Chapter Seventeen

THE BIG, BIG HOLE

Next morning everyone was awake early. They had slept well, and were full of beans - and excited to think that an adventure lay ahead. To get into that old house, with its many secrets, would be marvellous!
Aily followed Julian about the room like a little dog. She wanted to have her breakfast on his knee, just as she had had her supper the night before, and he let her. He was ready to do anything she wanted - if only she would show them the way into Old Towers!
“We’d better set off pretty soon,” said Anne, looking out of the window. “It’s snowing pretty fast again - we don’t want to get lost!”
“No. That’s true. If Aily is going to take us across country, we shan’t have the faintest idea where we’re going, in this heavy snow!” said Julian, rather anxiously.
“I’ll just clear up a bit, then we’ll go, shall we?” said Anne. “Do we take any food with us, Ju?”
“We certainly do - all of us,” said Julian, at once. “Goodness knows what time we’ll get back to this hut. George, you make sandwiches with Anne, will you? And put in some bars of chocolate too, and some apples if there are any left.”
“And for pity’s sake, remember your torches,” said Dick.
Aily watched while the sandwiches were made, and scraped up the bits that fell on the table to give to Dave, her small dog. The lamb frisked about, quite at home, getting into everyone’s way. But nobody minded it - it was such a charming little long-leggitty creature!
At last all the sandwiches were made and put into two kit-bags. The hut was cleared up and tidied, and the children got into their out-door clothes.
“I think it would be easiest to toboggan down the slope, and half-way up Old Towers’ slope,” said Julian, looking out into the snow. “It would take us ages to walk - and it’s no good skiing, because Aily hasn’t any skis - and couldn’t use them if she had!”
“Oh yes - let’s take the toboggans!” said George, pleased. “What do we do with the lamb? Leave it here? And must we take Dave the dog, too?”
However, that was not for them to settle! Aily absolutely refused to go without her lamb and dog. She gathered them up into her arms, looking mutinous, when Julian suggested they should be left in the warm hut. Neither would she allow herself to be wrapped up warmly - and only consented to wear a scarf and a woollen hat because they happened to be exactly the same as Julian was wearing!
They set off at last. The snow was still falling, and Julian felt seriously doubtful whether they would be able to find their way down the hill and up the other slope without losing their sense of direction.
The toboggans were rather crowded! Julian and Dick were on the first one, with Aily and the lamb between them, and Anne and George were on the second one, with Timmy and Dave between them. George was at the front, and Anne had the awkward job of hanging on to both the dogs and keeping her balance too!
“I know we shall all roll off,” she said to George. “Good gracious - I half wish we had waited a bit! The snow is falling very fast now!”
“Good thing!” called Julian. “No one will spot us when we are near Old Towers - they won’t be able to see a thing through this snow!”
Julian’s toboggan shot off down the snowy slope. It gathered speed, and the boys gasped in delight at the pace. Aily clung to Julian’s back, half frightened, and the lamb stared with astonished eyes, not daring to move from its place, squashed in between Aily and Julian!
Whooooooosh! Down the slope to the bottom, and up the opposite slope, gradually slowing down! Julian’s toboggan came to a stop, and then, not far behind, came George’s, slowing down too. George got out and dragged her toboggan over to Julian.
“Well,” she said, her face glowing, “what do we do now? Wasn’t that a wonderful run?”
“Wonderful!” said Julian. “I only whish we could have a few more! Did you like that, Aily?”
“No,” said Aily, pulling her woollen cap to exactly the same angle that Julian wore his. “No. It make my nose cold, so cold.”
She cupped her hand over her nose to make it warm. George laughed.
“Fancy complaining about a cold nose when she’s hardly wearing anything on her skinny little body - you’d think the whole of her would feel cold - not just her nose!”
“Aily - do you know where the big hole is?” asked Julian, looking about in the snow. The snowflakes were quite big now, and nothing that was more than a few yards away could be seen. Aily stood there, her feet sinking into the snow. She looked all round, and Julian felt certain that she was going to say that she didn’t know which way to go, in this thick snow. Even he was rather doubtful which was the way back up the hill!
But Aily was like a dog. She had a sure sense of direction, and could go from one place to another on a dark night or in the snow without any difficulty at all!
She nodded.
“Aily know - Dave know, too.”
She walked a few steps, but her feet sank into the snow above her ankles, and her thin shoes were soon soaked through.
“She’ll get her feet frost-bitten,” said Dick. “Better put her on one of the toboggans and pull her, Ju. Pity we didn’t have any snow-boots small enough to lend her. I say - this is a bit of a crazy expedition, isn’t it! I hope to goodness Aily knows where she’s taking us. I haven’t the foggiest idea at the moment which is east or west, north or south!”
“Wait - I’ve got a compass in one of my pockets,” said Julian, and did a lot of digging in his clothes. At last he pulled out a small compass. He looked at it.
“That’s south,” he said, pointing, “so that’s where Old Towers Hill is - south is directly opposite our hut; we know that because the sun shone straight in at our front windows. I reckon we walk this way, then - due south.”
“Let’s see which way Aily points,” said Dick. He set her on his toboggan, and wrapped her scarf more closely round her. “Now - which way, Aily?”
Aily at once pointed due south. Everyone was most impressed.
“That’s right,” said Julian. “Come on, Dick - I’ll pull Aily’s toboggan, you can pull the girls’ for them.”
They all set off up the rest of the slope of Old Towers Hill, Aily on the toboggan with Dave and Fany the lamb, and Timmy sitting in state on George’s toboggan, the girls walking behind. Timmy was enjoying himself. He didn’t like the way his legs went down into the snow when he tried to run - it was much easier to sit on the toboggan and be pulled along!
“Lazy thing!” said George, and Timmy wagged his tail, not caring a bit what anyone said!
Julian looked at his compass as he went, and walked due south for some time. Then Aily gave a call, and pointed to the right.
“That way, that way,” she said.
“She wants us to go westwards now,” said Julian, stopping. “I wonder if she’s right. By my reckoning we’re going dead straight for Old Towers now - but we shall be going up the hill to the right of it, if we go her way.”
“That way, that way,” repeated Aily, imperiously, and Dave barked as if to say she was right!
“Better follow her way,” said Dick. “She seems so jolly certain of it.”
So Julian swerved to the right a little, and the others followed. They went a good way up the steep hill, and Julian began to pant.
“Is it far now?” he asked Aily, who was petting her lamb, and apparently taking no notice of the way they were going. Not that there was anything much to take notice of, except snow on the ground and snowflakes in the air!
Aily looked up. Then she pointed again, a little more to the right, and said something in Welsh, nodding her head.
“Well - it looks as if we’re getting near this place of hers - this ‘big, big hole’, whatever it is,” said Juiian, and on he went.
In about a minute Aily suddenly leapt off the toboggan, and stood there, looking round with a frown.
“Here,” she said. “Big hole here.”
“Well - it may be - but I’d like to see it a bit more clearly, Aily,” said Julian. Aily began to scrape down through the snow, and Timmy and Dave obliyingly went to help her, imagining that she was after rabbits or a hidden hare.
“I’m afraid the poor kid’s led us on a wild-goose chase,” said Dick. “Why should there be a big big hole here?”
Timmy and Aily had now got down through the snow to the buried clumps of heather that grew all over the slopes of the mountains in that district. Julian could see the clumps sticking up, stiff and wiry, in the clearing that Aily and the dogs had made.
“Timmy - you take Timmy!” said Aily suddenly to George. “He fall down, down - he fall like Dave one day - down down!”
“I say! I believe she’s looking for an old pot-hole! ” said Dick, suddenly. “You know - those strange holes that are sometimes found on moors - sudden holes that drop right down underground. They’re called dean-holes I think, in some places. We found one once on Kirrin Island - don’t you remember?”
“Oh yes - that was in the heather too!” said George, remembering. “And it led to a cave below, by the seashore! That’s what Aily meant by a big big hole! A pot-hole on the moors! Timmy - for goodness sake come away - you may drop right down it!”
Timmy very nearly did go down the hole! George just caught his collar in time! But Dave was wary - he had fallen down once before!
“Hole!” said Aily, pleased. “Big big hole! Aily find for you!”
“Well - certainly you’ve found your hole - but how does it get us into Old Towers?” said Dick. Aily didn’t understand. She knelt there, looking down at the hole she had uncovered under the heather and the snow.
“I must say that was a marvellous feat,” said Julian. “Coming straight to this place and finding the hole when she couldn’t see a thing through the falling snow. She really is as good as a dog. Good little Aily bach!”
Aily gave one of her sudden smiles, and slipped her hand in Julian’s.
“Go down, yes?” she said. “Aily show way?”
“Well - we’d better go down if it’s possible,” said Julian, not much liking the idea, for he could see nothing but darkness inside the hole, and had no idea of what lay below.
Fany the lamb was tired of waiting about. She gave a little leap to the edge of the big round hole, and then put her small head in. She kicked up her heels - and was gone!
“She’s jumped into the hole!” said George, amazed. “Here, wait, Aily - you can’t jump too - you’ll hurt yourself!”
But Aily slithered into the hole, then let herself go.
“Aily here,” came a small voice from below. “You come quick!”