f our picnics. No good offering tea and cake in this
condition!"

"I'd rather have a cake of soap and a can of hot water!" said Irene.

"Never mind!" said Leonard consolingly. "I vote we go up Pendle Tor on
Monday. We can boil a kettle there, and have no end of fun. If you've
never been before, I expect you'll say it makes up for this."

CHAPTER VIII

Pendle Tor

It was with much pleasurable anticipation that the picnic party set out
on Whit Monday for Pendle Tor. The four younger Greenwoods were left at
home, as the walk would be too far for them, but they announced their
intention of climbing a small hill behind the Vicarage in the afternoon,
and having an alfresco tea on their own account, which was to be equal,
if not superior, to that enjoyed by their elders--"because Mary will
just have finished baking, and she has promised to bring us some buns
straight out of the oven, and you certainly won't get those on Pendle
Tor," said Joan.

Although they might be debarred from the pleasure of hot tea-cakes, the
mountaineers nevertheless did not mean to starve on their journey, to
judge from the baskets full of provisions which they bore with them.
Leonard had taken a milk-can that would serve to boil the water in
instead of a kettle, it being lighter to carry, and having the added
advantage that they could pack the teacups inside.

"You see, an iron kettle is such a weight", he explained, "and the last
time we took one of those rubbishy sixpence-halfpenny tin ones the
solder all melted directly we put it on to the fire, and the spout
dropped off. We can sling the milk-can on a stick and prop it over the
fire, and it does splendidly."

"Mind you don't break the cups!" said Irene, expecting to hear a smash
after the reckless way in which the can was being swung about.

"Couldn't do it if I tried; they're all enamel ones. The Mater wouldn't
trust us with her best china, I assure you."

"There are ever so many trout up in the stream by Inglemere," remarked
Ralph. "If we could manage to tickle a few, we might fry them in the lid
of the milk-can."

"It's rank poaching!" declared Meta.

"I don't care in the least," returned Ralph. "If Sir Percy complains
that any are missing, you can give him the bones, with my compliments."

"I don't think he would mind your catching one or two," said Monica. "I
know Sir Percy rather well, and it is only real poachers that he's so
hard on, and excursionists who come som