The Tale of Holly How Read Online Free PDF

ashes. There was nothing for it but to start all over again, in the blank account book she had stolen from Mrs. Beever’s kitchen cupboard this morning. But this time, she vowed, she would not let her private writing fall into Miss Martine’s jealous hands—or anyone else’s, either. She would keep it where she knew it was safe. And even if it were found, no one but she would be able to read it, because she was going to write it in code . What kind of code, she hadn’t decided yet. But she would think of something.
    So whilst Lady Longford and Miss Martine were drinking tea and telling Dimity Woodcock about Dr. Harrison Gainwell, Caroline was racing along the path that skirted Cuckoo Brow Wood—without Dudley, who was too fat and slow and grumbled a great deal when he was coaxed into going outside the garden. A few minutes later, she was scrambling up the steep, rocky incline of Holly How, ( how was a Lakeland word for hill ), to the very top, where shepherds, long ago, had built a tiny stone hut as a shelter against the summer rains and winter snows. A little distance below the hut, in the side of the hill, there was an old, unused entry to a badger sett, mounded about with the dirt that the industrious badgers had dug out of their tunnels and sleeping chambers. The day before, Caroline had hidden an empty biscuit tin just inside the entry, where she intended to keep her journal. Now, she had a new journal; all she had to do was invent the code.
    And now, as the July breeze lifted the damp hair from her forehead, Caroline sat down on a sun-warmed stone beside the badger hole and made a list of every letter in the alphabet. Then, beside each letter, she wrote down the symbol or letter she would use to represent it. M would stand for a, & for b, # for c, and so on. It would take a while to learn this new alphabet, but she had a quick mind and an excellent memory. And just in case she forgot, she put the code key into her pocket. She would keep it with her always. Even if someone did discover the book, they couldn’t disclose its secrets.
    As she worked, Caroline often glanced across the narrow valley of Wilfin Beck, where the little stream glinted in the afternoon sunlight like a shining silver thread. She didn’t much like Tidmarsh Manor, which she could see if she leaned forward and looked down and to her left. It was a dark, ugly house, full of selfishness and ill intentions, and she was sometimes awakened in the night by the angry wind slamming the shutters and snarling in the chimney. But she loved the surrounding hills and sheep-dotted fields, whose quiet serenity reminded her of home. The mountains might not be half so high nor the landscape half so wild as in New Zealand, but it was beautiful all the same.
    From where she sat, she could also see the slate roof and whitewashed walls of Holly How Cottage, the small Manor farmhouse where Mr. Hornby lived. And she could see Stony Lane, which wound along the shoulder of Oatmeal Crag, on the other side of the beck. She would glimpse the returning phaeton-and-pair in plenty of time to run back to the Manor before her grandmother and Miss Martine reached the front door.
    In fact, Caroline saw, there was a vehicle coming along Stony Lane just now, making its way up from the village. But as it came into clearer view, she could see that it wasn’t her grandmother’s shiny black phaeton, but rather a green-painted cart pulled by a large black horse. Then, behind her, Caroline heard the sound of a foot dislodging a rock. She turned sharply.
    “It’s only me,” Jeremy Crosfield said. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”
    “Not too much,” Caroline said, and went back to her work.
    Jeremy was just her age, although his serious manner made him seem older. He was the one who had shown her the shepherd’s hut and the badger sett on Holly How and places where the best mushrooms grew, and the sweetest bramble berries. Jeremy, whom she had met one afternoon when she went on a