“I shall leave the car here,” said Mr. Luffy, bringing it to a standstill beside a great rock that stood up bare and grey out of the moor. “It will be sheltered from the worst winds and rain. I thought we’d camp over yonder.”

There was a little slope just there, backed by some enormous gorse bushes. Thick heather grew everywhere. Julian nodded. It was a good place for camping. Those thick gorse bushes would provide fine shelter from the winds.

“Right, sir,” he said. “Shall we have tea first, or unpack now?”

“Tea first,” said Mr. Luffy. “I’ve brought a very good little stove for boiling and cooking things. Better than a wood fire. That makes kettles and saucepans so black.”

“We’ve got a stove, too,” said Anne. She scrambled out of the car and looked all round. “It’s lovely here — all heather and wind and sun! Is that the farm over there — the one we shall go to for eggs and things?”

She pointed to a tiny farmhouse on the hill opposite. It stood in a small clearing. In a field behind it were three or four cows and a horse. A small orchard stood at the side, and a vegetable garden lay in front. It seemed odd to see such a trim little place in the midst of the moorland.

“That’s Olly’s Farm,” said Mr. Luffy. “It’s changed hands, I believe, since I was here three years ago. I hope the new people are nice. Now — did we leave something to eat for our tea?”

They had, because Anne had wisely put away a good many sandwiches and bits of cake for tea-time. They sat in the heather, with bees humming all round them, and munched solidly for fifteen minutes. Timmy waited patiently for his bits, watching the bees that hummed round him. There were thousands of them.

“And now I suppose we’d better put up our tents,” said Julian. “Come on, Dick — let’s unpack the trailer. Mr. Luffy, we don’t intend to camp on top of you, sir, because you won’t want four noisy children too near. Where would you like your tent put?”

Mr. Luffy was about to say that he would like to have the four children and Timmy quite close, when it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps they might not want him too near. They might want to make a noise, or play silly games, and if he were near it would stop them enjoying themselves in their own way.

So he made up his mind not to be too close. “I’ll pitch my tent down there, where that old gorse bush is,” he said. “And if you’d like to put yours up here, where there’s a half-circle of gorse bushes keeping off the wind, you’d be well sheltered. And we shan’t interfere with one another at all.”

“Right, sir,” said Julian, and he and Dick began to tackle the tents. It was fun. Timmy got under everyone’s feet as usual, and ran off with an important rope, but nobody minded.