"Where?" said Robert.
"Here," said Kink."Under these trees.There'll be a downpour soon: better get your supper at once."They therefore did not make any effort to find a farm, but instantly unpacked.Hitherto everything had gone smoothly, but this was a bad evening.Nothing seemed to be in its place, and Hester, whose duty it was to get enough dry wood, had forgotten all about it, and by the time a new bundle could be brought it was damp.Then the matches blew out, and then, when at last the fire was alight, the wind scattered the flames so that there was no heat under the pot for more than a moment at a time.This often happens when you are on caravan excursions.
Mary had arranged for a stew, but she soon discovered that there was no chance of its being done for hours unless it could be moved into the Slowcoach and cooked over the Beatrice stove; but when they got Beatrice out, she was found to be empty, and no more oil was in the can.
"Who is the Keeper of the Oil?" Mary asked severely.
"I am," said Jack.
"Then where is it?" they asked.
"I had it filled at Stratford," said Jack."Why," he exclaimed, "there's a hole in it! It's all run away! How ghastly! It will be all over everything."And so it was; and the worst of it was that it had leaked into the biscuits, too.Janet came to the rescue."We must make it a tongue and banana meal," she said.
"I hate bananas," said Gregory.
"Now, Horace," said Janet, "where's the tin-opener?"How is it that everything goes wrong at once? Horace had to hunt for the tinopener for twenty minutes, and turn the whole place upside down before he could find it, and then it was too late.
Meanwhile the rain was steadily falling, and Kink and Robert were busy getting up the tents before the ground underneath was too wet.Robert was the only happy one.A few difficulties seemed to him to make the expedition more real.
He came dripping into the Slowcoach and asked for his supper; but Horace was still hunting for the tin-opener.
"Never mind about it," said Robert."I'll open the thing with the hammer and a knife.But what you want, Horace, is system.""No; what I want is food," said Horace."I'm dying.""So am I," said Gregory.
"Well, eat a crust to go on with," said Janet."There's the bread.""I hate crusts," said Gregory.
"Surely crusts are better than dying of starvation," said Mary.
"No," said Gregory, who was prepared to be thoroughly unpleasant."No, I'd much rather die.I think I shall go to bed.""Yes," said Robert, "do.People who can't stand a little hunger are no good in caravans.""Janet," said Gregory, "how can I go to bed with my boots on?""Then take them off," said Janet.
"There's a knot," said Gregory.
"Well, you must wait," said Janet."I can't leave what I'm doing.""I hate waiting," said Gregory.
Robert, however, became suddenly very stern.He advanced on Gregory with a knife in his hand, and, swooping on the boot, cut both laces."There," he said, "get into bed, and you must buy some more laces at Cheltenham.""I hate Cheltenham," said Gregory.But he said no more; he saw that Robert was cross.
When, a little later, Janet took a plate of tongue over to his bunk, he was fast asleep.The others had a dismal, grumpy meal, and they were glad when the washing-up was done and it was bedtime.But no one had a good night.
The rain dropped from the trees on to the Slowcoach's roof with loud thuds, and at midnight the thunder and lightning began, and Janet got up and splashed out in the wet to the tent to ask Robert if they ought not to move from under the trees.Robert had been lying awake thinking the same thing, but Kink had gone off with Moses to the nearest farm, and the Slowcoach was far too heavy to move without the horse.Diogenes whimpered on his chain.
If he could have spoken, he would have said, like Gregory, "I hate thunder.""Perhaps it won't get very near us," said Robert."We must chance it, anyway."But neither he nor Janet had any sleep until it was nearly time to get up, when the sun began to shine again, and the miseries of the evening and night before were forgotten.
Hester, however, had slept all through it, and had dreamed that ponies were running away with her towards a country entirely peopled by black spaniels and governed by a grey queen in top-boots.
As for Gregory, his dream was that he was Lord Bruce.
