Winter Holiday. Arthur Ransome

took the spades and did a little work in shovelling up snow and adding it to the thickness of those massive walls.

      “Shiver my timbers,” said Nancy, when she came back to the clearing and saw the igloo gleaming under the trees, a great shining mound of white snow. “Shiver my timbers, but isn’t it beastly to be going away so soon and leaving it to the sheep.”

      “It’s pretty good,” said John, who had been helping to tie the new brooms on the top of the sledge.

      “But it’s all coming just too late,” said Nancy. She took her spade from Dorothea, went to the side of the clearing, dug it savagely into the snow, lifted an enormous spadeful, came back and battered it down on the top of the igloo. “It doesn’t bear thinking about,” she said. “The lake was only waiting for this snow to begin to freeze. Everybody says it’s going to freeze all over, and instead of being at the North Pole we’re going to be back at school messing about with Magna Carta . . . ”

      John said nothing, but took up his spade and went on with his work.

      “Come on,” said Roger, “there’s a rope for each dog, and we can all jump on when it’s going downhill.”

      Dorothea grabbed her rope. They were off, the four of them, towing the sledge, jostling each other as they squeezed between the bushes with the sledge at their heels, plumping sideways on the top of it as it threatened to run away from them down a slope, hauling with the ropes over their shoulders as they climbed a rise.

      “It’s a very good sledge,” said Dick, “built just like a bridge.”

      “It’s a Beckfoot sledge,” said Titty. “We haven’t got one of our own. Nancy and Peggy brought it across when that first lot of snow came.”

      “They hunted for another one for us, but they couldn’t find it,” panted Roger.

      They charged down through the bracken, and out on the smooth, snow-covered ice. Sweeping began, but did not go on for very long. There was too good a slope between the observatory and the shore of the tarn. It was soon found that if the sledge were started close under the observatory wall it flew down the slope, shot out on the ice, and across it, very nearly to the other side. The sweepers stuck their brooms upright in clumps of heather so as not to lose them. Again and again four dogs with lolling tongues dragged the sledge up to the old barn. Again and again four human beings, astraddle on the sledge, flew down again.

      “It’s all good practice,” said Roger.

      “You see, there isn’t time for the lake to freeze,” said Titty, “but if the snow lasts we’ll be able to toboggan a good bit of the way.”

      They were standing by the barn, resting after the hundredth climb. Time had gone at the terrible pace at which it always goes during the last few days of the holidays, and everybody was startled when Peggy’s red cap showed on the ridge. She had brought a flag with her, and began to signal.

      Dorothea and Dick, trying to remember what they had learnt the night before, stared hard.

      “Long and two shorts. d. I know that one,” said Dick.

      “Two shorts,” said Dorothea.

      “i,” said Titty.

      “d-i,” said Roger. “I know the message before she’s flapped it. It’s dinner.”

      “But it can’t be dinner already!” said Dorothea.

      “Why not?” said Roger.

      And dinner it was.

      Peggy waited for no answer, but was gone. The four of them had a last wild rush down the slope and over the ice, picked up their brooms, tied them on the sledge, and went back to the igloo at the gallop. There they found the four elders cooling down after work indoors and out. John and Nancy could do no more to the igloo, which was now a perfect dome, with a trodden path leading to the door. Susan and Peggy had been making a hot-pot, with potatoes, onions, and carrots, and a whole tin of bully beef (known by the Swallows and Amazons as pemmican). The pot itself was cooling down outside the igloo, because it was too hot for anybody to eat, and Susan was prodding at the potatoes with a fork through clouds of steam, though she had really made sure everything was ready before taking the pot off the fire.

      “It’s sure to be all right, Susan,” said Nancy. “Let’s get at it.”

      It was taken back into the igloo to be eaten. The explorers sat round it on benches and logs under the light of the lantern that was hanging from one of the poles of the roof. They had not enough spoons and forks for everybody, but fingers, as Roger said, came in useful once somebody with a fork had helped by getting something out. Dick and Dorothea were, of course, invited to share the hot-pot with the others. “After all,” said Peggy, “a hot-pot’s a hot-pot, and sandwiches are just . . . ” She stopped, but Roger helped her out. “Sandwiches,” he suggested, and, catching Susan’s eye, added, “Why not? They are.” The sandwiches came in very useful for everybody, as plates that could be eaten up after the juice had soaked into them and they had served their first purpose.

      And then, when they had just got well started with dinner, they heard steps outside the door.

      “Polar bear,” said Roger. “Smelt the food.”

      But if it was a bear it was too much out of breath to be a fierce one.

      “It’s mother!” cried Nancy, looking out. “Come on in. We’ve got room for one Eskimo, and you’re the one.”

      “Thank you for that,” said a voice, and through the low doorway Mrs Blackett came crawling into the igloo. She was a very little woman, and rather plump, and she had a cheerful, clear voice very like Nancy’s. “Well,” she said, “I must say you’ve made a very good hut for yourselves. But, pouf, isn’t it hot? Open-air life indeed! It’s like an oven. And what a pull up from Holly Howe. Easy enough to find you with all those tracks in the snow. But if I’d remembered how far it was I’d . . . I’d have sent you a message to come down and pull me up on the sledge.”

      “We’d have run you up in style,” said Nancy. “Team of six dogs, eight with Dorothea and Dick . . . Here’s a place for you on this bench . . . it won’t let you down unless you joggle it . . . and there’s lots of dinner.”

      “It’s Dorothea and Dick I came up to see,” said Mrs Blackett, looking round under the lantern. “Staying with the Eskimos at Dixon’s farm, aren’t you? . . . By the way, Nancy, do remind me to thank Mrs Dixon for that pork pie . . . Well, I wonder if you’d care to come across the fiord to an Eskimo settlement on the other side. You could join the others at Holly Howe after breakfast tomorrow, and Nancy and Peggy can pull over with the boat and bring you all across.”

      “We’d like to come very much,” said Dorothea, and managed to catch Dick’s eye, so that he said “Thank you” before it was too late.

      “The days are so short now,” Mrs Blackett went on, “you’d have to come first thing in the morning, because of getting back before dark. You might take a run up the Matterhorn – Kanchenjunga, I mean – or something like that.”

      “It’ll be quite all right,” said Nancy. “We won’t be going to the Pole till the very last day.”

      “Good,” said Mrs Blackett. “So that’s settled. Meet at Holly Howe first thing, and don’t bring any food. Better tell Mrs Dixon tonight, or she’ll be filling your knapsacks before you start. Oh, thank you, Peggy. What is it? Hot-pot? It smells very good. You’re not taking it out on the tarn . . . ?”

      “On the tarn?” said Susan.

      “I was thinking of another hot-pot,” said Mrs Blackett. “It was once upon a time when I was young, and the lake was frozen all over.”

      “If only it would hurry up and do it now,” said Nancy.

      “And a whole lot of us spent the day on the ice. A big hot-pot and a basket of other things were sent down to us from the house, and brought