Free The Stolen Lake by Joan Aiken Page B

thumbnail, under some o' the letters. Think that means summat? Look, here, in
animal
—there, in
remarkable—a, r, r—
"
    "
—a, b, e
—I believe you have hit on something!" Mr. Holystone wrote down the letters on the tablet he kept for noting good recipes.
    "
Arrabeelamye.
What the blazes is that?"
    "Arrabe. Elamye. They are two of the Children of Silence."
    "Children of Silence?"
    "The mountains that lie between New Cumbria and Lyonesse. Ambage and Arrabe, Ertayne and Elamye, Arryke, Damask, Damyake, Pounce, Pampoyle, Garesse, Galey, Calabe, and Catelonde."
    "What a
deal
you know, Mr. Holy! But what's this last one?
Elen?
Is that a mountain, too?"
    "No, it is not a mountain," said Mr. Holystone, looking very troubled indeed. "Elen is a girl's name."

4
    They boarded the riverboat at a black and silent hour of night, when all the citizens of Tenby were abed and asleep. The night air was sharply cold, and Dido grumbled to Mr. Holystone as the small party walked through the silent streets.
    "Why in the name of Morpus does we have to start off
now?
"
    "It is on account of the bore."
    "Bore? It's a right
plague!
"
    "No, child." She could hear the smile in his voice. "A bore is a tidal sweep of water which will, I am informed, carry us upstream as far as Bewdley."
    They crossed a bridge to the island in the middle of the Severn River, and walked to a cobbled quay where a strange-looking craft lay waiting. It had a cowlike rounded bow, three open decks, and a huge paddle wheel at the stern.
    "Mussy," said Dido. "Will
that
thing take us up the river? It looks like a floating chicken coop."
    Captain Hughes also eyed the riverboat with some disfavor; but its wooden structure was gray with age and green with waterweed, which seemed to prove that it must have battled its way up and down the Severn River a great many times without mishap. The passengers climbed down a ladder from the jetty and were shown to their quarters. Captain Hughes had a small cabin to himself on the upper foredeck. The others went down to the middle deck, which was open right through the middle of the boat from stem to stern, with a large dining table in the center, and a row of small boxlike cabins on either side. The lowest deck was for cargo, and Dido, looking down a flight of wooden steps, observed that it was packed with freight: bales, barrels, tied-up cows, and crates of poultry. The space by the rail was kept clear, and on each side twelve great wooden handles protruded through slots in the deck.
    "What's those for?" Dido asked Mr. Holystone.
    "I infer that is how the boat is propelled. Rowers pulling those levers cause the paddle wheel to revolve."
    Indeed, the passengers being now all embarked, and the mooring cast off, twenty-four Cumbrian oarsmen, wearing nothing but black cotton trousers, took their places at the levers and, after a shouted command from a coxswain, hauled repeatedly on the handles and let go, until, with a mournful creaking and groaning, the boat was set in motion and worked out into midstream.
    "It's a mite slow, ain't it?" said Dido doubtfully.
    It was not slow for long. After about ten minutes, when the dim lights of Tenby had fallen away astern, Dido began to hear, above the creak of the levers and the groan of the paddle wheel, a kind of huge sigh that began far away and came closer and closer, becoming so loud at last that it drowned all other noises. At this moment a vast wave overtook the paddleboat and rolled it along the river as a leaf is bowled along by an eddy. The rowers continued to work at their levers; Dido would have liked to ask why, but could not possibly have made herself heard. But after a while she guessed that the motion of the paddle wheel helped to steer the boat and keep it on course in the middle of the stream.
    The members of the
Thrush
's crew settled themselves in the after part of the boat, stretched out comfortably on canvas cots. Dido found herself a cot and placed it up in the bows, where, when