“Now, Timmy!” said George, warningly, and Timmy turned a despairing eye on his mistress. Surely she wasn’t going to stop him looking to see if there were any rabbits? Only just looking! What harm was there in that?

Ah — there was a rabbit! And another and another! They sat all about, looking at the little company coming up from the shore. They flicked their ears and twitched their noses, keeping quite still.

“Oh, they’re as tame as ever!” said Anne in delight. “Aunty Fanny, aren’t they lovely? Do look at the baby one over there. He’s washing his face!”

They stopped to look at the rabbits. They really were astonishingly tame. But then very few people came to Kirrin Island, and the rabbits multiplied in peace, running about where they liked, quite unafraid.

“Oh, that one is…” began Dick, but then the picture was spoilt. Timmy, quite unable to do nothing but look, had suddenly lost his self-control and was bounding on the surprised rabbits. In a trice nothing could be seen but white bobtails flashing up and down as rabbit after rabbit rushed to its burrow.

“Timmy!” called George, crossly, and poor Timmy put his tail down, looking round at George miserably. “What!” he seemed to say. “Not even a scamper after the rabbits? What a hard-hearted mistress!”

“Where’s Uncle Quentin?” asked Anne, as they walked to the great broken archway that was the entrance to the old castle. Behind it were the stone steps that led towards the centre. They were broken and irregular now. Aunt Fanny went across them carefully, afraid of stumbling, but the children, who were wearing rubber shoes, ran over them quickly.

They passed through an old ruined doorway into what looked like a great yard. Once there had been a stone-paved floor, but now most of it was covered by sand, and by close-growing weeds or grass.

The castle had had two towers. One was almost a complete ruin. The other was in better shape. Jackdaws circled round it, and flew above the children’s heads, crying “chack, chack, chack”.

“I suppose your father lives in the little old room with the two slit-like windows,” said Dick to George. “That’s the only place in the castle that would give him any shelter. Everywhere else is in ruins except that one room. Do you remember we once spent a night there?”

“Yes,” said George. “It was fun. I suppose that’s where Father lives. There’s nowhere else — unless he’s down in the dungeons!”

“Oh, no one would live in the dungeons surely, unless they simply had to!” said Julian. “They’re so dark and cold. Where is your father, George? I can’t see him anywhere.”

“Mother, where would Father be?” asked George. “Where’s his workshop — in that old room there?” She pointed to the dark, stone-walled, stone-roofed room, which was really all that was left of the part in which people had long ago lived. It jutted out from what had once been the wall of the castle.