Julian dodged the second time, amazed at the change in the cheerful little farmer"s wife.
Her face was red, her eyes were blazing, and somehow she seemed to be taller. He had never seen anyone so angry in his life! Yan went promptly under the table.
Timmy growled. He liked Mrs Penruthlan, but he felt he real y couldn"t allow her to set about his friends. She faced Julian, trembling with anger.
„Now you apologize!" she said. „Or I"l give you such a drubbing as you"ve never had in your life before. And you just wait and see what Mr Penruthlan wil say when he comes back and hears the things you"ve said about him!"
Julian was much too big and strong for the farmer"s wife to „give him a drubbing" but he felt certain she would try, if he didn"t apologize! What a tiger she was!
He put his hand on her arm. „Don"t get so upset," he said. „I"m very sorry to have made you so angry."
Mrs Penruthlan shook his hand off her arm. „Angry! I should just think I am angry!" she said.
„To think anyone should say those things about Mr Penruthlan. That wasn"t him down in Wreckers" Cove. I know it wasn"t. I only wish I knew where he was! I"m that worried!"
„He be down Wreckers" Way," announced Yan from his safe vantage-point under the table. „We put trapdoor down over he. Iss."
„Down Wreckers" Way!" cried Mrs Penruthlan and to the children"s great relief she sank down into a chair again. She turned to Julian, questioningly.
He nodded. „Yes. We came up that way from the beach - Yan knew it. It comes up in a corner of the machine-shed, through a trapdoor. We - er - we shut the trapdoor and piled sacks and things on it. I"m afraid, well, I"m rather afraid Mr Penruthlan can"t get out!"
Mrs Penruthlan"s eyes almost dropped out of her head. She opened and shut her mouth several times, rather like a goldfish gasping for breath. Al the children felt most uncomfortable and extremely sorry for her.
„I don"t believe it," she said at last. „It"s a bad dream. It"s not real. Mr Penruthlan wil come walking in here at any moment, at any moment, I tel you! He"s not down in the Wreckers"
Way. He"s NOT a bad man. He"l come walking in, you just see!"
There was silence after this, and in the silence a sound could be heard. The sound of big boots walking over the farm-yard. Glomp-clomp-clomp-clomp!
„I"m frit!" squealed Yan, suddenly, and made everyone jump. The footsteps came round the kitchen wall, and up to the kitchen door.
„I know who that is!" said Mrs Penruthlan, jumping up. „I know who that is."
The door opened and somebody walked in. Mr Penruthlan!
His wife ran to him and flung her arms round him. „You"ve come walking in! I said you would. Praise be that you"ve come!"
Mr Penruthlan looked tired, and the children, quite dumb with amazement at seeing him, saw that he was wet through. He looked round at them in great surprise.
„What are these children up for?" he said, and they all gaped in surprise. Why, he was talking properly! His words were quite clear, except that he lisped over his s"s.
„Oh, Mr Penruthlan, the tales these bad children have told about you!" cried his wife.
„They said you were a smuggler. They said they"d seen you in Wreckers" Cove going out to a motor-boat to get smuggled goods, they said you were trapped in Wreckers" Way, they"d put the trapdoor down, and..."
Mr Penruthlan pushed his wife away from him and swung round on the astounded children. They were most alarmed. How had he escaped from Wreckers" Way? Surely even his great strength could not lift up al the things they had piled on top of the trapdoor? How fierce this giant of a man looked, with his mane of black hair, his shaggy eyebrows drawn over his deep-set eyes, and his dense black beard!
„What"s all this?" he demanded, and they gaped again at his speech. They were so used to his peculiar noises that it seemed amazing he could speak properly after al .
„Well, sir," began Julian, awkwardly, „we - er - we"ve been exploring that tower - and - er -
finding out a bit about the smugglers, and we real y thought we recognized you in Wreckers" Cove, and we thought we"d trapped you, and your friend, by shutting the trapdoor and..."
„This is important," said Mr Penruthlan, and his voice sounded urgent. „Forget al this about thinking I"m a smuggler. You"ve got things wrong. I"m working with the police. It was someone else down in the cove, not me. I"ve been on the coast, it"s true, watching out, and getting drenched, as you can see, all to no purpose. What do you know? What"s this about the trapdoor? Did you real y close it, and trap those men?"
Al this was so completely astonishing that for a moment nobody could say a word. Then Julian leapt up,
„Yes, sir! We did put the trapdoor down, and if you want to catch those fel ows, send for the police, and we"ll do it! We"ve only got to wait beside the trapdoor til the smugglers come!"
„Right," said Mr Penruthlan. „Come along. Hurry!"
In the greatest surprise and excitement the five children rushed to the kitchen door to follow Mr Penruthlan. Yan had scrambled out from beneath the table, determined not to miss anything. But at the door the farmer turned round.
„Not the girls," he said. „Nor you, Yan."
„I"l keep the girls here with me," said Mrs Penruthlan, who had forgotten her dismay and anger completely in this new excitement. „Yan, come here."
But Yan had slipped out with the others. Nothing in the world would keep him from missing this new excitement! Timmy had gone too, of course, as excited as the rest.
„What goings-on in the early hours of the morning!" said Mrs Penruthlan, sitting down suddenly again. „To think that Mr Penruthlan never told me he was working to find those smugglers! We knew it was going on, around this coast, and to think he was keeping a watch, and never told me!"
Julian and Dick had quite forgotten that they felt tired. They hurried over the farm-yard with Mr Penruthlan, Yan a little way behind, and Timmy leaping round like a mad thing.
They came to the machine-shed and went in.
„We piled ..." began Julian, and then suddenly stopped. Mr Penruthlan"s powerful torch was shining on the corner where the trapdoor was fixed.
It was open! Unbelievably open! The sacks and boxes that the children had dragged over it were now scattered to one side.
„Look at that!" said Julian, amazed. „Who"s opened it? Sir, the smugglers have got out, with their smuggled goods, and they"ve gone. We"re beaten!"
Mr Penruthlan made a very angry noise, and flung the trapdoor shut with a resounding bang. He was about to say something more when there came the sound of voices not far off. It was the Barnies returning from their search for the children.
They saw the light in the shed and peered in. When they saw Julian and Dick they cried out in delight. „Where were you? We"ve searched everywhere for you!"
Julian and Dick were so disappointed at finding their high hopes dashed that they could hardly respond to the Barnies" delighted greetings. They felt suddenly very tired again, and Mr Penruthlan seemed all at once in a very bad temper. He answered the Barnies gruffly, said that everything was al right now, and any talking could be done tomorrow.
As for him, he was going to bed!
The Barnies dispersed at once, stil talking. Mr Penruthlan silently led the way back to the farm-house with Julian and Dick trailing behind. Yan had gone like a shadow. As he was not at the farm-house when they walked wearily into the kitchen, Julian guessed that he had scampered back up the hil s to old Grandad.
„Five past three in the morning," said Mr Penruthlan, looking at the clock. „I"l sleep down here for an hour or two, wife, then I"l be up to milk the cows. Send these children to bed.
I"m too weary to talk. Good-night."
And with that he put his hand to his mouth and quite solemnly took out his false teeth, putting them into a glass of water on the mantelpiece.
„Oooh - ock," he said to his wife, and stripped off his wet coat. Mrs Penruthlan hustled Julian and the rest upstairs. They were almost dropping with exhaustion now. The girls managed to undress, but the two boys flopped on their beds and were asleep in half a second. They didn"t stir when the cocks crew, or when the cows lowed, or even when the wagons of the Barnies came trundling out into the yard to be packed with their things.
They were going off to play in another vil age barn that night.
Julian awoke at last. It took him a few moments to realize why he was stil fully dressed. He lay and thought for a while, and a feeling of dejection came over him when he remembered how all the excitement of the day before had ended in complete failure.
If only they knew who had opened that trapdoor! WHO could it be?
And then something clicked in his mind, and he knew. Of course! Why hadn"t he thought of it before? Why hadn"t he remembered to tell Mr Penruthlan about the Guv"nor standing in the shadows, and his whispered message: „Here! I"m here!"
He must have been waiting for the smugglers to come to him, of course, he probably used local fishermen to row through the rocks to the motor-boat that had slunk over to the Cornish coast, and those fishermen used the Wreckers" Way so that no one knew what they were doing.
The Barnies often came to play at Tremannon Barn, nothing could be easier than for the Guv"nor to arrange for the smuggling to take place then, for the Wreckers" Way actual y had an entrance in the shed near the big barn! If a stormy night came, all the better! No one would be about. He could go up on the hil s and wait for the signal from the tower which would tell him that at last the boat was coming.
Yes, and he would arrange with the signaller too, to flash out the news that he, the Guv"nor, was at Tremannon again, and waiting! Who was the signal er? Probably another of the fishermen, descendants of the old Wreckers, and glad of a bit of excitement, and extra money.
Everything fel into place, all the odd bits and pieces of happenings fitted together like a jig-saw puzzle. Julian saw the clear picture.
Who would ever have thought of the owner of the Barnies being involved in smuggling?
Smugglers were clever, but the Guv"nor was cleverer than most!
Julian heard the noise outside, and got up to see what it was. When he saw the Barnies piling their furniture on the wagons, he rushed downstairs, yelling to wake Dick as he went.
He must tel Mr Penruthlan about the Guv"nor! He must get him arrested! He had probably got the smuggled goods somewhere in one of the boxes on the wagons. What an easy way of getting it away unseen! The Guv"nor was cunning, there was no doubt about that.
With Dick at his heels, puzzled and surprised, Julian went to find Mr Penruthlan. There he was, watching the Barnies getting ready to go, looking very dour and grim. Julian ran up to him.
„Sir! I"ve remembered something, something important! Can I speak to you?"
They went into a near-by field, and there Julian poured out all he had surmised about the Guv"nor.
„He was waiting in the dark last night for the smugglers," said Julian. „I"m sure he was. He must have heard us and thought we were the men. And it must have been he who opened the trapdoor, sir. When they didn"t come, he must have gone to the trapdoor and found it shut, with things piled on it. And he opened it, and waited there til the men came and handed him the goods. And now he"s got them hidden somewhere in those wagons!"
„Why didn"t you tell me this last night?" said Mr Penruthlan. „We may be too late now! I"l have to get the police here to search those wagons, but if I try to stop the Barnies going now, the Guv"nor wil suspect something and go off at once!"
Julian was relieved to see that Mr Penruthlan had his teeth in again and could speak properly! The farmer pulled at his black beard and frowned. „I"ve searched many times through the Barnies" properties to find the smuggled goods," he said. „Each time they"ve been here I"ve gone through everything in the dead of night."
„Do you know what it is they"re smuggling?" asked Julian. The farmer nodded.
„Yes. Dangerous drugs. Drugs that are sold at enormously high prices in the black market.
The parcel wouldn"t need to be very big. I"ve suspected one or other of the Barnies of being the receivers before this, and I"ve searched and searched. No good."
„If it"s a smal parcel it could be hidden easily," said Dick, thoughtfully. „But it"s a dangerous thing to hide. The Guv"nor wouldn"t have it on him, would he?"
„Oh no, he would be afraid of being searched," said Mr Penruthlan. „Well, I reckon I must let them go this time, and I must warn the police. If they like to search the wagons on the road, they"re welcome. I can"t get the police here in time to stop the wagons going off.
We"ve got no telephone at the farm."
Mr Binks came up at that moment, carrying Clopper"s front and back legs. He grinned at the boys. „You led us a fine dance last night!" he said. „What happened?"
„Yes," said Sid, coming up with Clopper"s ridiculous head under his arm as usual. „Clopper was right worried about you!"
„Gosh, you didn"t carry old Clopper"s head al over the hil s last night, did you!" said Dick, astonished,
„No. I left it with the Guv"nor," said Sid. „He took charge of his precious Clopper while I went gallivanting over the hil s and far away, looking for a pack of tiresome kids!"
Dick stared at the horse"s head, with its comical rolling eyes. He stared at it very hard indeed. And then he did a most peculiar thing!
He snatched the head away from the surprised Sid, and tore across the farm-yard with it!
Julian looked after him in amazement.
Sid gave an angry yell. „Now then! What do you think you"re doing? Bring that horse back at once!"
But Dick didn"t. He tore round a corner and disappeared. Sid went after him, and so did somebody else!
The Guv"nor raced across the yard at top speed, looking furious! He shouted, he yel ed, he shook his fist. But when he and Sid got to the corner, Dick had disappeared!
„What"s got into him?" said Mr Penruthlan, amazed, „What does he want to rush off with Clopper"s head for? The boy must be mad."