"I can't find my post-card album anywhere," complained Nita, hunting disconsolately round the room, "and I did so want to put in those extra cards I got last week. I'm sure I left it on the bookcase."
"I saw it in the cloakroom on the boot-rack," volunteered Joyce.
"However could it get there?"
"I don't know, but I saw it."
"Miau! I daren't go and fetch it. I simply daren't. The cloakroom will be quite dark. Won't somebody go with me? Alison, be a mascot!"
"No, thanks! You won't stir this child."
"I'll go," proclaimed Joyce, jumping up briskly. "I don't mind at all. Come along Nita!"
"Oh, you saintly girl!"
The two went out of the room, Nita clutching tightly to Joyce's arm and volunteering gasping little remarks.
IT CERTAINLY WAS A MOST ALARMING SPECTACLEIT CERTAINLY WAS A MOST ALARMING SPECTACLEPage 137
IT CERTAINLY WAS A MOST ALARMING SPECTACLE
Page 137
"The others are piggy to-night!—Mother alwayssays I'm so nervous!—I'm really afraid of the dark, even when there are no ghosts!"
The rest of the boarders went on with their various occupations, but in a few moments they were interrupted by the sudden opening of the door, and Nita burst in with a white face.
"Girls! Oh, I say! I've seen the ghost! It's in the cloakroom! Oh, it's too awful! I'm ready to faint. Don't go, Nesta, don't!"
"Of course I'm going," said Nesta. "We've had enough of this nonsense, and it's time it was put a stop to. Come along, everybody. We'll take a look at this ghost."
She valiantly led the way, and the juniors followed more timorously, Elsbeth and Doreen, in the rear, giving squeals of terror, across the hall and past the dusky corner where the croquet-box was kept, then down the steps to the cloakroom door. They peeped in fearfully. At the sight they saw most of them backed with shrieks. The room was in complete darkness, but at the far side stood a figure which seemed to be shrouded in white, its face and uplifted hands shining with a brilliant light that gave it a most unearthly and uncanny appearance.It certainly was a most alarming spectacle, and enough to strike horror into any breast. Alison and Nita were almost in hysterics, and the rest would have run away if Nesta had not stopped them.
"Don't be a set of sillies," she commanded. "I'll soon show you who it is."
She dived into the cloakroom, and, after a sharp scuffle, came back hauling a kicking, struggling, protesting spectre that could evidently use both arms and legs in a particularly human fashion.
"Winnie!" exclaimed the girls, as, in the light of the hall, Nesta pulled off the sheet and disclosed the well-known blue-serge dress and short lank hair of the champion ragger of the school.
Everybody burst out laughing, even Nita and Elsbeth.
"You absolute blighter!"
"How priceless!"
"Win, you're the limit!"
"How did you manage to make your face and hands shine? They looked too awful."
"I wet them and rubbed them with matches. Look! If I hold up my hand in the dark it's all steaming and glowing with phosphorus yet."
"What a beastly trick."
"You did give us spasms."
"Come along and tell us about it."
"Where's Joyce?"
Joyce had been close by, enjoying the fun, and now joined with her chum in relating the story of their rag.
"Of course we were the ghosts all the time," began Winnie. "Last night Joyce and I went to the side door. It was lovely moonlight, and we dared each other to run down the back drive. We'd got as far as the gate when we heard somebody behind us. It was Bella, so we dodged out into the road and a few yards up Poplar Lane. We thought Bella was goingthe other way. She stood still a minute and waited, then she turned and came straight towards us. I thought if she saw us she'd report us to Miss Fanny, so I whispered to Joyce, 'Get behind me and I'll act ghost!' and then I held my dress high above my head with both hands, and began to bow myself up and down and moan."
"Bella yelled," explained Joyce, taking up the tale. "She ran back up the drive as fast as she could, and rushed round to the kitchen door. We were going to tell you about it, but when we got in you were full of Bella's story of having seen the ghost in Poplar Lane. So we thought we might as well have some fun out of the thing, and play a rag on you."
"It was ever so difficult, though," continued Winnie. "We couldn't do it anywhere else except in the cloakroom, and we didn't know how to get you there. It was Joyce's idea to take Nita's post-card album away. Oh, how she and Alison screamed! I haven't got over it yet."
Winnie was still hinnying and dabbing her eyes with a rather phosphorousy pocket handkerchief.
"Look here, now," said Nesta, "we've had enough of this. You mustn't try any tricks on the maids."
"Oh, just on Bella! It would be such a stunt to stand in the housemaid's cupboard and let her find me when she goes upstairs."
"No!" decreed Nesta. "It's dangerous to frighten people. Bella may have a weak heart, and in any case she'd be certain to drop her jug of drinking-water.I'm a senior and you juniors have got to do what I say. No, Winnie! It's no use pulling faces and nudging Joyce. I mean it. I'm no tell-tale, but if I find either of you trying on this rag again I shall just march straight off and fetch Miss Fanny. So you know what to expect. There!"
Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny liked to have an individual knowledge of each of their pupils, and as they did not yet know the Ramsays very well they asked them to tea one day. So after school Mavis and Merle stayed behind and washed their hands, and went with the boarders into the dining-room, and ate scones and honey and home-baked cake, and felt rather shy and hardly spoke at all, although they were both sitting close to Miss Pollard, who made most noble efforts at conversation. When tea was over, those girls who were due to practise departed to the several pianos, and began a kind of musical combat of scales and studies. The others collected round the fire in the recreation-room. Preparation had been put off on account of the visitors, and Miss Pollard had announced that she and Miss Fanny were coming in for half an hour's chat or fun.
"You must decide what you'd like to do," she said. "Ask Mavis and Merle what are their favourite games. Do they know 'adverbs'? It must be something you can all play."
Standing in front of the fire everybody proposed something different, and nobody wanted anybody else'ssuggestion. Matters seemed likely to go rather lamely till Mamie had a really sensible idea.
"Let's ask Miss Pollard to tell us a Devonshire story instead of playing games."
"Does she know any Devonshire stories?" said Merle quickly.
"Heaps and heaps. She says she learnt them from the old people about Durracombe, when she was a little girl, and her father was vicar. She's written most of them down. She has them in a manuscript book. We want her to get it published some day, because they're so topping. They're all about Devonshire pixies and witches and charms and things."
"I'd love to hear one."
"So would I," added Mavis, "I'd like it far better than playing a game, if you others don't mind."
"Oh, it's you visitors who are to choose."
So when Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny entered, and inquired what was to be the particular form of entertainment, Mamie voted for Devonshire stories, and all hands were held up in favour of her proposal.
"My little folk-tales!" exclaimed Miss Pollard, looking very pleased. "They're collected from the neighbourhood. The old people used to tell them years ago, but nowadays I don't think anybody in Durracombe cares about pixies. Most of them would have been forgotten if I hadn't written them down. I'll fetch the book. I'd rather read you one than try to remember it. I never can recollect the best points when I tell stories."
Miss Pollard returned presently with a small manuscript volume, the result of rather careful work on her part, for she was interested in the old legends of the district. She settled herself in a wicker arm-chair, with Doreen on her lap, and Elsbeth squatting on the floor leaning against her knee, while Miss Fanny, on the opposite side of the hearth, gave similar petting to Jessie and Prue. It was a "home-y" little circle, not in the least like school. Mavis could not help thinking how sweet Miss Pollard looked, with the firelight shining on her silver hair, and an unwonted pink colour in her cheeks. Miss Fanny, too, was picturesque in the gloaming, and Prue's red-gold head made a bright spot of colour against her dull-green dress.
"They're dears, both of them," thought Mavis. "Absolute dears! Anybody more unlike school-mistresses I never met in my life. They ought to have been married. They must have been so pretty when they were young. I suppose they never met anybody in this out-of-the-way place. The school may be old-fashioned, and behind the age, and all the rest of it, but they give the boarders a good time at any rate. They're just mothers to those Indian children. I'm glad to have had a peep at them behind the scenes and seen this side of them. I believe I'm rather in love with them both."
But Miss Pollard had opened her manuscript book and, in her pleasant cultured voice, was beginning to read.
STOLEN BY THE PIXIESNancy Gurney sat by the side of the driftwood fire, and her tears fell fast as she rocked the cradle of her sleeping child. The afternoon sun shone brightly through the narrow casement window, and lit up the earthen floor and the brown rafters with a warm yellow glow. From outside came the fresh smell of the sea, and the soft grinding of the pebbles, while the waves lapped gently over the beach, as if they had never lashed themselves into foaming breakers against the cliffs.The red poppies which grew on the low-thatched roof raised up their heads, battered by yesterday's storms, the great flat fish, hung up to dry in the sun by the doorway, flapped in the light breeze, and from the shore came the shrill eager voices of children, who gathered the driftwood cast up by the gale. But the fishing-boats! The brown-sailed fishing-boats that ought to have beaten back so safely into the harbour with the turn of the tide, alas! there was never a sign nor a sail of them to be seen, and there was many an aching heart in Bulvertor that day."Maybe they've got safe off towards the Cornish coast," said Kitty Trefyre, who sat knitting in the inglenook."Nay," said Nancy sadly, "they'd have been round the head by now. It's only the stoutest of boats that could have weathered such a gale as blew last night, andThe Dolphinwas hardly seaworthy at best. No! They're gone! They're gone! We shall never see the brown sails again! The sea has taken my Peter as it has claimed all my dearest and best, and my poor boy is a fatherless babe."She dropped her head on her hands, and sobbed till the tears fell into the cradle over the sleeping child."Don't take it so hard!" said Kitty. "We won't givethem up yet! And whisht, girl, whisht! Whatever you do don't weep over the boy! Have you never heard that if tears fall on a sleeping child the pixies have power to steal it away?"Nancy dashed the tears from her eyes, and walked to the doorway to take one long wistful look over the bay. The old woman laid aside her knitting and followed her."It's ill luck!" she muttered. "Ill luck to shed tears on sleeping babes, and I doubt me but evil will come of it. I'll gather some fern seed and drop it in the cradle. It's a well-known charm for keeping off pixies or witches, and 'tis better to be wise in time—wise in time!"She hobbled out across the garden to where the ferns grew under the hedge, while Nancy turned sadly again to the fireside. She stooped over the cradle to kiss her sleeping child, but started back with a piercing, bitter cry.The cradle was empty!The sound of her grief soon brought old Kitty hurrying to the cottage."My boy! My beautiful boy!" sobbed the despairing mother. "The pixies have stolen him away. Oh, that I had wept myself blind ere I let the tears fall over his cradle!"She sat rocking herself to and fro in her sorrow, while the old woman threw the fern seed, picked, alas! too late, into the driftwood fire."There's one hope left," said Kitty, when the first wild burst of grief had worn itself away. "I am cunning and wise in the ways of the pixies, and I know that they dance each night in the moonlight on the ledge of rock where the sea-pinks bloom on the face of St. Morna's Cliff. If you hide yourself there, with a wreath of vervain round your hair, and could catch them unawares, my heart tells me you might force them to restore what they have stolen.But, alas! the plan is well-nigh impossible, for how could you tread safely over the crags where the boldest of our cliff climbers scarce dare to venture?""Yet I will do it!" cried Nancy, as she rose up with a new light in her eyes. "Quick! weave me the wreath of vervain, and show me by what spell I may force the fairies to give me back my child.""Nay, that I cannot tell you," said old Kitty. "Your own mother-wit must find out the way. Start when the twilight has fallen, and when seven stars are shining over the sea; tell none your errand, and cast three sprigs from your vervain wreath if a hare should cross your path. Turn your wedding ring round on your finger before you venture to climb down the cliff, and call on St. Morna to help you. Watch silently all that may happen till you see your opportunity arise—and may good luck and my blessing go with you!"The dusk had fallen over the village, and the stars were beginning to shine in the darkening sky, when Nancy, with the wreath of vervain twined through her dark hair, crept softly past the last of the cottages, and took the little briary path which led through the low sandhills, and over the wind-swept hill-side up to St. Morna's Cliff.Not a sound broke the silence, for the sea-gulls had vanished with the sunshine, and not even a fieldmouse stirred in the bracken. With hasty step she hurried along, for she must reach her post before moonrise. The path grew steeper, the bracken gave way to heather, and at length she found herself on the smooth grassy surface of St. Morna's Cliff. Down far below her she could see the wide rocky ledge where the sea-pinks were catching the last glow from the western sky. How steep the crag looked! The few tufts of grass and jutting-out pieces ofrock offered her scarcely a foothold; should she make one false step she must be dashed to atoms upon the precipice beneath. She looked down and shivered; but the thought of her child sent a thrill of courage to her heart. Kneeling down on the short grass she prayed to St. Morna for help; then, turning her wedding ring round upon her finger, she swung herself over the edge of the cliff.Clutching at a root here, feeling with her feet for the slightest foothold, grasping the worn splinters of the crag, she let herself down the face of the rock, till with panting breath and bleeding fingers she fell among the sea-pinks on the ledge below. She lay there for a while, half-insensible, till the first rays of the rising moon began to shimmer over the sea. Then she rose hastily, and, hiding herself behind a huge boulder, waited for what should happen.When the first faint moonbeams fell all silvery white upon the ledge, the sea-pinks lifted their pretty heads; they grew and grew till each had changed into a gorgeous tropical flower, then, leaving their places, they ranged themselves into a wide circle, and cast forth such a fragrance as might have stolen out of the open gates of Paradise. Upon each hung a tiny silver bell, and as they nodded their heads the bells chimed out the sweetest fairy tunes. Little stars began to glitter among the leaves, some pink, some blue, some golden, and the short green grass inside the circle smoothed itself out into the most beautiful dancing-floor.Then there was a great rushing sound in the sky, and from far and near there flew flocks of snow-white sea-gulls. As they reached the ledge their wings fell from them, and they turned into lovely little pixies, as light and transparent as gossamer. Joining hands, they stepped insidethe circle of flowers and danced a graceful, intricate measure, while the fairy bells rang out their sweetest tunes. On and on they danced, hour after hour; the moon rose slowly in the sky, but the pixies' feet seemed never to tire as they beat time to the enchanting music.Hiding behind the boulder of rock Nancy had been quite unnoticed, but her eager eyes watched all that had been taking place. Stretching out her hand very gently she managed to steal a pair of the sea-birds' wings, and hide them away in her bosom.The little bells still rang out their chimes, and the pixies tripped lightly over the grass, till at length the moon began to wane, and the first glimmer of approaching dawn showed in the eastern sky.Then the tiny dancers stopped short in their merry pastime, and, taking their white wings again, they flew away over the sea like a cloud of foam flakes. The coloured stars and the silver bells had disappeared, the tropical flowers broke up their circle and changed once more into simple little sea-pinks, and the grass, where the pixies had danced, grew up fresher and greener than ever.But one little pixie was left behind. She wandered round wringing her hands and seeking vainly for the sea-bird's wings that should have borne her away with the others. Tripping behind the great boulder of rock she came face to face with Nancy, who still crouched in its shadow."Mortal! cruel mortal!" cried the pixie, "you have stolen my wings! Give them back, I pray you, before the dawn breaks, for the first rays of sunshine will wither me up, and I shall turn into a little faded brown leaf.""Pixie! cruel pixie!" cried Nancy, "you have stolenmy child! Bring him back to my arms, and then and not till then will I restore you your wings.""How can I find you your child?" screamed the pixie. "Oh! give me my wings—my pretty white wings; let me fly safely away over the sea ere I turn for ever into a little withered brown leaf!" and she stamped her tiny foot in her helpless passion."You can and shall find me my child," said Nancy, "for I know that the pixies have stolen him away, and that only a pixie can bring him back to me. Look! the sky is reddening already, your time is short. Do my bidding speedily, and the wings are yours.""The dawn! the dawn!" shrieked the pixie. "Mortal, I will grant you what you ask! Each of the sea-pinks which bloom on this green turf holds the soul of a child which we have stolen away from its cradle. For a moment each pretty flower shall wear its human face, then choose out your own child swiftly and let me be gone."She clapped her hands, and each of the little sea-pinks turned to a smiling baby face. All the merry eyes and tiny curls were there that mothers had mourned for all over the country-side, and at her feet Nancy saw the sweet, laughing face of her stolen child. With a cry of joy she clasped him in her arms."The dawn! the dawn!" cried the pixie. "Mortal, give me my wings!"Nancy drew them from her bosom, and gave them into the eager, entreating fingers. With a great rush of light the sun rose, his golden beams fell on the wide ledge of rock, lighting up a bed of simple little sea-pinks, while over the broad blue sea there flew a solitary sea-gull.Folding her shawl about her child, Nancy slung him on to her back, and with slow steps and painful fingers sheclimbed up the face of the cliff. The larks were rising out of the heather, the little blue butterflies were flitting over the yellow gorse, the dew-drops hung like jewels in the gossamer, and far away on the distant water she could see the brown sails of the missing fishing-boats as they beat safely over the bar into Bulvertor Harbour.
STOLEN BY THE PIXIES
Nancy Gurney sat by the side of the driftwood fire, and her tears fell fast as she rocked the cradle of her sleeping child. The afternoon sun shone brightly through the narrow casement window, and lit up the earthen floor and the brown rafters with a warm yellow glow. From outside came the fresh smell of the sea, and the soft grinding of the pebbles, while the waves lapped gently over the beach, as if they had never lashed themselves into foaming breakers against the cliffs.
The red poppies which grew on the low-thatched roof raised up their heads, battered by yesterday's storms, the great flat fish, hung up to dry in the sun by the doorway, flapped in the light breeze, and from the shore came the shrill eager voices of children, who gathered the driftwood cast up by the gale. But the fishing-boats! The brown-sailed fishing-boats that ought to have beaten back so safely into the harbour with the turn of the tide, alas! there was never a sign nor a sail of them to be seen, and there was many an aching heart in Bulvertor that day.
"Maybe they've got safe off towards the Cornish coast," said Kitty Trefyre, who sat knitting in the inglenook.
"Nay," said Nancy sadly, "they'd have been round the head by now. It's only the stoutest of boats that could have weathered such a gale as blew last night, andThe Dolphinwas hardly seaworthy at best. No! They're gone! They're gone! We shall never see the brown sails again! The sea has taken my Peter as it has claimed all my dearest and best, and my poor boy is a fatherless babe."
She dropped her head on her hands, and sobbed till the tears fell into the cradle over the sleeping child.
"Don't take it so hard!" said Kitty. "We won't givethem up yet! And whisht, girl, whisht! Whatever you do don't weep over the boy! Have you never heard that if tears fall on a sleeping child the pixies have power to steal it away?"
Nancy dashed the tears from her eyes, and walked to the doorway to take one long wistful look over the bay. The old woman laid aside her knitting and followed her.
"It's ill luck!" she muttered. "Ill luck to shed tears on sleeping babes, and I doubt me but evil will come of it. I'll gather some fern seed and drop it in the cradle. It's a well-known charm for keeping off pixies or witches, and 'tis better to be wise in time—wise in time!"
She hobbled out across the garden to where the ferns grew under the hedge, while Nancy turned sadly again to the fireside. She stooped over the cradle to kiss her sleeping child, but started back with a piercing, bitter cry.The cradle was empty!
The sound of her grief soon brought old Kitty hurrying to the cottage.
"My boy! My beautiful boy!" sobbed the despairing mother. "The pixies have stolen him away. Oh, that I had wept myself blind ere I let the tears fall over his cradle!"
She sat rocking herself to and fro in her sorrow, while the old woman threw the fern seed, picked, alas! too late, into the driftwood fire.
"There's one hope left," said Kitty, when the first wild burst of grief had worn itself away. "I am cunning and wise in the ways of the pixies, and I know that they dance each night in the moonlight on the ledge of rock where the sea-pinks bloom on the face of St. Morna's Cliff. If you hide yourself there, with a wreath of vervain round your hair, and could catch them unawares, my heart tells me you might force them to restore what they have stolen.But, alas! the plan is well-nigh impossible, for how could you tread safely over the crags where the boldest of our cliff climbers scarce dare to venture?"
"Yet I will do it!" cried Nancy, as she rose up with a new light in her eyes. "Quick! weave me the wreath of vervain, and show me by what spell I may force the fairies to give me back my child."
"Nay, that I cannot tell you," said old Kitty. "Your own mother-wit must find out the way. Start when the twilight has fallen, and when seven stars are shining over the sea; tell none your errand, and cast three sprigs from your vervain wreath if a hare should cross your path. Turn your wedding ring round on your finger before you venture to climb down the cliff, and call on St. Morna to help you. Watch silently all that may happen till you see your opportunity arise—and may good luck and my blessing go with you!"
The dusk had fallen over the village, and the stars were beginning to shine in the darkening sky, when Nancy, with the wreath of vervain twined through her dark hair, crept softly past the last of the cottages, and took the little briary path which led through the low sandhills, and over the wind-swept hill-side up to St. Morna's Cliff.
Not a sound broke the silence, for the sea-gulls had vanished with the sunshine, and not even a fieldmouse stirred in the bracken. With hasty step she hurried along, for she must reach her post before moonrise. The path grew steeper, the bracken gave way to heather, and at length she found herself on the smooth grassy surface of St. Morna's Cliff. Down far below her she could see the wide rocky ledge where the sea-pinks were catching the last glow from the western sky. How steep the crag looked! The few tufts of grass and jutting-out pieces ofrock offered her scarcely a foothold; should she make one false step she must be dashed to atoms upon the precipice beneath. She looked down and shivered; but the thought of her child sent a thrill of courage to her heart. Kneeling down on the short grass she prayed to St. Morna for help; then, turning her wedding ring round upon her finger, she swung herself over the edge of the cliff.
Clutching at a root here, feeling with her feet for the slightest foothold, grasping the worn splinters of the crag, she let herself down the face of the rock, till with panting breath and bleeding fingers she fell among the sea-pinks on the ledge below. She lay there for a while, half-insensible, till the first rays of the rising moon began to shimmer over the sea. Then she rose hastily, and, hiding herself behind a huge boulder, waited for what should happen.
When the first faint moonbeams fell all silvery white upon the ledge, the sea-pinks lifted their pretty heads; they grew and grew till each had changed into a gorgeous tropical flower, then, leaving their places, they ranged themselves into a wide circle, and cast forth such a fragrance as might have stolen out of the open gates of Paradise. Upon each hung a tiny silver bell, and as they nodded their heads the bells chimed out the sweetest fairy tunes. Little stars began to glitter among the leaves, some pink, some blue, some golden, and the short green grass inside the circle smoothed itself out into the most beautiful dancing-floor.
Then there was a great rushing sound in the sky, and from far and near there flew flocks of snow-white sea-gulls. As they reached the ledge their wings fell from them, and they turned into lovely little pixies, as light and transparent as gossamer. Joining hands, they stepped insidethe circle of flowers and danced a graceful, intricate measure, while the fairy bells rang out their sweetest tunes. On and on they danced, hour after hour; the moon rose slowly in the sky, but the pixies' feet seemed never to tire as they beat time to the enchanting music.
Hiding behind the boulder of rock Nancy had been quite unnoticed, but her eager eyes watched all that had been taking place. Stretching out her hand very gently she managed to steal a pair of the sea-birds' wings, and hide them away in her bosom.
The little bells still rang out their chimes, and the pixies tripped lightly over the grass, till at length the moon began to wane, and the first glimmer of approaching dawn showed in the eastern sky.
Then the tiny dancers stopped short in their merry pastime, and, taking their white wings again, they flew away over the sea like a cloud of foam flakes. The coloured stars and the silver bells had disappeared, the tropical flowers broke up their circle and changed once more into simple little sea-pinks, and the grass, where the pixies had danced, grew up fresher and greener than ever.
But one little pixie was left behind. She wandered round wringing her hands and seeking vainly for the sea-bird's wings that should have borne her away with the others. Tripping behind the great boulder of rock she came face to face with Nancy, who still crouched in its shadow.
"Mortal! cruel mortal!" cried the pixie, "you have stolen my wings! Give them back, I pray you, before the dawn breaks, for the first rays of sunshine will wither me up, and I shall turn into a little faded brown leaf."
"Pixie! cruel pixie!" cried Nancy, "you have stolenmy child! Bring him back to my arms, and then and not till then will I restore you your wings."
"How can I find you your child?" screamed the pixie. "Oh! give me my wings—my pretty white wings; let me fly safely away over the sea ere I turn for ever into a little withered brown leaf!" and she stamped her tiny foot in her helpless passion.
"You can and shall find me my child," said Nancy, "for I know that the pixies have stolen him away, and that only a pixie can bring him back to me. Look! the sky is reddening already, your time is short. Do my bidding speedily, and the wings are yours."
"The dawn! the dawn!" shrieked the pixie. "Mortal, I will grant you what you ask! Each of the sea-pinks which bloom on this green turf holds the soul of a child which we have stolen away from its cradle. For a moment each pretty flower shall wear its human face, then choose out your own child swiftly and let me be gone."
She clapped her hands, and each of the little sea-pinks turned to a smiling baby face. All the merry eyes and tiny curls were there that mothers had mourned for all over the country-side, and at her feet Nancy saw the sweet, laughing face of her stolen child. With a cry of joy she clasped him in her arms.
"The dawn! the dawn!" cried the pixie. "Mortal, give me my wings!"
Nancy drew them from her bosom, and gave them into the eager, entreating fingers. With a great rush of light the sun rose, his golden beams fell on the wide ledge of rock, lighting up a bed of simple little sea-pinks, while over the broad blue sea there flew a solitary sea-gull.
Folding her shawl about her child, Nancy slung him on to her back, and with slow steps and painful fingers sheclimbed up the face of the cliff. The larks were rising out of the heather, the little blue butterflies were flitting over the yellow gorse, the dew-drops hung like jewels in the gossamer, and far away on the distant water she could see the brown sails of the missing fishing-boats as they beat safely over the bar into Bulvertor Harbour.
"The story was told me in Devonshire dialect when I was a little girl," said Miss Pollard, as she closed her book, "but I wrote it in ordinary English because the other is so hard to understand. It's funny that in the accounts of fairies they always seem to speak the local languages. Irish fairies talk Erse, and Welsh fairies sing in Welsh. Have you pixies in the north, Mavis?"
"They're called 'boggarts' in our part of the world," laughed Mavis, "and I suppose they talk dialect. There's a north-country story about a boggart—a creature something like a brownie—that lived at a farm, and was such a bother that the people thought they'd remove to get rid of him. They put all their furniture on a cart, and started out. They met a neighbour, who said to them: 'So thee's flittin'!' and the boggart popped its ugly little head out of the churn and said: 'Aye, we's flittin'!'.
"The people were so disgusted to find that it intended to go with them to new quarters that they turned back to their old farm and decided to put up with the nuisance."
"Ayah used to tell us Indian fairy tales," said Mamie,"but they were about princes and devas and lovely ladies."
"There are fairy tales all over the world," said Miss Pollard, "and if we go on telling them we shall never stop. It's time for preparation now. You little people must run away, and the others must fetch their books. Mavis and Merle must come some time to have tea with us again."
Next morning Merle got out of bed on the wrong side. She did it deliberately and with intention. It was a rather awkward business to achieve, too, for the beds were placed close together with only a few inches between them, and to make her left-handed exit she was obliged to scramble over the recumbent form of Mavis, who protested sleepily.
"Don't care! Bags me first innings at the hot water," blustered Merle, bouncing down with a plump on to the rush mat in front of the wash-hand stand.
"Don't care came to a bad end," quoted a dormouse voice among the blankets.
"Right-o! I'm in for it."
After such a shameless tempting of fate it was not to be wondered at that matters immediately turned in the direction of bad luck.
Merle poured out a liberal half of the hot water which Jessop had brought, then seized up the toilet jug to add some cold. But either her hand was wet or she was careless, or some unseen imp actually intervened; anyhow, the handle slipped from her grasp,down fell the jug, breaking its spout, and the contents spread themselves over the floor.
Anybody who has ever upset a bedroom jug must have been astonished at the enormous volume of water it contains. It seemed to Merle as if the bath had suddenly emptied itself. Streams and trickles were running everywhere, and the rush mat was a swamp. She stood staring at it in utter consternation.
"Mop it up, you Judkins!" shrieked Mavis, now thoroughly awakened. "Why can't you mop it up? Goody, what a mess!"
Mavis put one foot out of bed into the wet pool, and drew it back like a cat. She reached for her bedroom slippers, pulled them on, then set to work with a sponge to try and remedy the damage. For what seemed about five minutes the girls were mopping and dabbing, getting the bottoms of their nightdresses soaked in the process, and having to scramble under the beds to follow some of the streams. Jessop, hearing the commotion, came in and scolded.
"The new toilet jug! Whatever were you doing? What will your aunt say, I wonder? Girls are as careless as boys it seems to me! I used to make Master Cyril wash in the bathroom. We shall have to buy you enamel-ware if you break the china. Rivet it, did you say? No one could rivet these bits! Besides which, the old man who used to come round riveting things has never turned up since the war. The jug's done for and that's the long and short of it. There, get on with your dressing, or you'll be late forbreakfast. I'll bring you some more water in a can. I suppose girls will be girls, and the thing's done now, and past praying for, so there's an end of it."
It might be the end of the water jug, but unfortunately it was not the end of Merle's ill-luck. She must have been in a particularly awkward and maladroit mood, for at breakfast-time she actually managed to upset her cup of tea.
"Hello! What are we doing here?" asked Uncle David, peering round his newspaper at the puddle on the clean tablecloth.
"I don't know. I think the pixies nudged me. I'm fearfully sorry," apologized Merle, thanking her stars privately that Jessop was not in the dining-room, and hoping to escape to school before that already offended domestic deity came to clear away and discovered the tell-tale evidence.
"Ah yes! Put it all on to the pixies; they've broad shoulders," twinkled Uncle David, as he helped himself to more bacon.
"It's like the Mad Hatter's tea-party," grunted Mavis, moving farther down the table to avoid the wet patch, which had spread in her direction.
Certainly Merle seemed pixie-led, for everything went wrong. When she put on her boots she broke her boot-lace, and had to piece it with a big knot which ran into her instep and hurt her. She struggled into her coat, slammed on her hat, and tore out after Mavis, who had already started; but when she was half-way along the High Street she discovered thatshe had forgotten one of her books and had to run back for it. It was in the summer-house, at the bottom of the garden, where she had left it the day before, and as she scurried up the steps she stumbled and fell, and grazed her knee. She picked herself up, looked ruefully at the injured limb, seized her book, and rushed away, limping slightly on one leg, and grousing hard. She was late for school, though, in spite of her best efforts, and only slipped into the big classroom just when Miss Pollard was closing the register.
"Where have you been, Merle?" inquired Miss Pollard in the most scholastic manner she knew how to adopt.
"I forgot my history and went back for it—I'm very sorry," gasped Merle, much out of breath with running.
Opal smiled, and counted over the books which she held on her lap with the air of one who is thinking to herself: "Other people don't forget their things!" Merle, by this time thoroughly cross, frowned at her darkly. There was something so aggravatingly smug about Opal; all her peccadilloes were well hidden, and never came under public and official notice. She took advantage of her position, too; for, as the girls filed out of the room, she stroked Miss Pollard's arm caressingly as she passed, a token of affection which Merle, who admired the head mistress after yesterday's tea-party, would have loved to bestow but did not dare.
The pixies would not let Merle alone that morning.They jerked her pen, so that she made blots on her exercise, they whisked dates out of her memory, and put wrong figures into her sums. When it came to literature lesson they must have deliberately absconded with her copy ofJulius Cæsar. She hunted for it in vain.
"IknowI left it in my desk yesterday," she assured Miss Fanny, who was waiting to take the class and chafing at the delay.
"You ought to have your books ready. Be quick and look again. It's probably underneath something else," urged the mistress impatiently.
Merle seized a top layer of textbooks and essay paper and dumped them down on the floor, the more readily to burrow deeper into the rather mixed and miscellaneous collection in her desk.
"Merle Ramsay! Really, you forget yourself," chided Miss Fanny. "Pick those things up and put them back. A more disgracefully untidy performance I never saw. I won't have that litter on the floor. Is yourJulius Cæsarthere, or is it not?"
Apparently it was not, for Merle turned over her heap of confusion in vain; and in her agitation let the lid of the desk fall with an awful slam that echoed through the room. She sat up scarlet in the face.
"That will do!" said Miss Fanny icily. "You must look on with Mavis if you can't find your own."
"Please, Miss Fanny, I saw aJulius Cæsarin the pound this morning," volunteered Opal demurely. "I don't know whose it is."
The mistress turned to the lost-property basket, stooped down, drew out the missing book, and handed it reproachfully to Merle.
"If you kept your desk in better order you wouldn't lose your things. See how you've delayed the whole form! You must bring a penny for the missionary box this afternoon."
Merle sat through the lesson with a face like thunder. She was absolutely certain that she had left the book inside her desk, and she strongly suspected Opal of having deliberately taken it out and placed it in the pound.
"Just like one of her disgusting tricks. She'd do anything mean. I'll have something to say to her after school," she mused gloomily.
She tackled Opal in the cloakroom when the latter was tying her shoe-laces.
"Look here, you blighter," she began, "what do you mean by cribbing my books and sticking them into the pound? It's the absolute limit."
Opal tied an elegant bow, and put out a foot to admire the result.
"I've never seen your books, my good girl," she yawned. "What are you setting on me for?"
"You have! You took it out of my desk and put it in the pound on purpose. I know you did!"
"I didn't!"
"What a whopper!"
"Look here, just stop talking!"
"I shan't! I'll say what I think. We used to play'rags' at Whinburn High, but when one girl started that rag of hiding books we all 'booed' her out of our secret society as a sneak."
"How clever of you!" sneered Opal. "What you did at your precious high school is nothing to me, I'm sure."
"Well, myJulius Cæsaris at any rate. You took it away, and it's you who've got to put the penny in the missionary box for it."
"Don't count on me to pay your fines for you; I'm always stony broke," laughed Opal, as she put on her coat.
"Opal Earnshaw, Ishan'tpay that penny when it's your business."
"Dear, dear! What tempers we get ourselves into!
"'Little children should not letTheir angry passions rise!Their little hands were never madeTo scratch each other's eyes!'"
"'Little children should not letTheir angry passions rise!Their little hands were never madeTo scratch each other's eyes!'"
"'Little children should not letTheir angry passions rise!Their little hands were never madeTo scratch each other's eyes!'"
Opal spoke airily as she arranged her hat.
"It'll come to scratching in another moment!" exploded Merle. "Youknowit's all your fault."
"Merle,darling!Don't!" remonstrated Mavis, seizing her sister's arm and whispering "It's no use and it only makes Opal all the nastier. I've put the penny in the box for you already. I told Miss Fanny, and she said it was all right. It's a shame, I know, but we can't do anything."
"I'd like to spifflicate that girl," fumed Merle,looking after Opal, who was walking away giggling.
Poor Merle took life hardly. She went home still reviling Fate. Directly lunch was over she seized her writing-pad and scribbled the following letter as fast as her pen would go.
"Un-dear Opal,"I think you're the horridest, meanest girl I have ever met in my life, and that's saying something. You think yourself very clever and pretty, and all the rest of it, but you're not. You may get Miss Pollard to shut her eyes to what you do, but some day she'll find you out and then there'll be squalls, and I for one shall dance for joy. If you want to know what I think about you, I call you a proud popinjay; it's the best name to suit you! I wish you were not at this school or else that I hadn't come to it!"With the reverse of love,"Yours unaffectionately,"Merle Ramsay."
"Un-dear Opal,
"I think you're the horridest, meanest girl I have ever met in my life, and that's saying something. You think yourself very clever and pretty, and all the rest of it, but you're not. You may get Miss Pollard to shut her eyes to what you do, but some day she'll find you out and then there'll be squalls, and I for one shall dance for joy. If you want to know what I think about you, I call you a proud popinjay; it's the best name to suit you! I wish you were not at this school or else that I hadn't come to it!
"With the reverse of love,
"Yours unaffectionately,
"Merle Ramsay."
"There! That's done me good!" she declared, handing the letter to her sister.
Mavis read the effusion quite calmly, folded it, and placed it in the envelope addressed to Miss O. Earnshaw.
"Shall we put it in our usual post office?" she asked, then dropped it into the fire.
She understood Merle, who loved to relieve her feelings by writing violent letters, which fortunately never reached the people to whom they were directed.It was merely a form of letting off steam, and did nobody any harm. Mavis always took care, though, to make sure that the epistles were safely consigned to the flames. She had pulled Merle out of many scrapes, and knew just how to manage her hot-tempered sister.
"Opal's simply not worth thinking about," she consoled. "Let's forget this business. Uncle David says he's going to pay a visit at a farm on the moor this afternoon, and if we'll scurry home quick from school at four, he'll wait for us and take us with him."
"Oh, Jubilate!" rejoiced Merle, recovering her good spirits. "What fun! I was just pining for a jaunt in the car. Go? I should think we will, rather! We'll fly the very second Mademoiselle lets us off. Thank goodness, it will be something decent to think about all the afternoon. Opal Earnshaw may go to Hong-Kong if she likes. I don't care about her and her meannesses. We're wangling a drive with Uncle David. Cock-a-doodle-do!"
Merle got through her music lesson with moderate success, and did her drawing with tolerable correctness, so, except for a lost button and breaking the hinge off her pencil-box, she had no more conspicuous mishaps. She nearly undid herself by catching up her drawing-board and rising to go the moment the clock began to strike four, which caused a glare from Mademoiselle, who added:
"Sit down till I dismiss the class. If you go too soon I shall make you stay behind all the others and wait."
"HERE WE ARE AT CROSS NUMBER TWO""HERE WE ARE AT CROSS NUMBER TWO"Page 163
"HERE WE ARE AT CROSS NUMBER TWO"
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Much terrified lest the teacher should keep her threat, Merle popped back into her place, and filed out in orderly fashion behind Maude Carey, fuming that the latter's movements were so dilatory and slow. She and Mavis hurried home almost at a run.
After all they need not have been in such fearful haste, for they found Uncle David and Tom busy in the yard putting the spare wheel on the car.
"Just had a puncture," explained Dr. Tremayne. "A nasty bit of broken glass in the High Street. Fortunately I was almost home. No, Tom, I haven't time to stay now while you mend it. I must get off to see old Mr. Tracy at once. We must just trust the spare wheel won't puncture, that's all. People ought to be prosecuted for leaving broken glass about to cut tyres. It's a dastardly trick to play on motorists. If I were a magistrate I'd fine them for it. The amount of time I waste over punctures is perfectly disgusting."
The spare wheel was put on at last, in place of the one with the punctured tyre, and Uncle David and Mavis and Merle got into the car, and started off on to the moors. It had been quite clear in Durracombe, though not sunny, but directly they were up amongst the peat and heather great white clouds came rolling across the road, and in a few moments they were in the thickness of a white Devonshire mist. It was possible to see only for about a space of ten feet all round them. The doctor drove slowly, sounding his horn to warn anybody who might be approaching either in front or from behind.
"I didn't think we should have caught a mist to-day," he commented. "I'd have started earlier if I'd known it was going to be like this. Curious how these queer fogs come on. I suppose it's our nearness to the sea. It's a regular winding-sheet. No use turning on the lamps, for they don't help. What's that! G-r-r-r! Great Scott! I believe we've got another puncture!"
The unmistakable jarring sensation that betrays mishap to a tyre brought Dr. Tremayne to a sudden standstill. He got out to inspect.
"Yes, it is! And the spare wheel, too! Of all the hard luck. I shall have to set to work and mend it. And here in the midst of all the fog. It might have kept up till we'd reached the farm. This is the second puncture this afternoon."
"I'm afraid I'm the Jonah," said Merle. "I've had a pixie day ever since I got up this morning. Every single thing has gone wrong. I believe in bad luck, especially if you start badly. You'd better throw me overboard."
"We must get started again before we can throw anybody overboard."
"Can we help you, Uncle?" asked Mavis.
"No, dear, not just at present. It's a question of finding the puncture. Ah! Here it is! And, would you believe it? another bit of broken glass! Some wretched tourist has been picnicking up here, I suppose, and smashed a ginger-beer bottle. Well, now I've found the spot, I can get to work."
It was rather cold standing in the midst of the fogwatching Uncle David. The girls began to walk up and down the road instead while they waited for him. They could see a patch of heather on either hand, and occasionally, looming through the mist, the dark body of a mountain pony or a bullock. Quite close to them, on the top of a small mound, was a little old, old worn cross, and they naturally stepped aside to look at it. Perhaps it marked some traveller's grave, or had been part of a shrine in long-ago times. Standing by its shaft they could make out through the fog another cross only a short distance away. It seemed a pity not to inspect this also. It was a far finer one than the first, and they walked all round it; then because they thought they spied a cromlech on the top of another mound they set off to inspect that too. It was not a cromlech after all, only a pile of boulders, so they turned back again.
"Here we are at cross number two," said Merle.
"Ye-e-s," agreed Mavis doubtfully. "It seems to have gone rather smaller, though. I don't remember that clump of ferns at the bottom."
"Well, there's the first cross at any rate. Come along."
But when they reached what they supposed to be the first cross they were more doubtful still. It was quite unfamiliar. Moreover, there was no road within sight of it.
"We—we've come wrong!" faltered Merle.
"There must be several of these crosses."
"Let's go back to that one over there, then perhaps we shall find our first one."
But meanwhile the treacherous mist was rolling up thicker and thicker. The girls hurried back as fast as they could, but this time they missed the cross altogether. There is nothing so easy as to get lost in a fog on the moors. Thoroughly frightened, they called to Uncle David, but they could hear nothing in reply. They wandered on, hoping he would sound the hooter and so give them some clue to his whereabouts, but everything was deadly still. It seemed as if a great white wall had arisen and shut them up in some elfin castle on the moor.
"We're pixie-led. That's just all about it," said Merle. "I told you it was an unlucky day."
"Well, look here, we mustn't go too far! If we walk on like this we may be going straight away from the road, and might tramp miles or get into a bog. We'd better stay where we are and shout every now and then, and perhaps Uncle David will find us."
Two very forlorn girls, feeling extremely chilly and cold in the clammy fog, squatted down on the heather and took it in turns to call "Coo-e-ee!"
"What are we to do if we have to stop here all night?" asked Merle, nearly crying.
"I don't know!"
"How long do these mists last?"
"Oh, days and days sometimes I suppose!"
"Should we be dead before morning?"
"Oh, I hope not! Shout again!"
They both called together, but there was no response.
"I'm going to count a hundred, and if we hear nothing by then I shall walk on somewhere. It's so bitterly cold sitting still," said Mavis, who was shivering.
She counted aloud, and at the end they gave a frantic shout. Not even a bird rustled in reply. "Well here goes, there's nothing for it but a plunge," said Mavis. "I've not the glimmer of an idea which way to take."
"I shall follow my nose," said Merle, setting off.
"Don't go too fast or you'll lose me. Let me take hold of your arm. We never came this way, I'm sure. We certainly didn't pass a little stream."
"Any way is better than no way," said Merle desperately. "Hello! why there's the road!"
The relief at finding themselves back upon the track of civilization was intense. They ran joyfully along, and in a few moments came upon Uncle David, just screwing on his last nuts and whistling to himself quite unconcernedly.
"Where have you two been?" he asked.
"Where!" answered Merle with dramatic unction. "Where? Why, getting lost like the babes in the wood! We thought we were going to perish upon the moors and never see home again! We wandered on forhours. Didn't you hear us shouting?"
"Exactly twenty-five minutes," corrected Dr. Tremayne, consulting his watch. "No, I never heard you shout. I should have hooted if I had. I wondered where you were. Better not run off too faranother time. Well, I've mended this tyre, and been remarkably quick over it too, I think. I'm rather proud of myself. It's a record."
Feeling a little small, the girls got into the car. It was humiliating that Uncle David did not seem to realize their terrific adventure, and was far more concerned over the tyre than over their possible loss and death from exposure and starvation.
"It's all the fault of the Devonshire pixies," whispered Mavis.
And Merle nodded emphatically.
"Rather! I consider we were absolutely and entirely pixie-led. I can almost hear the little wretches laughing about it over there. I'll do for them if I catch them! It's been a pixie day."
"Then for goodness sake do get out of bed to-morrow on the right side," implored Mavis.
As a direct consequence of sitting on the damp moor in the mist Mavis caught one of her bad bronchial colds and was put to bed and cosseted by Aunt Nellie, and was fussed over by Jessop, and was visited by Uncle David, and had flowers sent her by Tom, and for a few days was the centre of the entire household. She was such a dear gentle little patient, and her blue eyes and dull-gold hair always looked so effective against the background of a pillow, that she invariably received much petting and spoiling when she was ill. Merle, who went through some stormy scenes when left to her own devices at school, declared that Mavis was "a lucker", and that it paid to be an invalid. She did her share of the spoiling, however; for though she might sometimes affect to be jealous, no one was more thoroughly devoted to her sister than herself. It was characteristic of Merle that she would not go to Chagmouth alone.
"I'll wait till Mavis is better and then we'll go together, thanks, Uncle David," she said decidedly, in response to all tempting offers of a run in the car.
Mavis pulled round much faster at Durracombe than she would have done at Whinburn, and, though several weeks saw the doctor set off alone for Chagmouth, one Saturday arrived when he started with a pale and a rosy face beside him, and two wagging tongues keeping up an excited chatteration. The girls felt as if they had been away from the village for years. The short time of their absence had made changes, for the red pyrus japonica was in blossom on some of the houses, and daffodils and wallflowers were blooming instead of snowdrops and crocuses in the cottage gardens. It was a glorious heavenly day, one of those blue March days that are linked in our memories with young lambs and violets. They had caught the wind coming across the moor, but the Cove of Chagmouth was sheltered from it, and was calm and warm as summer.
"Just the very weather for Mavis to be out-of-doors," said Dr. Tremayne. "If Bevis can spare the time we'll ask him to take youfora walk. You ought to go and see Pixies' Cave—that's the place I was telling you about the other day, where the Antiquarian Society excavated and found so many prehistoric weapons. Bevis was there helping them. He's got one or two of the things, I believe. He must show them to you. It's only about a mile and a half to the cave if you go along the cliffs. You can manage that, Mavis?"
"Rather. I'm not a scrap ill now, and ready for anything."
Bevis had completely forgiven the girls for deserting him on the former occasion. Moreover, he had kept his promise, and had made them a miniature grindstone upon which to sharpen their penknives. It turned with a handle, and was quite a neat little piece of workmanship. They welcomed it with much admiration.
"It's absolutely dinky! How could you ever manage to do it?" they asked.
"Oh, it was quite easy!" replied Bevis airily, looking gratified all the same.
He agreed at once to escort them to the cave, and directly lunch was over they started forth. This time they went in the opposite direction to the sanatorium. They climbed above the village, and struck a footpath among woods that overhung the cliffs. On this sunny March day it was like a peep of fairyland. The trees were still bare, but between the network of branches showed the brilliant blue-green of the sea below; an aspect of the scene not possible in leafy summer. The ground was spangled with little tufts of primroses, peeping from among the grass and dead leaves, as the pre-Raphaelite artists so loved to paint them in their masterpieces. Mosses, lichens, and hardy Polypody ferns grew thickly on the trees, so that grey and green were mingled with the tones of brown and gold into one soft harmony of rich colour. The air was soft, and yet had an invigorating sparkle of spring in it. Everything seemed to hold the thrill of awakening life, and the magnetic atmosphere was that of an old-timefolk-tale when the world was young and all its objects were sources of wonder and worship.
The girls caught the spirit of the place and ran about like dryads in a rapture of delight, picking flowers, gazing up into the tracery of the bare branches, or peeping over edges of cliff at the waves dashing below. They were so enthralled with the wood that it was difficult to drag them any farther. Yet it was finer still when they had left the trees and walked out to the open headland. This was the grandest side of Chagmouth, and the view of steep jagged rocks and wide waters was sublime. There is a spiritual exaltation in being on the heights, else why have the greatest souls ever born ascended into mountains for their periods of meditation and transfiguration?
Bevis was a most satisfactory person to act guide, for he appreciated everything so much himself. He invariably stopped at exactly the right places and said, "There!" The boy was a keen naturalist, and was always watching the birds, poking about for nests, picking up snail shells, or making a dash after some insect specimen that he wanted. His pockets were generally full of miscellaneous objects, and he had a growing collection put by in boxes inside the tool-shed. He had been much with Mr. Barnes, the local antiquary, and had acquired a smattering of archæological lore, enough to make him take a wild interest in the excavations which were carried on by a learned society from Port Sennen. He had himself helped to dig and to sift the gravel, and had been luckyenough to light upon quite a good find. The best of his discoveries had been sent to the County Institute, but a few objects had been private treasure trove, and lived in the museum of his pockets.
The point to which he was taking the girls was a little grassy plateau that jutted out from the sloping cliff. Nature must have designed it specially for her early children, as it was sheltered from the prevailing winds and faced the sun. Moreover, it was the outer courtyard of a large cave which shelved into the hill-side. Many thousands of years ago successive generations of the old prehistoric race, who once inhabited these islands, had lived there, and had hunted the mammoth and elk. No one would have known anything about them had they not left behind them their rude weapons and the bones that remained over from their feasts.
It was from these relics, buried under yards of gravel, that antiquarians had pieced together some idea of the life in those ancient times.
The cave was dark, and, so the girls declared, decidedly "spooky", but Bevis had brought a piece of candle and a box of matches; so they were able to explore its recesses. There was really not much to see except rugged bits of rock, and heaps of gravel, over which they stumbled in the dim flicker of their solitary candle. They were both extremely relieved when they stepped outside again into the sunshine.
"Ugh! Shouldn't have liked that for a home,thank you!" declared Merle. "I'd have lived outside if I'd been a prehistoric woman."
"How about wild beasts catching you?" asked Bevis. "You'd have been glad to fence yourself safely into the cave at night."
He was turning out the miscellaneous collection in his pockets, and now proudly produced the specimens he had found in the cave—some flint arrow-heads, a skin-scraper, and two bone needles.
"I often wish they could talk," he said, "and tell me who owned them, and what animals they killed, and what hides they scraped and sewed together into clothes. They must have seemed such treasures to the people who first made them. Mr. Barnes is going to dig again here this summer. Perhaps we shall find something more. Last June I helped him to open a mound in the field over there."
"Did you find arrow-heads and bone needles?"
"No, it belonged to the Bronze Age, and a chief was buried there. His wife was lying by his side. The skeletons were quite perfect, and their hands were clasped together. She had a little baby in her other arm. There was a necklace round her throat, and a torque on his head. They must have been grand people when they were alive. I'll show you the mound if you like to come."
Of course the girls wanted to come, and they scrambled up a steep place on to a yet more beautiful part of the headland. The tumulus stood in the midst of a rough field, like the green grassy hillock ofa fairy legend. Below, with a hedge between, lay a tiny quarry, where blackthorn was breaking into blossom, and ivy trailed over the remains of an old wall. This seemed a suitable spot to sit down and eat the slices of home-baked cake that Mrs. Penruddock had sent with them. They settled themselves happily for their picnic. From the vantage-point of the wall they could see spread out before them the whole grand panorama of the Bay of Chagmouth. Away on the farther side of the harbour lay The Warren, half-hidden in woods, and higher up gleamed the slated roof and many windows of the Sanatorium.
"We're monarchs of all we survey here," laughed Merle.
"I should think this is No Man's Land on the top of the cliffs," said Mavis.
"As a matter of fact it's part of the estate that goes with The Warren," said Bevis. "Mr. Barnes had to get permission before he might excavate in the mound. And an absurd fuss they made about it, too, between Mr. Glyn Williams and the agent. They said at first he would have to write to General Talland in the West Indies."
"It seems funny to live in the West Indies when you've got all this beautiful place belonging to you here."
"Ah, I only wish it were mine! You bet I wouldn't be an absentee landlord," broke out Bevis bitterly. "It seems to me the limit that people should own things and care nothing about them. The old Generalhasn't been at Chagmouth for fifteen years. I don't suppose he remembers there's such a beauty spot as this where we're sitting now, even if he ever saw it. He's turned the property over to the Glyn Williams, and all the valuethey'dput on this scrap of hill-side would be its worth for the shooting. It's hard that things should go so unequally. There's a lot of injustice in this world. The people who care for the things ought to own them."
"Don't you think in a sense they do?" Mavis spoke slowly and hesitatingly. "What I mean is that all beautiful things belong in a way to the people who love them: old castles, and pictures, and landscapes, and everything of that sort. If you appreciate them they're yours, and nothing can ever take them away from you. This little quarry, and the sloe blossom, and the primroses, and the view over the water, are ours. They can't belong to people who've never seen them. I'm going to call it 'Blackthorn Bower', and take possession. I feel as if we'd a right to it."
"Cheerio! Here are your title deeds, 'Lady of the Bower'!" laughed Bevis, peeling a piece of bark off a tree and handing it to her as if it had been a manuscript, "if there's any dispute with the old General we'll go to law about it, and prove that we're the lineal descendants of the mound dwellers or the cave folk, and have a prior claim on the property."
"The land for the people," quoted Merle. "This patch of land certainly. The Lady of the Bower has proved it's ours. She's a regular Portia at arguing,and there isn't a Shylock who could stand against her."
"It's our joint estate then, and belongs to us three. We'll call ourselves The Triumvirate!" proclaimed Mavis. "Have you a penny in your pocket, Bevis? Merle, give me one too! Now, we'll bury these three pennies in the ground, like the Romans used to do before they began a building, and that'll mark the spot ours for ever more."
"I wish wehada building here," said Merle, producing her penny.
"Oh, so do I! A sort of ancient British hut, made of boughs and turf. Wouldn't it be priceless? We could almost imagine ourselves mound dwellers, and feel as if we were living in the Bronze Age."
"Would you really like it?" asked Bevis quickly.
"Rather!"
"Well, we'll see what can be done. No, I can't exactly promise anything; but look here! if you care to come here again next Saturday afternoon perhaps I might have a surprise ready for you. No, I shan't tell you anything about it, or it wouldn't be a surprise. You must wait and see!"
"Do whisper just a teeny-weeny hint," begged Mavis coaxingly, but Bevis was adamant.
"I don't know myself yet! Wait till next Saturday. Give me your pennies, and I'll dig a hole. Here's a foundation at any rate. Good luck to Blackthorn Bower."
Having solemnly interred the three coins, the youngpeople regretfully remembered the time, and turned away from the lovely spot to go back to Chagmouth. For the sake of variety they went by another path, which led over the top of the headland and down on to an inland road. In the deep sheltered green lane early violets were blooming, and presently, on the banks of a little pond, they spied the first kingcups of the year. They were growing in a rather swampy place, and it would have been prudent of the girls to have let Bevis gather them for them; instead of which they both insisted upon venturing on to some very spongy ground, with the result that Mavis made a false step and plunged suddenly, well over her knees, into water. She splashed out again immediately, but the damage was done. Here was a pretty business—Mavis, newly recovered from a bad attack of bronchitis, was wet through and shivering already.
"Oh, she'll get cold!" cried Merle. "Whatarewe to do?"
"I feel like a dr-r-r-owned r-r-r-at!" said Mavis through her chattering teeth.
"Mrs. Jarvis lives close by. She'd dry her things," suggested Bevis.
"Oh, do let us go there at once then!"
Where Mavis's health was concerned, Merle, through sad experience, was an anxious little mother. The Triumvirate hurried off post-haste in the direction of a white-washed cottage whose chimney peeped above the hedge on the opposite side of the road.
Mrs. Jarvis was a short, wizened, elderly widowwoman, who had suffered badly in the battle of life and had come off with many scars. Fourteen years ago she had been the village nurse, and had been sent for on that tragic evening when poor Mrs. Hunter, helpless and speechless, lay gasping with fluttering breath on the sofa in the parlour of the King's Arms. It was Mrs. Jarvis who had performed the last offices, who had supplied what information she could to the doctor and the coroner, and had indeed been one of the principal witnesses at the inquest. It is said that misfortunes never come singly, and on the day when all Chagmouth had flocked to the churchyard to watch the stranger's funeral, Mrs. Jarvis had been overwhelmed with a trouble of her own. Her one child, a wilful headstrong lad of thirteen, had run away, and had taken with him the few savings that she had kept stored inside an old tea-pot in the cupboard. All search for him had been in vain, and it was generally supposed in the neighbourhood that he had walked to Port Sennen and gone to sea as a cabin boy in one of the many vessels that lay in the busy harbour. Certainly from that day to this his mother had had no further news of him. This grief had been the bitter culmination of many black years, and it had preyed on the poor woman's mind to such an extent that she was often strange in her manner, and indeed for a time had been an inmate of the County Asylum. She was perfectly harmless, and though she could no longer be trusted as a nurse, she fulfilled the duties of an extra postwoman and delivered letters at outlyingfarms. She had one unreasoning obsession. She was certain that Jerry, her boy, might come back at any moment. A little table in her kitchen was always set out ready for him, with clean cloth, tea-pot, and knife and fork. Every evening at dusk she lighted a candle, and placed it in a window to guide him home by the short cut he had been wont to take over the cliffs from the village. She was brisk and cheerful, and would talk eagerly of the lad whom she daily expected, oblivious of the fact that nearly fifteen years must have changed him almost out of recognition. People humoured her on this point, and treated her with that kindly consideration which is often meted out in country places to those who are labelled "daft".
Amongst her other work Mrs. Jarvis went weekly to scrub floors at Grimbal's Farm, so Bevis knew her well, and had no hesitation in taking Mavis to be dried at her fire. The door of the small fuchsia-covered cottage was open, and the postwoman, still in her uniform, was newly returned from her upland tramp, and was blowing sticks into a blaze under her kettle. She took the advent of a drenched visitor with the utmost calm.
"Well, Bevis! Who'd have thought of seeing you. The young lady wet! Yes, yes! Nasty thing to be wet! Very nice fire! The kettle's just on the boil! Take her things off? Yes, missy. Come with me and I'll take wet clothes off. Very dangerous to sit in wet clothes."
Poor Mrs. Jarvis might be half-crazy, but she collected her scattered wits sufficiently to usher Mavis into her tiny bedroom, to lend her some dry garments, and to make her a steaming cup of hot tea.
"I can't give herhisplace," she murmured, glancing in doubt at the table set ready for Jerry, and beginning to twist her hands in the nervous fashion that accompanied any distress in her mind.
"No, no! She's better here by the fire," said Bevis soothingly. "I'll go out and find you some fresh wood, and then you can make a regular blazer. Don't you begin to worry! I know you're glad to do anything for Dr. Tremayne's niece, aren't you?"
"Yes, indeed! A nice gentleman—Dr. Tremayne. Very kind always when my head's bad. A very nice gentleman and all!"
By the aid of a perfect bonfire of sticks and brushwood, which Bevis foraged out of the fields, Mavis's clothes were dried at last, and the little party were able to start off on their way back to Chagmouth. They hurried along, being afraid lest Uncle David should have returned from the Sanatorium and be waiting to set off in the car for Durracombe. As they clattered down the steep steps that led from the footpath into the village, they almost ran into Gwen and Babbie Williams, who, looking charming in white serge coats and little ermine caps, were going to post letters in the pillar-box. Gwen stood still and stared in utter amazement, first at Mavis's mud-stained garments and then at Bevis. The latter raised hiscap, but Gwen did not acknowledge the courtesy, and remained gazing as if absolutely petrified, while the Triumvirate, conscious of intense disapproval, scurried past in the direction of the farm.
"Why do wealwayshappen to meet the Glyn Williams just when we're not tidy. It reallyistoo bad," groaned Mavis.
"There's fate about it I think. I've only to lose my hair ribbon, or forget my gloves, or dirty my boots, and Gwen turns up round the corner as neat as if she'd stepped out of a bandbox. It's most fearfully aggravating. I wish to goodness they'd stay at The Warren instead of acting fashion plates in the village. I'm thoroughly cross," grunted Merle.
Bevis said nothing, though he might have added that it was not pleasant to have your civility acknowledged only with a stare. There was a curious stubborn look on the lad's dark face, such as the girls had noticed there on that first afternoon when they had been obliged to put off their appointment with him in the tool-shed. He turned abruptly into the stackyard when they reached the farm, and though, afterwards, they hunted about for him to say good-bye, they could not find him anywhere.