Available in Virago Children’s Classics

BY JOAN AIKEN

The Gift Giving:
Favourite Stories

The Kingdom and the Cave

The Serial Garden:
The Complete Armitage
Family Stories

BY LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Little Women

Good Wives

Little Men

Jo’s Boys

BY NINA BAWDEN

Carrie’s War

Keeping Henry

The Peppermint Pig

BY SUSAN COOLIDGE

What Katy Did

What Katy Did at School

What Katy Did Next

BY RUMER GODDEN

An Episode of Sparrows

The Dark Horse

Listen to the Nightingale

Thursday’s Children

BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of the Island

Anne of Windy Willows

Anne’s House of Dreams

Anne of Ingleside

Rainbow Valley

Rilla of Ingleside

Emily of New Moon

Emily Climbs

Emily’s Quest

Jane of Lantern Hill

BY EDITH NESBIT

Five Children and It

The Phoenix and the Carpet

The Story of the Amulet

The Treasure Seekers

The Wouldbegoods

New Treasure Seekers

The Railway Children

BY NOEL STREATFEILD

Apple Bough

Caldicott Place

Noel Streatfeild’s
Christmas Stories

Noel Streatfeild’s
Holiday Stories

BY ELIZABETH TAYLOR

Mossy Trotter

BY P. L. TRAVERS

I Go by Sea, I Go by Land

The Fox and the Manger

VIRAGO

This collection first published in Great Britain in 2019 by Virago Press

Noel Streatfeild’s Holiday Stories copyright © the Beneficiaries of Noel Streatfeild 2019 Illustrations © Peter Bailey 2019

Noel Streatfeild’s stories are copyright their individual publication dates: ‘Devon Mettle’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1933; ‘Chicken for Supper’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1951; ‘Flag’s Circus’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1954; ‘The Secret’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1959; ‘Coralie’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1959; ‘Ordinary Me’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1959; ‘Howard’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1966; ‘The Quiet Holiday’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1968; ‘The Plain One’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1976; ‘Green Silk’ © copyright Noel Streatfeild 1977

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-349-01095-3

Virago Press

An imprint of

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

www.hachette.co.uk

www.virago.co.uk

Although it never seems like it at the time, there is a lot to be said for not being a too glamorous and successful child. The kind of child – and this applies especially to girls – who never goes through a plain patch, about whom everybody says ‘Isn’t she sweet?’ or ‘Isn’t she a darling?’, and who consistently does well at school, can have a much harder time finding her feet when she grows up than the less successful.

I write from experience. We were three sisters in my family and I was the middle one and plain. My eldest sister was pretty, talented and, in spite of being delicate, exceedingly good at school work. My younger sister was not just pretty, she was beautiful – the sort of child at whom people stop and stare – and she was sharp as a needle at school.

I, in the middle, was what is now called ‘a slow developer’. I was not really an ugly child but, compared to the other two, I was downright plain. Nobody ever discovered why I stubbornly refused to work at school. My teachers never had the slightest doubt that I could do well if I would try but I just wouldn’t try. As a result I was nagged day and night until I got what was called in nursery parlance ‘a black dog on my shoulder’. I took to scowling and growling and the more I scowled and growled the less lovable I became.

But, for a writer, especially if they are going to write either for or about children, this rather black-doggish childhood is a well of information. Being an unsuccessful child makes you look very carefully, with almost grown-up eyes, at yourself and the people around you. You try to assess why you are being a failure. For instance, you may think your parents don’t love you as much as they love the others. (This is, of course, totally untrue. They probably love you more because you need more help.) At the same time you observe your sisters and brothers and work out for yourself the reason why they can glide so easily through childhood while you do so much stumbling. Then there are the other children that you meet. In most families the unsuccessful child can discern a fellow spirit who also is perhaps the plainest of the family and does the least well at school.

When I grew up and started to write books I found to my great surprise that always studying children when I was a child myself had stayed with me and I only had to look back into my childhood to see the sort of things that children do and why. That is the reason why in my books there are often plain children who get into more trouble than the rest of the family. You see, I can remember what it was like.

I would not like those of you who are pretty and wonderfully successful at school to think this is going to be a disadvantage to you. Of course it isn’t – but remember this was written by the plain one of the family.

Staying with Grandmother was an event, the loveliest bit of the summer, a glorious time. It had happened every year since John was nine months old and Barbara not there at all. But this year was better than all the other years, for they were sent alone. Not actually for the railway part, for Daddy had been with them for that, but he had gone back the next day and left them with Granny and old Hannah, which meant they weren’t looked after at all. For Granny had the most sensible ideas about what children might do. ‘Go where you like,’ she would say, ‘you are as safe on a Devonshire moor as in your bed.’ But she always extracted a promise from them before they started out. ‘Now, you must never lose sight of my cottage. I wish for your promise, my dears.’ They found the promise an easy one to keep, for the cottage was in a valley, and they could climb up the hills and on to the moor for quite a long way in every direction and still see the thatch on the roof and the big slash of colour made by the hollyhocks.

One lazy, stuffy afternoon Hannah brought to them two baskets.

‘Look here, go up on the moor now, my dears, and pick me some whorts. I hear they’re beautiful.’

The children had often picked whortleberries before, and they thought it fun even when escorted by Nurse, but alone it seemed an important thing to be asked to do. They snatched up their hats and started for the door, but Granny called them back.

‘Are you going to pick me some whortleberries?’ The children nodded. ‘Then I shall want two promises today, the usual one, and a new one. I wish you only to eat ten berries each, for unless they are stewed they are apt to be very upsetting. Besides, you will enjoy them better served with my thick cream.’

The sun was blazing down on the moor and before the children reached the place where the whortleberries grew, their legs were tired with pushing through the heather, and their arms with brushing aside the bracken.

‘Let’s sit a minute,’ Barbara panted. She stretched her legs out comfortably in front of her. ‘Heather’s lovely stuff to sit on, all springy like that sofa at home.’

‘I wonder if it hurts it, being sat on.’ John rolled over on to his tummy to stare at the plant beneath him. ‘I expect it can’t like it much.’

‘Well we won’t sit on those bits very long.’ Barbara gave her plant a comforting pat. ‘In a minute we’ll move on and sit on other plants instead.’

The whortleberries were growing in masses. They were pleasantly easy to pick, and for a while both children worked industriously. Then Barbara paused and with purple fingers regretfully put her tenth berry into her already purple mouth. She looked at John’s busy back view.

‘How many have you eaten?’

‘Well, only eight really, but I’ve sucked some squashed ones off my fingers, I don’t think Granny would count those.’

‘I bet she would, I bet she’d count them as halves.’

‘Halves!’ John went rigid with contempt. ‘Halves! Don’t be so silly, why often they’re only one lick.’

Barbara looked severe.

‘Well, four squashed ones shall count as one whole one, but it isn’t fair really, I know your licks.’

John accepted this, and for a while worked on, then he straightened himself.

‘I’ve picked thousands and thousands,’ he grunted, for the picking position led to grunts.

Barbara stood upright too, and pushed the hair out of her eyes, leaving purple streaks on her forehead, then suddenly she stiffened and her face slowly flooded with crimson.

‘Oh! We’ve come too far. We can’t see Granny’s.’

John studied the landscape, then he too flushed, for a promise is a promise.

‘We’d better go back.’

They turned about and set off hurriedly in the opposite direction, but crouching along picking, it’s very difficult to notice which way you are going. The children soon found they hadn’t noticed at all, then the bracken grew so thick and tall it seemed to hide things, and the faster they tried to go the more the heather seemed to cling to their feet.

‘It can’t have gone really,’ said Barbara without much conviction. Her lip quivered.

‘Of course it can’t, silly.’

It was then that they stumbled upon the man. He was lying so flat upon the ground that they almost fell over him. He seemed as startled by the encounter as they were, and spoke roughly.

‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing,’ said John in a brave voice, though he wasn’t really feeling it.

‘We’re lost,’ Barbara explained.

‘Lost!’ The man looked up at her mouth, and down at her fingers and smiled suddenly. It was an odd smile which seemed to come from far down inside him, and not to happen often. ‘Lost picking whortleberries.’

‘Yes, that’s it.’ Barbara sat down beside him happily. She was delighted they had found him, he was a grown-up, and from such all knowledge was to be expected, including the way home. ‘Have you been picking them too?’

‘No, there aren’t any just hereabouts.’

‘But there are lots a little further on.’

‘I know, but I like it here where the bracken’s thick.’ Then he added inconsequently, ‘Kind stuff bracken.’

‘Is it! That’s all you know.’ John held out a cut finger. ‘A bit I tried to pick did this to me. I wanted it for swatting flies.’

The man nodded gravely.

‘Oh yes, it cuts, but it shelters too.’

‘Yes, it does,’ Barbara agreed. ‘Last year when we were up here with Nurse it rained and rained so we all lay on a rug under the bracken, and when it got fine we weren’t hardly wet at all.’

‘And Granny was waiting for us at the gate when we got back because she thought we’d have been almost drowned,’ John added. ‘And she was awfully surprised to find us all dry, for the garden path was flooded, but it floods very easily, you know.’

The man sat up when John finished speaking, and stared at him.

‘The garden path was flooded, it floods very easily.’ He spoke in an odd far-away voice as if he was remembering things. When he spoke again it was almost angrily in a demanding sort of way.

‘Where does your grandmother live?’

‘In the valley.’ Barbara waved her arm vaguely towards the horizon.

‘Stack Cottage, it’s called,’ John explained.

‘Stack Cottage! Stack Cottage!’ the man whispered. ‘And the boy speaks of it in his ordinary voice; doesn’t he know he speaks of holy ground?’ He looked first at one child and then at the other and saw they were puzzled and a little frightened. He grinned at them. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m a sentimental old fool, but tell me, is there still an apple tree just inside the gate?’

‘Oh yes.’ John settled down comfortably again now they were back talking of normal things. ‘We call that our tree because we are allowed to eat those apples without asking.’

‘So was I.’ The man lay back amongst the bracken fronds, and stared at the sky. Barbara took a large whortleberry out of her basket, turned it over longingly, gave it a small lick, and regretfully put it back.

‘Did you live at Granny’s once?’

‘I did, though it wasn’t your grandmother’s then, it belonged to my father, and I was born there, and lived there till I was fourteen. I used to ride over every inch of this moor.’

‘Ride!’ The children looked at him enviously.

‘You were lucky,’ John grumbled. ‘I don’t ride, they always say about me, “Not worth getting the boy a pony for the short time he’s here”.’

‘And I learned to throw my first fly in that stretch of river that runs at the bottom of the garden.’

John aimed a stick savagely at a plant of willowherb.

‘We aren’t allowed to go near the river, it frightens Mummy.’

‘Not nearer than the last rose-tree unless somebody’s with us,’ Barbara added, but the man didn’t seem to be listening; he was gazing at the hillside opposite, looking very queer indeed. She thought perhaps he was feeling miserable, so she patted his arm comfortingly. ‘You needn’t worry about the cottage, Granny looks after it very nicely, and so does Hannah.’

The pat had focused his attention.

‘I’m sure they do.’ He said no more but continued to stare dreamily at the hills, so dreamily that John was afraid he was going to sleep, and since his help was urgently needed he gave him a little nudge.

‘Do you think you remember the way to the cottage?’

‘You see, we ought not really to be where we can’t see it.’ Barbara spoke earnestly. ‘So if you could show us the way—’

‘Show you the way!’ The man looked startled. ‘Oh my dears, I can’t, you don’t know what you’re asking.’

‘Just a little way,’ Barbara urged. ‘Couldn’t you?’

‘I could, but it’s such short scrubby stuff further down, just heather, and perhaps a few whortleberries.’ He looked pleadingly at her. ‘You’re not really asking me to leave my bracken, are you?’

‘Just to show us the way, you needn’t come far. Besides, if there are whortleberries you could eat some as we go, they’re awfully nice.’ Then she looked at his odd shabby clothes, perhaps he was worrying about them. ‘The stain won’t get all over you like it has us. We sat on them, you know. Besides, if one does get stuck on you, often it will come off for just one suck, and never leave a mark.’

The man laughed.

‘Bless my soul, I’m not worrying about these clothes.’ He looked down at himself bitterly. ‘But you don’t know what you ask. There are people in the valley I don’t want to meet.’

‘Well, let’s crawl like we do when we scout,’ John suggested.

‘Crawl! Crawl!’ The man sprang to his feet and flung out his chest, and threw back his head in one supreme gesture. ‘Crawl!’ he roared again. ‘Would you see a Devon man crawl to his own home? Never! Give me your hands.’ He gripped John’s paw in one large fist and Barbara’s in the other, and set off down the hill at a terrific pace, and as he swung along he broke into a song with a rollicking chorus which helped the children’s feet to hurry:

‘While the raging seas did roar,

And the stormy winds did blow,

While we jolly sailor-boys went skipping to the top,

And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below,

And the land-lubbers lying down below.’

‘Well, how did you like that?’ he asked when he had finished.

‘Very much,’ panted Barbara politely. ‘But I’m sorry they were all drowned. They were, weren’t they?’

He looked down at her, and slowed up as he saw how out of breath he had made her.

‘There are worse things than drowning.’

‘But they were dead.’

‘There are many worse things than death.’

‘I’d hate to drown, though,’ John objected.

‘Hate to, but not fear to, or you are no Devon man. No Devon man ever feared the sea. We’ve history to prove it.’

‘You mean people like Drake?’ John suggested.

‘And many others. But Drake! Oh, there was a man, there was a fellow to follow. He feared no element and no man, and knew how to scotch a snake when he met one.’

John was interested.

‘Did Drake kill snakes? I never knew that.’

‘One he did, a thing called Doughty, he strung him to the yard-arm.’

‘Did he?’ John was silent, visualising rows of slaughtered snakes hung so, and missed the man’s whisper.

‘He was his best friend too, but he was honoured for what he did. Ah! they understood men then.’

They came to a sudden small rise and below them lay the cottage. The man loosed their hands, and laid his upon their shoulders.

‘There it is, run to it, you lucky little devils.’

‘Goodbye,’ John said politely.

‘Thank you very much,’ Barbara added.

The man gave them an affectionate push.

‘Scoot! Oh and by the way, John, if ever you meet a snake, don’t be afraid to kill it.’

That evening when the children were in bed, Hannah came into the drawing-room and stood in front of Grandmother.

‘Well, Hannah?’

‘They’ve caught an escaped convict.’

‘Where?’

‘Up on the moor anigh this very house. They’ve been searching all day, but could not tell the way he went. Then sudden-like he left the bracken where he were lyin’ and came out in the open for all to see, which were foolishness I reckon. And who do you think the convict were? Why, young Maister Gordon, son of old Maister who lived here before you, mum.’

‘Why was he sent to prison?’

‘He was a murderer. He killed his best friend, who stole away his wife.’

‘Why was he not hanged?’

‘He’s been lucky, I reckon.’

‘A murderer here on our moor!’ The colour faded from Grandmother’s cheeks. ‘How terrible.’

Hannah jerked her thumb upwards to the children’s rooms.

‘They’re safe and snug, they saw naught of he.’

Grandmother bent her head, her lips moved, then she said softly:

‘We have much to thank God for. Fetch me my Prayer Book, I should like to read the hundred and fiftieth Psalm.’