The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (35 page)

The house was in great confusion and there was hardly anywhere to sit down except the study; for Captain Spens refused to let it be painted, papered, decorated, or renovated in any way. The weather was fine and warm, however, and when the postman came Mrs. Spens took her letters into the garden to read them. Every day she received a great many letters and parcels, for she was always buying new things for the house and sending away for catalogues of furniture and china and curtains and garden tools, and so forth. When she had looked through the four catalogues which had just arrived, to see if there was anything new to be got, she read her private letters, and presently calling Timothy and Hew, said to them, ‘I've some very interesting news for you. News that will give you great pleasure, I hope.'

‘What is it?' asked Timothy doubtfully.

‘Have you bought a pony?' asked Hew.

‘No, it's something far more important than that. I've made arrangements for you both to go away to school in September.'

‘But we go to school here!' said Timothy.

‘Why do you want us to go to another school?' asked Hew.

‘We learn a great deal from Sam Sturgeon,' said Timothy.

‘Which we couldn't learn anywhere else,' added Hew.

‘You can't always stay in Popinsay, can you?' asked Mrs. Spens, speaking very calmly and reasonably. ‘Popinsay is only a small island'

‘It's a very nice island,' said Timothy. ‘I don't see why we shouldn't stay.'

‘It's a very interesting island,' said Hew. ‘All sorts of things happen here.'

‘But many more things happen in the great world,' said Mrs. Spens, ‘and when you grow up you'll want to see the world. You'll want to travel, and meet all sorts of people, and see foreign cities, and understand what's going on there. And to prepare you, if only a little, for the world, I think you should go to a larger school than we have here. You can't learn much about the world by what goes on in Popinsay.…'

Timothy and Hew, she perceived, were not listening very closely, and Mrs. Spens felt that her own attention was wandering. There was a noise
in the house: a noise that grew louder and louder. It came from the study.

‘Your father sounds annoyed,' said Mrs. Spens. ‘Something must have upset him. Did he get any letters to-day?'

‘No,' said Timothy, ‘only a newspaper.'

‘That's quite enough, of course.'

They heard a crash, as though a large piece of furniture had been knocked over, and Mrs. Spens said, ‘I think you should go and see what's the matter—and tell him I've got a headache coming on.'

Timothy and Hew found Sam already in the study, and Mrs. Matches listening outside the door. Captain Spens had overturned his writing-table, and was walking up and down waving a newspaper in the air. ‘Scoundrels and nincompoops!' he shouted. ‘They're the cause of all the trouble, and the world's full of them. Full of barefaced scoundrels and whimpering nincompoops!'

‘Mother says we've got to go out into the world,' said Timothy.

‘Then choose your company, and choose it carefully,' said the Captain; and crumpling his newspaper into an untidy ball, threw it into a corner of the room.

Gunner Boles's Shell lay on the chimney-piece, and picking it up, Timothy held it to his ear and listened. ‘We got into all sorts of company under the sea,' he said.

‘And enjoyed it,' said Hew.

‘Perhaps we'll enjoy going to school,' said Timothy.

‘I expect we shall,' said Hew, ‘though it's a nuisance having to leave Popinsay.'

‘Who said you were going to school?' asked Sam Sturgeon.

‘Mother.'

‘I meant to tell you,' said Captain Spens to Sam. ‘I didn't expect her to make the arrangements so quickly. But she's quite right—we've been talking it over since she came home—and she's quite right! They ought to go.'

‘It's to prepare us for going out into the great world,' said Timothy, ‘which is full of scoundrels and nincompoops, so Father says.'

‘I don't say there aren't good men as well,' declared the Captain, ‘but they usually seem to be outnumbered.'

‘Scumbril and Inky Poops thought Davy Jones was going to be outnumbered,' said Timothy.

‘Because they didn't know about the sailors—and us!' said Hew.

Surprised at their arguing with him, Captain Spens stared at them, and frowned, and considered what they had said. Then, a little grudgingly, he admitted, ‘Yes, that's true enough in a way. It's quite true, I suppose. —The boys are right, Sam!'

‘Yes, sir,' said Sam, ‘I've done my best for them. I've tried to bring them up on sensible lines, and I only hope that going to school doesn't unlearn what they've been taught by me and Gunner Boles.'

Captain Spens began to pace up and down again. He had not quite recovered his temper, and when he perceived that someone had knocked over his writing-table, and thrown a bundle of untidy newspaper into a corner of the room, he grew angrier than ever and shouted at Sam: ‘Have you nothing better to do than to stand here, gossiping and idling your time away? Pick up my table, and try to make the place look tidy. I hate an untidy room! —And you, boys, what are you going to do this afternoon? Everybody else about the house is working, and working hard. Can't you find something useful to do?'

‘I and the boys,' said Sam, in a very determined voice, ‘are going fishing.'

THE END

FOR
MAGNUS AND ANDRO

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London
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Copyright © Eric Linklater

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ISBN: 9781448205820
eISBN: 9781448205516

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