"And wasn't it you who found the mine?" said Timothy.

"It was Roger," said Dick.

"Thanks to being a lazy little beast," said Nancy. "Giminy, I wish the Great Aunt was right and the Swallows were here now."

"Good thing they're not," said Timothy.

~The Picts & the Martyrs

Mary Swainson was smiling happily when she came to the road and saw old Miss Turner, Mrs. Blackett's aunt, walking towards her.

Mary Swainson knew her at once. As a child she had been very much in awe of her. She reminded herself that she was now grown up and was going to marry Jack, the woodman, as soon as she thought fit, while Miss Turner, poor old thing, had never married at all. Crossing the road, to go through the coppice down to her boat, she smiled at Miss Turner with a queer mixture of kindness, pity and fear.

"Mary! Mary Swainson," said Miss Turner.

"Yes, Miss Turner," said Mary.

"You have some children staying at the farm, I think?"

"Aye, Miss Turner," Mary said. "At least, not at the farm, but above it on the fell. They've been camping there until their parents come up to stay."

"I thought as much," Miss Turner said so grimly that Mary wondered for a moment if she had done right and if the Walker children would be glad to see Miss Turner. "Will you take me to them, Mary?"

Mary hesitated, looking at the Great Aunt. Her lips had tightened into a thin white line, bearing bad news, perhaps. But she only hesitated for a moment, "Aye," she said; she couldn't leave the old body to go wandering up the fell alone. "I'm just going to meet a train, but I believe I have time."

"I am much obliged," Miss Turner said, turning, and together, they walked back up the road, Mary slightly behind. The old lady opened her blue parasol with a snap and made a small disapproving noise when it would not catch.

"Why, there they are now," Mary said suddenly, peering around the parasol to look up the road. "Come down to listen to Dad sing, no doubt, or go out in their boat. It's moored by mine."

"Yes, I see that it is them," Miss Turner said. "I will not be requiring your assistance any longer, Mary. You may go."

"Thank you Miss Turner," Mary said turning again.

"I am obliged to you," Miss Turner repeated and as Mary watched, the old lady strode ahead to meet the four figures coming down where the road made a curve. Mary shook her head, then went back down towards the coppice where her boat was moored. She was off for her holiday and never thought of Miss Turner again until she came back a week later.

~o*o~

"Gosh! It's her! It's the Great Aunt!"

Miss Turner stiffened at the words of the smallest boy when she came within hearing distance of the children. The four of them were dithering in the road, not certain to go back or continue on.

"She's seen us now," the oldest one said quietly. "We'd better keep on."

"And no cheekiness, Roger," the second oldest added. "We'll just say good morning."

"We'd better say nothing at all," said the second youngest. "She's the very worst of the worst kind of native. We'd better pretend she's not there and go right on."

The Great Aunt closed her parasol with the same decisiveness with which she had opened it. She pointed it at them now, picking them out one by one.

"You are the Walker children, I believe?" she said grimly. "I would like a word with you."

"Are Nancy and Peggy coming?"

"Shut up, Roger," John said, glancing at Susan with an expression of alarm.

Susan rallied, "Good morning, Miss Turner."

"Don't try to cover up for yourselves," the Great Aunt replied, the point of her parasol stopping John in his tracks. "I know all. To be such degenerates at so young an age is both shocking and saddening. The younger ones may perhaps be led upon a better path, but I fear that the elders are destined to be in and out of the police courts. You ought to be sent to a reform school."

She had expected her direct and sudden accusation to take them off guard and surprise the truth out of them, but instead of guilt, she only read shock and confusion on their faces. They were even worse than she had first thought.

"I would have had this conversation with your parents," she continued after surveying them for a moment, "But since they have not yet arrived, I had hoped to find you responsible enough to repent of your actions. The matter is too serious to be allowed to rest."

More silence followed her words, the children were looking at each other in horror. Titty had her hand over her face, Susan looked as though she were about to burst into tears, John had gone red; all were dismayed, except Roger, who watched the Great Aunt with an expression half of incredulity, half of amusement.

"Look here," John said very quickly. "What are we supposed to have done?"

"Don't pretend innocence with me," the Great Aunt said sternly. "From the very first, I knew you to be the worst kind of companions for my nieces. You were forever keeping them from their meals, inspiring them to wear unseemly clothing, causing their language to be course and unladylike. They seem at last to have shaken off your influence, which does them a great deal of credit."

She paused again to let her words sink in. They sank.

"I think you're a beast!" Titty cried, her hand had come away to reveal a pink and angry face. "We were shipwrecked and then they were laying a hound trail in our valley. Anybody would have been late for meals. Don't you see they simply had to stay?"

"Titty!" Susan exclaimed warningly.

"Look here," John said again, his face even redder. "I'm sure we're very sorry, but I don't see how it was our fault and I don't see what we've done now. We've never been in police courts even once."

"Perhaps keeping my nieces out late is not so great a crime," the Great Aunt replied. "But I draw the line at burglary."

"Burglary?!" they all exclaimed the word.

"Were they or were they not your tracks that were seen around the edge of the Beckfoot lawn the night my nephew's study was broken into?"

"We don't know anything about that," Susan said quickly. "It wasn't us."

"What was stolen?" John asked.

"A small wooden box with my nephew's initials on it," Miss Turner replied at once.

"Well, we haven't got it," John said. "You can come up to our camp and look, but we haven't got it."

"No doubt you have already passed it on to the person who put you up to it," the Great Aunt continued, a new thought forming in her mind. "Tall, thin, with baggy, ill-fitting clothes and the look of a criminal about him. It was he, was it not?"

"It wasn't him, it wasn't anybody," Susan said. She was very close to tears and knew that Titty was already weeping with anger. "Our parents are coming very soon. They'll convince you it wasn't us."

"Yes," Miss Turner said with satisfaction. "I will have words to say to your parents."

~o*o~

Nancy woke abruptly.

She was breathing hard; her blankets seemed to be throttling her and tying her down. She had a tremendous wrestle with them in the dark and at last she was free and going across the floor to the window. She needed air.

"Nancy?" a muffled and sleepy voice said from the dark.

"Go back to sleep," Nancy said, looking back. "It's just that I've had that dream again."

"The one about the Swallows?"

"Yes," Nancy said. "Timothy was right. It was a good thing they weren't here. It would have been awful if she'd met them. Imagine the horrid things she'd have said to them. It was bad enough listening to her putting them down to us, but what if she'd had a chance to say it to them? They'd never have understood."

"I'm glad she didn't meet them," Peggy said. "It all turned out all right in the end."

"It's just that I keep having this beastly dream," Nancy said.

"They'll be here tomorrow," Paggy said. "Maybe you'll stop having it."

"Yes," Nancy said gleefully before diving headfirst back into her bed. "Then we'll have all sorts of fun!"

"I'm going to sleep," Peggy said.

"Good," Nancy replied.

Author's Note: I just finished reading The Picts & The Martyrs today, and this just popped into my head. I've always wondered the old 'what if' when it came to the Swallows and the G.A. I have a few more 'serious' S&A stories coming down the pipeline. I'm not quite certain when the first one will be posted, but it will probably be fairly soon.

I hope the people who celebrated Thanksgiving had a good one!

~Psyche