Free Five on Finniston Farm by Enid Blyton Page A

He lay down again with a thump.
    At last the boys had finished the job they were on, and sat down, rubbing their hands over their wet foreheads. „Well, now you can tell us your news," said Dick. „Good thing we got rid of that little pest of a Junior - I might have hammered a few nails into him by mistake if he"d come worrying us this afternoon." He imitated Junior"s whining drawl. „Aw, shucks, Pop, lemme come with yew!"
    Outside, his ear to the hole, Junior clenched his fists. He would wil ingly have stuck a few nails into Dick at that moment!
    George and Anne began to tell the four listening children what old Mr Finniston had told them that morning. „It"s about Finniston Castle," said Anne. „The old castle that gave the vil age its name - and the farm as well. The old fel ow who told us about it is cal ed Finniston, too - and wil you believe it, he"s a descendant of the Finnistons who lived in the castle centuries ago!"
    „He seems to have spent most of his life trying to discover everything possible about the old castle," said George. „He said he"d delved into old libraries - and into the church records here - anywhere that might help him to piece together the castle"s history!"
    Outside the hen-house, Junior held his breath so as not to miss a single word. Why - his Pop had told him that he couldn"t get anything out of that old Mr Finniston at the antique shop - not a word about the castle, and its history, or even where the site was. Then why had he told Anne, and that horrible boy George? Junior felt angry, and listened even more keenly.
    „The story goes that in the twelfth century enemies came to attack the castle one night -
    and there were traitors already inside it, who set it on fire, so that the castle-folk would be busy trying to put out the fire, and wouldn"t be prepared for a fight," said George. „The inside of it was burnt right down to the ground - and then the great stone walls outside collapsed inwards, and lay in enormous heaps there, covering the place where the castle had stood."
    „Whew!" said Dick, visualizing it al . „What a night that must have been! Everybody kil ed or burnt, I suppose?"
    „No, the Lady of the castle wasn"t kil ed and it is said that she took her children to the little chapel near the farm-house - we real y must go and see that, twins - and they stayed there in safety. Anyway, some of the family must have escaped, because it is one of their descendants who keeps that little antique shop - old Mr Finniston!"
    „This is tremendously interesting," said Julian. „Where"s the site of the castle? It should easily be known, because of the great mass of stones that fel there when the walls col apsed."
    „No, they"re not there now," said George. „Mr Finniston said he thought that when the wind and weather had broken them up smal enough to be lugged away by the farmers and peasants living near by, they were taken to build field wal s, or to line wel s. He said there were some on this farm. He didn"t know himself where the castle once stood, because the site would be all grown over, and with no stones left to mark it, it wouldn"t be easy to find."
    „But oh, Julian, I wish we could find it!" cried Anne, her voice rising in excitement.
    „Because, so Mr Finniston says, the cel ars and dungeons are probably stil there, quite untouched. You see, no one could uncover them for years, because of the heavy stones there - and when the stones were taken away, people had forgotten about the castle and the dungeons!"
    „Gosh! So they may stil be there - with whatever was stored in them hundreds of years ago," said Dick, thril ed. „My word - there might be priceless things there, as old as the hil s!
    I mean, even an old broken sword would be worth its weight in gold, because it would be so very very old. I say - don"t say a word of all this in front of that American, or he"d dig up the whole farm!"
    „We shouldnt DREAM of it," said George. „He shan"t get to hear a word of