The Cuckoo Tree by Joan Aiken Page B

saying when you counted the sheep?"
    "I was a-counting of them, darter."
    "Yes, but what were those words—Yan, Tan, Tethera—"
    "That be ship-counting lingo. Lingo for counting ship," Mr. Firkin explained kindly.
    "Oh, cranberries! We're a-going round like a merry-go-round! Well, suppose I was to meet some chaps as called 'emselves Yan, Tan, and so forth; I'm not saying I
did,
but suppose I was to—"
    Mr. Firkin's old brown face took on a cautious expression.
    "Nay, I'd say let well alone, darter. Mebbe 'tis all talk but I've heard tell as how there be folk called Wineberry Men as 'tis best not to meddle with."
    "Smugglers, maybe?"
    "Hush! Nay, more like kind o' civil service gentry," Mr. Firkin said hastily. "Best not to talk about 'em, darter.
Wallses do have earses."
    Deciding that the Wineberry Men almost certainly were smugglers, Dido returned to Captain Hughes and found him wakeful and fidgety.
    "What about our Dispatch?" he demanded. "Do you have it safe, child?"
    "Yes, yes, Cap'n. All rug. Right here." Dido tapped her chest, which crackled reassuringly.
    "We must get it to London somehow," the Captain fretted. "What day is it today?"
    "Fust o' November, Cap. All Saints' Day."
    "And the coronation next week! It is desperately important that the Dispatch should reach the First Lord before then."
    "Doc says you mustn't be moved afore two weeks," Dido pointed out.
    "Then we must find a reliable messenger."
    Dido bit her thumb. "I knows that," she said gloomily. "But trying to find a reliable cove in these parts is about as likely as picking up a pink pearl in Piccadilly. Everyone's up to the neck in summat. There's a carrier called Jem; today's his day to call, seemingly; but Mr. Firkin says he's shravey. Best not give him the Dispatch. What I thought I might do, Cap, if you're agreeable, is send a note by Jem to a cove I knows in London asking him to step down and help us."
    "Is your friend reliable?" the Captain asked, pressing a hand to his aching head.
    "Sure as a gun, he is!"
    Since Captain Hughes, who was beginning to feel weak and feverish again, could think of no better plan, he agreed to this.
    Dido sat down to the unaccustomed task of writing a letter. Borrowing the Captain's traveling inkhorn and quill, using a bit of paper the cheese had been wrapped in, she wrote:
    "Dere Simon. I doo hop yore stil alive. I am all rug—wuz piked up by wailing ship an hadd Grate Times abord her. Brung home in Man o' War like Roilty. Wil tel more wen I see yoo. I do hop yore stil alive. Iff yoo can pleez cum hear wear I am stuk at preznt or send relleye relible cove. I badly need sum wun. I doo hop yore stil alive. Lots ov luv. Dido."
    She folded it and addressed it: "Simon as used to livv in Rose Alley, Care of Doc Furniss, The art Skool, Chellsey, London."
    She had scarcely finished this when voices were heard outside, there came a knock on the door, and Mr. Firkin ushered in a lank, greasy-haired individual in a moleskin cap and gaiters.
    "This yer's Jem Mugridge, as'll take your letter to Perroth, darter."
    One glance at him was enough to make Dido thankful she had not planned to entrust Captain Hughes's Dispatch to the shravey Jem; he looked about as reliable as a stoat.
    "That'll be five-and-a-tanner," he said, receiving the letter, his little pink-rimmed eyes meanwhile darting into every corner of the room.
    Dido was fairly sure that a letter to London should not cost so much, but Captain Hughes counted five shillings and sixpence out of a purse which he brought from under his pillow, Jem's eyes following every movement and every coin.
    "I thankee sir and missie. That'll be in Pet'orth by breakfast time."
    "So I should hope, if Petworth is but five miles distant," the Captain remarked testily.
    When Jem had departed on his flea-bitten mare, Dido asked the Captain if he would have any objection to her stepping up the road to Tegleaze Manor.
    "There's a cove there as asked to see me, and it seems only civil to go,