IN THE RAIN
The scouts were falling off to sleep once more when they were aroused
again, this time by the divinest music. A nightingale began to sing in
the little wood, and made it echo and re-echo with the richest song.
Suddenly a faint murmuring began to mingle with the lovely notes. The
murmuring grew, and the bird's song ceased. The air was filled with
the patter of falling rain.
'Rain!' cried Dick; 'that's rain, Chippy.'
'On'y a shower, p'raps,' said his comrade.
'I hope so,' returned the Wolf.
They felt nothing of the rain at present, for they were camped beneath
a fir which stood as an outpost to the coppice, and its thick canopy
was stretched above their heads. Chippy sprang up and threw fresh fuel
on the fire, and looked out on the night.
'Theer's a big black cloud creepin' up from the sou'-west,' he said.
'That looks pretty bad for a soaker.'
In a short time the scouts knew they were in for a real drenching. The
patter of the rain came heavier and thicker, until it was drumming on
the fir-branches in steady streams. Soon great spots began to fall
from the lower branches of the fir beneath which they lay.
'I've just had a big drop slap in my eye,' said Dick, sitting up.
'What are we going to do, Chippy?'
'Got to do summat,' said the Raven, 'an' quick, too, afore we're
drownded out.'
'Let's rig up a shelter tent with the blankets,' suggested Dick; and
they set to work at once. They pulled the four fence-rails which
formed the framework of their bed from their places, and laid them side
by side in search of the shorter ones. They proved much of the same
size, so Chippy went to work with the hatchet to shorten a pair, while
Dick began to dig the holes in which to step them. The ground was
soft, and with the aid of his knife Dick soon had a couple of holes
eighteen inches deep. While he did this Chippy had cut two rails down,
and fastened a third across the ends of the shorter ones, with the
scouts' neckties for cords. They had ample light to work by, for the
fire had flared up bravely.
Now they swung up their framework of two posts and a cross-bar, and
stepped the feet of the posts in the holes, throwing back the soft
earth, and ramming it in with the short, thick pieces cut off the
rails. This made a far stronger hold for the uprights than anything
they could have done in the shape of sharpening their ends and trying
to drive them down.
Next they took their blankets, and hung them side by side over the
cross-bar, one overlapping the other by a couple of feet. With their
knives they cut a number of pegs from the hard gorse stems, and
sharpened them, and drove them through the blankets into the bar,
pinning the blankets tightly in place. The tough gorse-wood went into
the soft rail like nails, and the back of the tomahawk made a splendid
hammer. They had a fourth rail, and they pegged the other ends of the
blankets down to that, drew it backwards, and there was a lean-to
beneath which they leapt with shouts of triumph.
'Done th' old rain this time,' yelled the Raven. 'Now we'll keep a
rousin' fire goin', and sit here and listen to it.'
There was, luckily, no wind, or the scouts might not have been so
jubilant; it was a heavy summer rain, pouring down strong and straight.
The boys were pretty wet before they had got their shelter rigged up,
but the fire was strong and warm, though it hissed vigorously as the
heavy drops fell from the branches of the fir.
'Any chance of putting the fire out, do you think?' said Dick.
'Not if we keep plenty o' stuff on it,' replied his chum. 'Hark 'ow
it's patterin' on the blankets!'
'They'll be jolly wet, and take some drying,' said Dick. 'Still,
better for them to get wet than for us.'
'We ain't cut a trench,' said Chippy.
'To carry off the water,' cried Dick. 'No, we haven't. But we can dig
that from cover, just round the patch we want to sit on.'
They went to work with their knives, and cut a trench six inches deep
round the pile of bedding on which they were seated, and then had no
fear of being flooded out with rain-water.
Down came the rain faster and heavier. The whole air was filled with
the hissing, rushing noise of the great drops falling on the trees, the
bushes, the open ground, but the scouts sat tight under their blanket
lean-to, and fed the fire steadily from the heap of sticks and stems
which the Raven had piled up.
'Weasels for weather-prophets for me arter this,' grunted Chippy; and
Dick nodded his head.
'It was my Uncle Jim who told me that about the weasels,' said Dick.
'He said they're always very active before stormy weather.'
'Just about fits it this time, anyway,' remarked the Raven. The
mention of Mr. Elliott brought to mind their chums in Bardon.
'I wonder how our patrols are getting on without us, Chippy?' said Dick.
'Oh, it'll gie the corporals a chance to try their 'ands at leadin','
returned the Raven. 'I wish they could just see us now. They'd gie
their skins to jine us.'
'Rather,' laughed Dick; 'this is just about all right.'
It is possible that some persons might not have agreed with him, and at
one o'clock in the morning might have preferred their beds to squatting
on a heap of brushwood under the shelter of a blanket, the hissing fire
making the only cheery spot in the blackness of the cloud- and
rain-wrapped moorland. But the scouts would not have changed their
situation for quarters in Buckingham Palace. There was the real touch
about this. It seemed almost as romantic as a bivouac on a battlefield.
'Well, s'pose we try for a bit more sleep,' said the prudent Raven;
'long march to-morrer, yer know.'
'We've got to keep the fire up,' said Dick; 'it would never do to let
that out.'
'O' course not,' replied Chippy; 'we must take turns to watch. Now,
who gets fust sleep--long or short?'
He held up two twigs which he had plucked from the bedding; the ends
were concealed in his hand.
'Short gets first sleep,' said Dick.
'Aw' right,' replied the Raven; 'you draw.'
Dick drew, and found he had the long draw.
'Wot's the time?' asked Chippy.
'Just turned one.'
'Right; then I'll sleep till three. Then you wake me, and I'll tek' a
turn till five. Then we must be movin', for to-morrer's a long day.'
'To-day's a long day, you mean,' laughed Dick.
'So it is,' replied the Raven. 'It's to-day a'ready--o' course it is.'
He was about to coil himself round like a dog upon the hearth, when he
cast a quick glance on the heap of firewood.
'Not enough theer,' he said; 'an' I ain't a-goin' to have ye hoppin'
round on yer game foot.'
He sprang up again, and, in spite of Dick's protestations, caught up
the axe and a flaming brand from the fire, and went down to the burnt
gorse-patch, and hacked away till he had as many of the long stems as
he could drag.
'They're a bit wet outside,' he said, as he returned; 'but they'll
ketch all right if ye keep a good fire up, and theer's a plenty to last
till I've finished my nap. Then I can fill in my time wi' cuttin' any
amount.'
He curled himself up again, and was asleep in a moment.
Dick's watch was only two hours, but it seemed a long, long time. He
kept a rousing fire going, such a fire as the rain could make no
impression upon, and lost itself in the glowing depths in an angry
spluttering. Once the heat made him so drowsy that he dreaded the
terrible disgrace of falling asleep on his post. So he stuck his head
from under the shelter, and washed the sleep out of his eyes in the
slashing downpour. But even after that he was half asleep again, when
a sluice of cold water came in at the point where the blankets
overlapped, and very obligingly ran down his neck, and fetched him up
with a jump. Now he had a job to do in arranging their cover, and he
moved the ground rail a little back, and drew the blankets tauter. The
simple shelter did its work nobly. It is true that towards the bottom
the weight of water caused the blankets to sag, and there was a steady
drip at that point; but it was beyond the spot where the scouts were
crouching, and the sharp slant of the upper part ran the water safely
over their heads.
Chippy woke upon the stroke of three in a manner which seemed to Dick
perfectly miraculous.
'How did you do it?' asked the latter. 'I should never have awakened
of myself in that style.'
'Yer must fix it on yer mind,' replied the Raven, 'and then somehow or
other yer eyes open at the right time.'
'Well,' laughed Dick, 'I'm afraid it's no use my trying to fix five
o'clock in my mind. You'll have to wake me, Chippy.'
'I'll wake ye fast enough,' returned the Raven. 'Now roll yerself up,
an' go to bye-bye. It'll be broad daylight soon. Most likely the rain
will stop at sun-up.'
Day was breaking, but grey and chill, and the rain still poured down in
lines which scarcely slanted. The scouts, however, were quite warm,
for there was no wind, and the leaping fire sent ample heat into the
nook where they lay.
Dick placed his haversack for a pillow, and laid his head on it. The
sleep he had been fighting off descended on him in power, and he knew
no more until Chippy shook his arm and aroused him at five o'clock.
His eyes opened on a very different scene from that he had last gazed
upon. The rain was over; the morning was bright with glowing sunshine;
the new-bathed country looked deliciously fresh and green; a most balmy
and fragrant breeze was blowing; and in copse and bush a hundred birds
were singing, while the lark led them all from the depths of the blue
sky.
'What a jolly morning!' cried Dick.
'Aw' right, ain't it?' grinned the Raven. 'The rain stopped a little
arter four, an' the sun come out, an' it's been a-gettin' better an'
better.'
Suddenly Dick looked up. The blankets had gone. Chippy laughed.
'Look behind,' he said.
Dick looked, and saw that the Raven had been very busy. He had built a
fresh fire with a heap of glowing embers from the old one; the billy
had served him as an improvised shovel. Over this fire he had erected
a cage of bent sticks, and the blankets were stretched on the framework
and drying in style; the steam was rising from them in clouds.
'That's great,' said his chum; 'I wondered more than once in the night
what we should do with sopping wet blankets.'
'They'll be all right in a while again.' And the Raven gave them a
turn. 'Now we've got to wire in and hunt up a brekfus.'
Dick turned out the haversack which held the food they had left, but it
made a very poor apology for a meal.
'I could put that lot in a holler tooth, an' never know I'd had aught,'
said Chippy. 'This scoutin' life mek's yer uncommon peckish.'
'Rather,' cried the Wolf, who was as hungry as the animal after which
his patrol was named; and the two boys began to scout for their last
wild, free breakfast-table.