanding qualities of courage and of loyalty to each other.
PETRONELLA ("PETER") STERLING. Peter is sixteen. She has no mother, but lives in the holidays with her old father, who is in charge of a reservoir called Hatchholt, not very far from Witchend. She goes to boarding school in Shrewsbury, but is only really happy when she is roaming her beloved Shropshire highlands on her Welsh pony, Sally. Imagine Peter with two fair plaits, fearless blue eyes and a clear brown skin. She looks her best in jodhpurs and a blue shirt. She knows the stars better than most of us know a map of the country in which we live. She loves birds, animals and everything in the open air, and can swim faster than most boys of her age and ride a hundred times better.
Peter has never feared solitude and does not make friends easily, but her life was changed when the Mortons came to Witchend, for then she realized how lonely she had been. She is the Vice-Captain of the Club and David is her special friend.
TOM INGLES. Tom is a Londoner who was sent to join his uncle on a farm near Witchend when his home was bombed in the war. He is small for fifteen and a half, but very wiry. It took him a long time to become reconciled to life in the country, but he would not leave farming now. At first he was suspicious of the Mortons and Peter, and is usually impatient with the twins, but although he would never admit it he is intensely proud of his membership of the Club. He is quick-witted and quick to move, brave and liked by everyone who is lucky enough to know him.
JENNY HARMAN. Until now Jenny has not played much part in the Club's adventures. She has a stepmother who, when her father was away at the war, was not very kind to her, and lives at the village shop and post office of a village called Barton Beach on the western side of the Stiperstones, ten miles or more from Witchend. She is small, red-headed, incurably romantic and two months younger than Tom, who is the staunchest and most wonderful friend she has ever known. This story is really Jenny's, so you will soon get to know her.
There are two other members of the Club who do not appear in this book - JONATHAN and PENELOPE ("PENNY") WARRENDER. These two are cousins and firm friends and live in the holidays in a hotel called The Gay Dolphin at Rye, in Sussex.
There is one more member of the Morton family, who thinks the Club belongs to him, and he is MACBETH - a black Scottie dog who loves them all, but especially Mary, who has nearly wrecked many an adventure because she will carry Mackie when his short legs tire.
1. The Strange Silver Spoon
Almost every morning in the summer when she woke and it was light enough to see, Jenny Harman automatically counted the red roses on the wall-paper between the door and the old wardrobe in the corner. Her room was small and the roses were big. There were nineteen of them, and sometimes when she had been ill in bed she had longed to reach up and blot one or two of them out just to make the number different.
On the August morning on which this story opens the sun just reached roses eleven, twelve and thirteen, and made them glow with so rich a colour that the others were really in the shade. Jenny sat up and yawned, as she nearly always did, and wondered what could possibly happen to-day. Of course she was happy here at home but she had no brothers or sisters, and Barton Beach was a very small and lonely village and there was not much to do besides help her father sometimes in the shop. The truth was that Jenny was often bored in the holidays, although she could always forget her boredom in a book, and indeed much of her life was spent in an imaginary world where humble girls turned out to be princesses of strange and unknown kingdoms and found, after many impossible adventures, romance and happiness in the end. Only something very exciting to do could stop Jenny reading and now, as she settled her red head back on the pillows again, her hand reached for the much folded copy of a weekly paper with a lurid cover.
Dimly Jenny heard the milkman's whistle and the bark of a neighbour's dog. From below she heard her father singing as he started to sort the morning newspapers in the shop. Then she settled down to read about Daphne, who was a lady's maid in an age when ladies had maids and took them for voyages in sunny climes on luxurious yachts. One of the guests on the yacht was a swarthy, handsome prince who seemed to be noticing Daphne more than her haughty mistress... Jenny sighed rapturously and was late for breakfast.
"I'm sorry, Mum," she pleaded, when her stepmother greeted her without enthusiasm. "I must have dropped off again."
"Better if you dropped some of them papers, my girl... Here's your porridge. Look sharp with it for I've plenty to do to-day."
Mr. Harman looked over the top of his paper at his daughter, and just for a split second Jenny thought she detected a wink. She smiled at him radiantly as she reached for the milk jug. He certainly was an understanding father and it was wonderful now that he was home again.
"What are you going to do to-day, Jen?" he asked. "Looks as if it might keep fine for a bit, so you ought to go out. What's happened to those young friends o' yours over Witchend way?"
"They've not come up yet, Daddy. Still at home. I wish they would come."
"And young Tom? Not seen much of him lately?"
Jenny blushed slightly.
"Harvest, Daddy. You know how busy Mr. Ingles keeps him."
Mr. Harman twinkled at the daughter he loved to tease.
"He's got a little time to waste, I'm thinking. Look on the mantelpiece, my lass, and see what the postman has brought you."
Jenny jumped up and knocked her chair over.
"You might have told me, Dad. It's a letter for me. From Tom."
While Mrs. Harman grumbled, Jenny pushed her plate to one side and tore open the envelope. Her father regarded her affectionately as he noticed her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. Even the lines round Mrs. Harman's mouth softened as she watched Jenny's lips almost spelling out the words. This did not take long, for it was not a long letter. Writing did not come easily to Tom, who considered it to be an over-rated accomplishment.
"Dear Jen" (she read with some difficulty),
"Uncle Alf and me coming to market at Bishop's Castle on Tuesday. Maybe you would bike over. Come as soon as you can Uncle says. Meet me at that stall where the chap sells dogs' leads and collars but come early and I've got important news.
"Yours
"Tom."
No lovesick maiden in one of her novelettes could ever have received a letter that excited her just half as much as this untidy message thrilled Jenny.
"Look, Daddy. Look, Mum. I can go, can't I? Right away? Come early, he says, and it's Tuesday now!"
"It's a longish ride," Mrs. Harman complained, "and I reckon it'll rain soon and there doesn't seem any sense to me in rushing over to the Castle on market day."
But Mrs. Harman always put difficulties in the way of such suggestions on principle, and it was not long before permission was given. Half an hour later Jenny, with her green beret on the back of her head and her old blue raincoat in her bicycle basket, was on her way.
The sun was shining brightly and it was already very hot. Jenny knew that it was too bright to last and that it would rain before she was home again, but she was used to cycling in the wet. Now she was so happy that she sang at the top of her voice as she pedalled through the lanes towards the main road which would take her to the market town and to Tom and "Uncle Ingles," who had the loudest laugh in the world and always teased her at the top of his voice. If only something like this could happen every day! she thought as she swerved to avoid a baby rabbit.
The country through which she was riding was bare and forbidding, although she never really thought of it as such, for she was used to it. If she had once been told at school that the Romans mined for lead all over this moorland countryside when much of it was forest, she had forgotten, although she knew that the gaunt arms sometimes visible against the skyline were ruined mineshafts of a much later age. Before her stretched the purple heather of the moor, with here and there a white and lonely cottage, and behind her the great gaunt ridge of the Stiperstones range, under the shadow of which she had been born and which, like many other people, she still sometimes feared.
But to-day nothing like that mattered, for this was a real holiday. Now that she had turned south on to the main road she was being passed by farmers and others on their way to market. This was not yet the road along which Tom and his uncle would come, but there were several who knew little Jenny Harman of Barton and gave her a wave as they passed. Soon she could see the hill which once was crowned by a fortress, and over to her left were the remains of another called Lea Castle. Jenny had often been to see the great boulder in a field nearby which was called the Lea Stone, and she knew that this stone was supposed to have been flicked there by the Devil who found it in his shoe when he sat down once to rest on his chair on the summit of the Stiperstones. She knew, too, that the stone turns round when the clock strikes thirteen. These were stories which she had been told by her own mother, round the fireside on a winter's evening, when the great west winds from the Atlantic came roaring across the hills and valleys of Wales, over the borderlands of the Welsh Marches, where the ruins of many castles still stood as witness of wilder days, and then beat against the little stone houses huddling in the shadow of their own mountain. She accepted these stories just as her mother had accepted them from her mother, for they were part of tradition - and tradition dies hard in the English countryside.
Now she was in Bishop's Castle itself, where the traffic was so heavy that she had to jump off her bicycle and walk. The pavements were crowded as well, which made it difficult to hurry, and Jenny was in a hurry, for Tom had said, "Come early." Although, in her haste, she was rather a nuisance as she pushed her way along the gutter, there were plenty who checked a cross word and gave a friendly smile instead to the red-headed girl with the green beret.
From the top of the hill Jenny could see the market stalls stretched along the side of the street below her, and she recognized Tom before he saw her. Suddenly she felt shy. It was stupid to be so excited about meeting anyone, however nice he might be, but she stopped for a moment next to a stall piled with flowers and plants.
Tom, looking unusually smart in a new tweed suit - and a little uncomfortable, too - was talking to the "chap who sold dog-collars." Actually they seemed to be old friends, and this way in which men and boys who were strangers seemed to make friends in about thirty seconds was something which Jenny was beginning to notice, and which always surprised her very much!
She was just willing very hard that Tom would look up and notice her when the woman at the flower-stall said, "If you don't want to buy anything, ducks, you might move. I likes you here, but this ain't a garridge."
Then, as Jenny smiled an apology, the woman reached forward and tossed her a rose.
"That's all right, duckie. Wear this. You look as if this was going to be your lucky day."
This was rather a strange action and a very odd remark, because nobody had ever given Jenny a flower before, and this certainly turned out to be a lucky day for her. She was still wondering what to say besides "Thank you," when Tom saw her and came to her rescue.
"Hullo, Jen," he said, and "Hullo, Tom," she answered with flaming cheeks, and wondered why the flower woman was laughing at her when she dropped her bicycle, but held on to her rose.
"Oh, Tom," she began breathlessly as soon as they had got her bicycle out of the crowd, "isn't this all wonderful? I only got your letter this morning, and I just forced Mum to let me come to-day. She tried to stop me, Tom, but if she'd said 'No' I'd have run away again. What shall we do first, Tom? I don't care how late I am, 'cos I've brought my bike lamps. Where's Mr. Ingles, Tom? And how are you, Tom? And you said you'd got some news. What is it?" Then she stopped suddenly in the middle of the road and was nearly knocked down by an enormous woman with a basket.
Tom, who was looking a little bewildered, pulled her on to the pavement, but before he could speak Jenny was in full spate again.
"Did you notice that woman, Tom? She never even said she was sorry... What was it I was going to say...?" She stopped again and grabbed his arm. "Of course. How silly of me... I know what it was. You've got a new suit. It looks lovely. Really it does. You know, I hardly ever have anything new, but I get used to it."
Tom was very fond of Jenny in his quiet way, but he did hate it when she made personal remarks in the middle of a crowd. But he was good-humoured, too, and realized that she was excited, so all he said was:
"Listen, Jenny. Never mind my suit now. Let's put your bike in the yard of the Rose and Crown and get it out of the way. We've got to meet Uncle there at half-past twelve for a meal. Then we'll buy an ice and get somewhere out of the crowd and have a talk. I've got lots to tell you."
And that was what they did. Each with a large wafer, they climbed the hill again and found a seat against the wall up by the hotel which now stands where the Castle once dominated the little town. The sun was still shining, but big clouds were piling up in the west. Tom sniffed the wind like a true farmer and told Jenny what she knew already.
"Rain's on the way, Jen. Lucky we've got all the harvest in. It's early this year and Uncle says we're lucky. He doesn't often say that, so I reckon we must be... If he hadn't said I could come with him today, Jen, I'd have written you a much longer letter------"
Jenny extracted the last delicious fragments of ice cream from the remains of the sodden wafer, licked her fingers quite elegantly, and then smiled at him.
"Would you really, Tom? I do wish you would. Nobody ever writes me letters, and I do love them so... But why, Tom? What's happened?"
"You'll never let me finish what I'm saying to you, Jenny. Just be quiet and I'll tell you. I've had a letter and it's for you as well. I've got it in my pocket. Here it is."
She snatched it from him.
"Beast! Keeping it from me all this time. Half an hour at least you've kept it in your pocket, Tom, and it's as much mine as yours."
She opened the envelope and her heart gave a jump as she saw a rough sketch of a pine tree at the top of the paper.
"Dear Tom and Jenny" (she read),
"Don't mind this coming to Tom first, Jenny, but I've only time for one letter, and I know Tom will like to send it on to you. How are you both? We know Tom will be busy enough at Ingles, and we expect Jenny is spending her time reading, but you've both got to stop whatever you are doing pretty quickly now, for we're just about on our way! In a day or two we'll be at Witchend, and I hope for the rest of the hols. It's been a bit difficult to persuade the people this year, but we've managed it, and here we come. Father is bringing the car and a trailer full of camping gear, so we'll all be out and about again before very long. Peter has been here for a fortnight, as you know, and is coming back with us and will stay at Witchend while her father is still stopping at Seven Gates. We've had a good time together, but we all want to get back to the good old L.P. Peter is hopeless, really. She is very polite and has enjoyed all the trips we've had to London and the things we've done together, but she says she's beginning to feel too dressed-up and respectable, and I know she's counting the minutes now until we drive up from Onnybrook past Ingles to Witchend again. Whatever happens, Jenny must get permission to come camping with us, and if there's any trouble I'll come over and see Mr. Harman------"
