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By the same author
SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS
SWALLOWDALE
PETER DUCK
WINTER HOLIDAY
COOT CLUB
PIGEON POST
WE DIDN’T MEAN TO GO TO SEA
SECRET WATER
THE BIG SIX
MISSEE LEE
THE PICTS & THE MARTYRS
GREAT NORTHERN?
COOTS IN THE NORTH & OTHER STORIES
RACUNDRA’S FIRST CRUISE
ROD AND LINE (FISHING ESSAYS)
OLD PETER’S RUSSIAN TALES
THE WAR OF THE BIRDS & THE BEASTS
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR RANSOME
(ed. Rupert Hart-Davis)
ARTHUR RANSOME ON FISHING
(introduced by Jeremy Swift)
SIGNALLING FROM MARS: LETTERS
(ed. Hugh Brogan)
DISCOVERY
ARTHUR RANSOME
Illustrated by the Author
A Godine Storyteller
DAVID R. GODINE · PUBLISHER
BOSTON
This is a Godine Storyteller
published in 1985 by
David R. Godine · Publisher
Post Office Box 450
Jaffrey, New Hampshire 03452
First Published in 1931 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
Published in eBook format by David R. Godine, Publisher
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information contact Permissions, David R. Godine, Publisher, Fifteen Court Square, Suite 320, Boston, Massachusetts 02108.
PAPERBACK ISBN 978-1-56792-421-3
EBOOK ISBN 978-1-56792-481-7
LCCN 84-48802
THE ORIGINAL SHIP’S PAPERS (INKED AT HOME)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I have often been asked how I came to write Swallows and Amazons. The answer is that it had its beginning long, long ago when, as children, my brother, my sisters and I spent most of our holidays on a farm at the south end of Coniston. We played in or on the lake or on the hills above it, finding friends in the farmers and shepherds and charcoal-burners whose smoke rose from the coppice woods along the shore. We adored the place. Coming to it, we used to run down to the lake, dip our hands in and wish, as if we had just seen the new moon. Going away from it, we were half drowned in tears. While away from it, as children and as grown-ups, we dreamt about it. No matter where I was, wandering about the world, I used at night to look for the North Star and, in my mind’s eye, could see the beloved skyline of great hills beneath it. Swallows and Amazons grew out of those old memories. I could not help writing it. It almost wrote itself.
A.R.
Haverthwaite
May 19th, 1958
CHAPTER I
THE SWALLOW AND HER CREW
“A handy ship, and a handy crew,
Handy, my boys, so handy:
A handy ship and a handy crew,
Handy my boys, AWAY HO!”
Sea Chanty
“WILD CAT ISLAND in sight!” cried Roger, the ship’s boy, who was keeping a look-out, wedged in before the mast, and finding that a year had made a lot of difference and that there was much less room for him in there with the anchor and ropes than there used to be the year before when he was only seven.
“You oughtn’t to say its name yet,” said Titty, the able-seaman, who was sitting on the baggage amidships, taking care of her parrot who, for the moment, was traveling in his cage. You ought to say ‘Land, Land,’ and lick your parched lips, and then afterwards we’d find out what land it was when we got a bit nearer. We might have been sailing about looking for it for weeks.”
“But we know already,” said the look-out. “And anyway there’s land all round us. I’ll be able to see the houseboat in a minute. There it is, just where it used to be. But (his voice changed) Captain Flint’s forgotten to hoist a flag.”
*
The little brown-sailed Swallow with her crew of five, including the parrot, had left Holly Howe Bay, and was now beating across the open lake that stretched away to the south between wooded hills, with moorland showing above the trees and, in the distance, mountains showing above the moorland. A whole year had gone by. August had come again. The Walkers had come up from the south yesterday. John, Susan, Titty and Roger had been at the window with the parrot as the train came into the little station, thinking that their old allies, Nancy and Peggy Blackett, would be on the platform to meet them, perhaps with their mother, or with Captain Flint, that retired pirate, who lived in the houseboat in Houseboat Bay and was really Mr. Turner, Nancy’s and Peggy’s Uncle Jim. But no one had been there. All the morning, while mother, little Bridget and nurse had been unpacking boxes and settling into the old farmhouse at Holly Howe and they had been down at the boathouse loading Swallow for her voyage to Wild Cat Island, they had been sending scouts up to the high ground, to look up to the northern part of the lake to see if a little boat about the size of Swallow had come out of the Amazon River, where the Blacketts had a house, away up there towards the Arctic, under the great hills. Every other minute they had been looking for the little white sail of the Amazon at the mouth of the Holly Howe Bay, expecting to hear Captain Nancy’s jolly shout of “Swallows and Amazons for ever!” and to see Mate Peggy hoisting the Jolly Roger to the masthead. Then the Swallow and the Amazon would sail down to Wild Cat Island together, calling on their way at the houseboat to say, “How do you do” to Captain Flint. Everything would be just as it had been last year. But they had seen no sign at all of their allies and when afternoon came they could wait no longer. Mother and Bridget had gone off to the little