"Snakes! The water is full of snakes!" Lucy moaned, holding on tightly to Eden, who was in turn holding on to one of the jetty's pylons.

"But Lucy, we're in a lake," Eden said reasonably, patting Lucy's head to calm her down.

"They're sea snakes, I mean lake snakes, I mean water snakes!" Lucy babbled.

Eden had a look, and said, "They're just eels, Lucy. You know what eels are. You said you saw them in the river at Camden."

"Eels aren't that big," Lucy whimpered, wrapping her legs firmly around Eden's waist. "These are longer than my arm."

"Is everything right there, Miss Eden?" Lowern stood on the jetty, looking at them with an inscrutable expression on his weatherbeaten brown face. "Miss Lucy seems fair in a state about something."

"It's the eels," Eden said, trying to remain dignified with Lucy's face burrowed into her shoulder and her fingers clutching her arm. "Lucy isn't used to them being this long. Eels are smaller where she's from, and she mistook them for water snakes."

Lowern considered this, then sat down on his haunches and stared thoughtfully at the water. "Aye Miss Lucy, our freshwater eels can reach a rare size. They won't hurt you, so ease your mind."

"I'm sorry," Lucy said, untwining herself slightly from Eden and looking embarrassed. "I shouldn't have made such a fuss."

"Nowt to be sorry for," Lowern said. "They've frighted bigger folk than you. Although the villagers do say there's a real monster in this lake." He gazed at them mildly.

"A monster?" Lucy said, her little brown eyes widening.

"Aye, a great beast from the depths of Avalon Water," Lowern said, with the equanimity of someone talking about a prize tomato crop he'd grown. "Hundreds of feet long, grey as a seal, with a head that rises out of the lake on a long neck like a serpent."

"Sailors' yarns," Eden said at once, sounding annoyed.

"A yarn is it, Miss Eden?" Lowern said. "When there's men in Avalon village who will swear they have seen it, early in the morning through the mists, or at twilight among the shadows."

"You can see anything in mist and shadow," Eden said stoutly, but Lucy didn't feel convinced by her manner. She had always known there was something about Avalon Water.

"Well Miss Eden, I saw with my own eyes something in the lake I can't explain," said Lowern in a low voice. "And it weren't in mist, nor shadow neither. The water rippling, much faster than a boat can travel, and a strange hump, too long for any fish."

"If it exists at all, it's probably just a gigantic eel," suggested Eden. "If the normal eels in the lake are so large, then it stands to reason there would be a few much larger than that."

"You may be right, Miss Eden," Lowern agreed, after a moment's rumination. "I heard tell as how eunuch eels, those that cannot breed, may reach a great size, and some do say they can live for a century or more. Who knows how large an eel could grow, left out in the lake for a hundred years?"

"I believe there might be anything in this lake," Lucy said seriously, hanging on to the ladder beside the jetty. "I've felt from the start there's something mysterious about it."

Lowern nodded approvingly. "Well Miss Lucy, when you've lived by these waters as long as I have, you'll come to see some strange sights. The lake is so wide and so deep, we cannot know all that it contains."

"Anyway, let's get out of the water, Lucy," Eden said, taking a few strokes over to the ladder. "The wind is rising for a sail, and we can make the island by teatime."

Lowern offered a muscular arm to help them both up the ladder. "I'll ready the boat for you, Miss Eden, although your nurse won't like you going out on the lake in wet clothing."

"Oh, it will soon dry, and the day's hot enough," Eden said. "Come on Lucy, help me get the picnic things."

It didn't seem any time at all before Boudicca was halfway to Avalon Island, and their shirts  mostly dried by the breeze.

"It's a relief to get away from grownups," said Eden moodily. "Even the best of them end up turning games into some sort of silly children's outing."

"I know, but they do come in useful, sometimes," Lucy said. "And I think they really believe they are doing the right thing."

"That's the worst part," Eden sighed.

"Yes, but you see, Eden," Lucy began, when she saw a swirl in the water beside the boat, and shouted, "Shark! Shark!"

A mottled olive green fish, more than a yard long, swam beside the boat. It lifted its enormous head out of the water, and opened its mouth, filled with cruel teeth.

"It's a pike," said Eden, looking at where Lucy was pointing. "Not as bad as a shark, but you don't want them nibbling your toes while you're swimming."

The two fierce pirates continued their long sea voyage, taking their treasure to an uncharted island, and very much looking forward to their grog.

Note

Cumbria does have stories of a monstrous lake creature, rarely sighted. There seems to be some consensus that if it's not just a hoax, it is most likely an infertile eel, which can grow to prodigious size over a lifespan which might be 80 years, but has been estimated as perhaps twice that.