"I've seen a-many beautiful places! But there's none to beat Devon in my opinion."
"That's what we always say," cried Mavis. "Devonshire is the loveliest county in England, and Chagmouth is the most beautiful little place in all Devonshire."
"Chagmouth! Do you know Chagmouth?" asked the clown quickly.
"We motor over every Saturday with our uncle when he goes to take surgery. Doyouknow it?"
"I used to when I was a boy. I haven't seen it now though for a matter of fourteen year or so. I dare say it's changed."
"I don't believe it has much. People say it's just the same as it always was. You must make haste and get well, and we'll ask Uncle to take you there for a drive when you're able to get out of hospital."
"Ah—when?" echoed the clown, closing his eyes.
He was restless, and seemed in much pain. Dr. Tremayne came in later and examined him, and gave him morphia. Sister's report the next morningwas unfavourable. His temperature was very high, and his pulse was fluttering.
"I'm sorry I shan't be about to-day," said Dr. Tremayne. "I'm obliged to go over to Halford to perform some eye operations at the hospital. I don't suppose I shall be back till nine o'clock. I'll leave the hypodermic syringe and if he needs it give him another dose of morphia. We've done the best we can, but it's an anxious case all the same."
Mavis and Merle were detained after tea that day, and could not go round to the hospital until about six o'clock. Sister greeted them with relief.
"I've kept expecting you, and was going to send you a message if you didn't come," she said. "He keeps asking for you all the time. He's gone downhill rapidly to-day, poor fellow. He's sinking fast, and I don't believe he'll ever see the night through. He's wandering a little in his head, and he says you two know Chagmouth, and he wants to speak to you. I'll tell him you've come."
Very gently the girls entered the ward where the patient was lying. The signs of a great approaching change were on him. The hands that little more than a week ago had grasped the trapeze so strongly now lay white and frail on the counterpane. His face was shrunken, and his eyes held the far-away look of one who is beginning to sight things beyond our earthly plane of vision. He smiled feebly at Mavis and Merle, and tried to raise his head. Sister lifted him a little and propped him up with an extra pillow.
"You know Chagmouth?" he whispered.
"Yes! Yes!" Mavis was stooping down beside his bed.
"Is Mrs. Jarvis still living there—the nurse?"
"Yes, we sometimes see her. She's postwoman now."
"Could you fetch her here? To-night?"
"We'll try!"
"Tell her it's Jerry as wants her—her boy Jerry! She'll understand!"
"We'll bring her somehow, don't you worry," said Merle.
"I'm slipping west, and I'd like a word with her afore I go. You've been so kind—I thought I might ask you to do that for me."
His breath came in gasps. His face was drawn with a spasm of pain.
Sister took the girls quietly aside.
"If there's anything you can do for him, you'd better do it," she said. "I don't think he'll last the night."
Mavis and Merle saw for themselves that if mother and son were to meet again on earth they must fetch Mrs. Jarvis quickly. How could they get her to Durracombe in the shortest possible time? Outside the hospital door they held a whispered consultation. Uncle David and the little Deemster car were fifteen miles away, at Halford. They must find some other means of conveyance. They went, therefore, to the Swan Hotel, where motors were to be hired, andexplained the urgency of their errand. The manageress shook her head.
"YOU KNOW CHAGMOUTH?" HE WHISPERED"YOU KNOW CHAGMOUTH?" HE WHISPEREDPage 232
"YOU KNOW CHAGMOUTH?" HE WHISPERED
Page 232
"Mr. Johnson's out himself with the four-seater, and Bates has gone to the station with the little car to meet a lady and take her to Rushton. There's only the old Ford left, and no one to drive it."
"A Ford! May I look at it?" said Merle eagerly.
"You can if you like."
The car was standing in the yard, rather a shabby specimen, but in workable order. Merle examined it carefully.
"It's exactly like Daddy's at home," she said. "I've often driven that. Will you let me try this?"
"Oh, I don't know whether I dare!" gasped the manageress.
But Merle got inside the car and showed such a working knowledge of its various levers and begged so hard to be allowed to take it out that at last Mrs. Johnson relented.
"If it weren't a matter of life and death, as you might say, I wouldn't let you for a minute. It seems almost like murder to trust you two alone, and those hills and all. Still you do seem to know how to drive. Be very careful of the brakes, and don't go tearing along too fast. I shan't know a moment's peace till I see you safe back again. Little George will give you a start. He knows how to do that, though he can't drive yet."
George, a small boy of twelve, turned the starting-handle, and soon the engine was humming. Merletook off the brake, put in the low gear, waved a good-bye to Mrs. Johnson, and with Mavis by her side steered successfully through the gate-posts of the garage yard into the High Street. The girls devoutly hoped that neither Aunt Nellie nor Jessop would be looking out of the windows as they crossed the bridge. The risky ride must be ventured, but they preferred to spare the feelings of those at home.
To Merle it was a gorgeous opportunity. She was not in the least afraid and perfectly confident that she could manage the car. She had always wanted to go for a drive entirely on her own. Mavis, rather nervous but ready to stick to her sister through all perils, kept an anxious eye on the road, in case a motor-lorry should suddenly whisk round a corner, or a flock of sheep emerge from a field.
"May Providence sweep all nails and bits of broken glass out of our path. I don't know what we should do if we got a puncture," she murmured.
"Run on the rim," returned Merle. "As long as the old car can keep going I'll make her go. She's really doing very decently considering she's rather a ramshackle concern. I'll get some pace out of her, you'll see, when the road's clear ahead. I wonder if the speedometer is working?"
"Oh, do be careful!" implored Mavis. "There's something coming now. Sound your hooter! It's one of those wretched furniture vans, and they never leave proper room."
"I'm glad we haven't to pass the circus at any rate,"said Merle, squeezing the bulb of the hooter, and lurching dangerously as she did so, but regaining the left side of the road before they met the van.
Mavis was thankful when they were out of the deep Devonshire lanes and up on the comparatively safe level of the moors, where there were no high hedges to conceal approaching vehicles, and the road could be seen stretching like a long ribbon in front of them.
"Shan't find any police trap here," chuckled Merle, increasing the speed till the rattling old car seemed to be flying. "That speedometer isn't working, but I dare say we're going at thirty miles an hour. I believe she'd do forty."
"Merle,don't" squealed Mavis. "For goodness sake slow down or you'll be upsetting the whole business into the ditch."
The hooting of a motor-cycle that wanted to pass them stopped Merle in her mad career, and reminded her that she was occupying the middle of the road. She steered to the left, and proceeded more soberly.
"We must be half-way there already," she triumphed. "We've simply bounded along like a house on fire. Who says I can't drive? I shall tell Daddy about this. It'll be a score for me, won't it."
"I hope we shan't meet a policeman anywhere who'll ask for your licence."
"Don't care if I do. I just shan't stop, however much he waves his white gloves at me. He can take the number of the car, and prosecute me afterwards if he likes. I'd rather enjoy going before the bench ofmagistrates. I'd tell the reason, and say the end justified the means."
"You'll make an end of us if you go bumping so fast over this lumpy road. The holes are enough to upset a tank. What a sharp wind there is up here! I wish we'd got our thick coats."
"You ought to have brought a wrap!" Merle's voice was self-reproachful. "Turn up the collar of your jersey. Oh, I'm all right, thanks. It's hot work to drive, I can tell you. There's Gundry Tor. We reallyaregetting on. We shall soon be at Chagmouth now."
What Mavis was dreading most was the tremendous hill that ran down the ravine into the little town. It was a very steep gradient, and was marked with a danger signal. She hoped the brakes of the rickety old car would be equal to their duty. The road was unfenced, and had several awkward bends, where an unskilled motorist, losing control, might dash over the edge, and down into the woods. How she longed for Dr. Tremayne's firm steady hand on the driving-wheel! It is always far more anxious work to sit and watch a novice than to do a thing yourself. Merle, in her girlish confidence, felt no alarm. She was ready to venture anything in the way of a descent.
Fortunately for the safety of the sisters, her powers had no need to be tested. While they were still on the level road at the top of the hill they saw, walking briskly along in front of them, a little stumpy figure in a navy-blue uniform, and with a leather bag slung over her back.
"Mrs. Jarvis, by all that's wonderful," exclaimed Mavis, in much relief.
The postwoman was coming back from collecting letters at a pillar-box in a neighbouring village. It was the merest luck that they had overtaken her at that particular spot. Merle stopped the car, and the girls explained their errand.
"You must come with us at once," said Mavis. "Never mind the letters. We can hand them in at the post-office at Durracombe instead. It will be all right."
Poor Mrs. Jarvis did not need any urging. As soon as her clouded brain understood who wanted her, she was ready to throw her post-bag to the winds. She jumped into the back part of the car and took her seat, trembling with excitement and eagerness.
"Jerry! My own boy Jerry!" she kept repeating. "Bless him! The little table's all spread out in the kitchen ready for his tea. I knew he'd come back to me some day. Bless his heart."
Merle with much difficulty managed to restart the old Ford, and to turn it with its bonnet in the direction of Durracombe; then they set off again at a rather reckless pace. Every minute seemed of importance now, and Mavis did not remonstrate though they bumped over holes, tore round corners, or flew across the moor at thirty miles an hour. Perhaps her nerves were getting used to it. She gave a sigh of satisfaction, however, when at last they came in sight of their destination, and motored back across the bridge intothe High Street. Merle drove straight to the hospital, where the girls took Mrs. Jarvis inside and asked for Sister.
"Will you come into the ward, please," said the nurse who returned with the message. "You've brought her just in time!"
Mavis and Merle stood aside to give precedence to Mrs. Jarvis. They had warned the poor mother that it was no lad of thirteen whom she must expect to see, that long years had passed away, and had changed him possibly past recognition. There was little resemblance between the round cheeks she used to kiss, and the sunken face on the pillow. But mother hearts cannot forget, even though the brains may be blurred. She knew him instantly as she stepped to his bed-side.
"Jerry! My own boy, Jerry! Come back at last!"
Then Nurse put a screen round the bed, and mother and son were left alone, for there are some scenes too sacred for even the kindest friends to witness.
Mavis and Merle returned an hour later to inquire, having taken back the car, delivered the post-bag to the authorities, and reassured Aunt Nellie of their whereabouts. They met Sister in the corridor of the hospital. They looked at her in mute interrogation, and she shook her head.
"I knew it was hopeless this afternoon, but it's been quicker than I thought. He didn't suffer much, and he was so glad to have his mother with him. Will you please tell Dr. Tremayne."
Very softly the girls went out of the hospital door.It was dark, and bright stars were shining overhead, but there was still a faint streak of red where the sun had set. They looked at it for a moment or two without speaking, then:
"It will rise over there," gulped Mavis, pointing eastward, and Merle understood her meaning.
All the jokes and tricks of the funny man were over now, and his poor hurt body was lying quiet and still, but he himself had "gone west", and though the tea-table was spread in vain in the little cottage, somewhere, in the light of the eternal dawn, mother and son would meet and know one another again.
On the last Saturday in March, by special invitation from Mrs. Glyn Williams, the Ramsays spent the day at The Warren. They went in their best dresses and took their tennis rackets with them. They were not at all sure whether they wished to go, but it was one of those coercive visits which society demands, and which there is no evading, so they set forth, Mavis in one of her quiet moods, and Merle, with an awkward remembrance of past skirmishes, on her very best behaviour. There is no better fence than good manners, and it is really impossible to squabble with a person who preserves a studied politeness. To-day, however, the Glyn Williams did not wish for quarrels. They might have their faults, but they could be pleasant enough hosts and hostesses when they liked, and they really made an effort to entertain their guests. When their shyness thawed, Mavis and Merle began to enjoy themselves. The cinder court was in excellent order, and it was rather delightful to have a game of tennis. Tudor and Merle played Gwen and Mavis, and beat them in two sets, a score which caused them much triumph.
"I say, you know, you're a jolly good player," said Tudor to his partner. "Those swift serves of yours are A1!"
"We had cinder courts at school in Whinburn," replied Merle. "It makes a difference if you're used to them."
She might have added that she had been one of the champions, and had helped to win a tournament, but she was not given to boasting. It is pleasant, though, to be congratulated on present prowess, even if you feel too modest to mention your past successes. She began to relent a little towards Tudor. He was so obviously doing his best to give her a good time. According to his own lights he tried to be amusing.
"The cinder court is my last stronghold," he assured her. "Just when we get the grass courts into decent order in the summer the Mater always insists on having half Chagmouth up to trample over them—wheezy old women who drink tea till you think they'll never stop, and awful children who stuff themselves with buns, and run races for bags of sweets. You don't know what I suffer. And the Mater says: 'Docome and speak to them'! Speak to them! What the Dickens am I to say? I'm longing to tell them that I wish the whole lot of them were at Jericho rather than messing about our garden. Why can't they drink tea and run races down in the town? The Mater says wemustknow our neighbours, but I say bother our neighbours. If she likes to do the Lady Bountiful business I wish she'd leave me out of it."
"Chagmouth is a lovely place," ventured Merle.
"Oh yes, but they're a cantankerous set of people. Never satisfied whatever you do for them. The shooting here isn't really up to much either, nor the fishing. I stayed with a friend of mine once in Herefordshire. His father has a splendid place there. I can tell you we had some sport. The woods here haven't been half preserved. Every Dick, Tom, and Harry from Chagmouth thinks he may go into them, and the same on the headland. They pretend there's a right of way along the cliffs, and it's nothing on earth but an excuse for poaching. They go rabbiting up there. I've found lots of traps, and flung them over the cliffs into the sea. Beastly cheek, setting traps on our land. I tell Dad he ought to put up a fence and dispute that right of way along the headland. I believe he's going to too. You must stand up for your rights with these people, or they'll take advantage of you at every end and give you no thanks either."
After lunch, Tudor, a large part of whose interests centred round the stables, offered to show the horses, and all the young people went to admire and pet beautiful "Armorelle", Gwen's pretty cob "Taffy", and Babbie's little pony "Nixie". Merle would have liked to beg to mount Armorelle, but good manners prevailed, and she only stroked the soft nose instead.
"Do you ride?" asked Gwen rather grandly.
"A little," said Merle, not liking to confess that her equestrian experiences were mostly confined to donkeys on the beach at the sea-side.
"Brought your habit with you?"
"No," answered Merle, who did not possess a riding-habit at all.
"What a pity! But of course your uncle has sold all his horses. He always goes about in that little yellow car now, doesn't he? Motoring's well enough—one must have a car naturally—but give me a horse."
"Yes, give me a horse, too, for choice," echoed Tudor. "I simply couldn't live without horses."
On the whole the Ramsays spent a pleasant day at The Warren. Gwen and Tudor might be rather patronizing, and too fond of showing off their possessions, and "talking large", but these were their obvious failings, the direct result of their early training and upbringing, and they were not without pleasanter traits. Everybody is a mixture of perfect and imperfect, in greater or lesser degree. The young Glyn Williamses might have false standards of life, and would perhaps have to suffer many hard knocks before they learnt to revise them, yet in their own way they certainly meant to be kind. Gwen gave Mavis several foreign stamps, and was liberal in handing round chocolates. Little Babbie waxed really affectionate. She had liked the Ramsays from the first, and had begged her mother to invite them. In the drawing-room, after tea, she asked them to repeat the dialogue which they had given at The Moorings on the wet afternoon when the day girls waited for the storm to clear.
"I've never forgotten how you two acted," she urged. "It was splendid! Just like going to thetheatre.Pleasedo it again!Please!Mother and Tudor haven't heard it."
"We want two other characters," objected Merle.
"Oh, never mind! We'll imagine the other two, and you can say their parts for them. Give the funny piece where the aunt says what she thinks about the modern girl. You did it so well."
"May we dress up a little?" asked Mavis.
"As much as you like. Come upstairs and take what you want."
So after a time the visitors returned duly costumed for the piece, Merle as an elderly spinster with white cotton-wool hair and a black veil tied over a toque, and Mavis in a sporting coat and rakish hat belonging to Gwen. They played up to the best of their ability, and delivered the amusing little sketch with much vigour. Merle, as the maiden aunt, was inimitable, and quiet Mavis astounded everybody in her pose of the up-to-date damsel. Tudor stared as if he had not suspected she had so much in her. The audience of four clapped tremendously at the close of the performance.
"It's really very clever. You're quite actresses," commented Mrs. Glyn Williams. "Have you ever performed in public? No! Why, when you leave school I should think you'll be tremendously in request for dramatic performances in aid of charities."
"We ought to get up something here in the Institute," said Tudor. "It would be topping fun, and astonish the natives no end. I should think everybody'ssick to death of their eternal concerts. It's always the same old business—part song by the choir, timid warble by village soprano about spring or roses, seafaring song roared by the bass, ambitious operatic air attempted by tenor, who makes a hash of it, strains on a violin badly out of tune, temperance speech by the Vicar, who, of course, wants to butt in with a word on 'Prohibition', action song by kids from the school, then votes of thanks till everybody has thanked everybody else all round, and said how clever they all are. Then 'God Save the King', and thank goodness one may go home."
"Tudor's a naughty boy," laughed Mrs. Glyn Williams. "I nevercanget him to take an interest in Chagmouth."
"Well, I hate being trotted out to these functions," declared her son.
When Mavis and Merle, brushing their hair as they went to bed that night, compared notes on their experiences at The Warren, both decided they had had a very enjoyable time there. Merle had revised her first opinion of Tudor.
"He's quite jolly in his own way," she admitted. "I rather like him."
"But of course he's nothing to Bevis."
"They're in a different running altogether."
The two boys were certainly an utter contrast, in circumstances, disposition, and attainments. Tudor was fond of sport, but not at all intellectual. From various hints the girls had gathered that his schoolcareer was not unchequered; indeed they strongly suspected, from a foolish remark of Babbie's, that ill-health was not the sole reason for his passing this term at home, and that for some episode, carefully hushed up, he had been temporarily suspended by the authorities. Tudor's accomplishments all seemed to stand on a foundation of wealth. Take away his horses, his gun, his woods, his visits to town to see theatres, and he would have no resources left. His pleasures were inseparable from the spending of money, and though they were well enough in their way, and kept him amused, they were not cultivating the highest part of him. The citizen side, which seeks to be of some use to the community, was conspicuously absent. He posed, indeed, as deliberately scorning the masses, and laughed at his mother for her well-meant efforts at trying to entertain her neighbours. Human souls are surely at different stages of evolution, and his was an undeveloped one that had not yet progressed beyond the period of self-serving. Sometimes a rough lesson is needed to clear the soul's vision, and teach it what things are really worth while; and Fate, who jolts us about much to our own indignation, had her special plan for his education, which in the fulness of her time she meant to bring about.
Bevis, reared up from babyhood at Grimbal's Farm, had learnt to shoot and to ride as well as Tudor, though he had not so good a gun nor so fine a mount. He was a splendid swimmer, and he had brought back many medals from school gained at athletic sports.He could almost do a man's work in the fields now, and while he hated farm labour it had made him physically very fit. He rejoiced in his young strength, with something of the pure gladness of the old Greeks merged with the Christian ideal. Mavis, looking at him as his muscular arms chopped with an axe in the spinney, or his long legs came jumping over a fence, always thought of some lines that she had copied for her "pet quotation" in the High School calendar at Whinburn.
"God who created meNimble and light of limb,In three elements freeTo run, ride, or swim.Not when the sense is dim,But now from the heart of joyI would remember Him—Take the thanks of a boy."
"God who created meNimble and light of limb,In three elements freeTo run, ride, or swim.Not when the sense is dim,But now from the heart of joyI would remember Him—Take the thanks of a boy."
"God who created meNimble and light of limb,In three elements freeTo run, ride, or swim.Not when the sense is dim,But now from the heart of joyI would remember Him—Take the thanks of a boy."
Bevis's brain capacity fully balanced his bodily strength. He liked to read the newspapers, and think out all the problems of the times, and the country's needs. He relished a mental tussle with the same keen zest as he enjoyed a football match or a vaulting contest. Whoever his father and mother might have been the boy was innately refined, and at school had caught up all the culture that his foster parents—kind homely people—unfortunately lacked.
It was a matter of amazement to Mrs. Glyn Williams that Mavis and Merle were allowed to go for walks withBevis, and she blamed the Doctor for slackness in the care of his nieces, but Dr. Tremayne knew the boy thoroughly, and was perfectly satisfied that he was a fit companion for them.
The girls themselves thought him a most delightful comrade. He was so well versed in all country lore, and he could make so many things, and he was so jolly and humorous and full of fun and jokes. They looked forward to their weekly excursions, and felt they could not have explored Chagmouth half so thoroughly without Bevis as guide. Saturday at the beginning of April saw the three once more setting off for Blackthorn Bower. It was a showery day, but they had their mackintoshes, and did not mind the light rain. Mavis was so wonderfully better that she could now do with impunity what before might have been risky. She had grown, and seemed altogether stronger, though she still looked more ethereal than Merle. That, however, was partly a matter of temperament. The months in Durracombe had been an immense delight to both girls. After the severe winters of Whinburn they had seemed like perpetual spring, and they called Devon "the Garden of Eden". To-day, as they went up the lanes towards the headland, there were many excitements. Bevis, who seemed to have a kind of second-sight for discovering birds' nests, found a hedge-sparrow's, a robin's, and a thrush's, full of eggs, and showed them where a tit-lark was beginning to build. Then they actually saw the first swallow, an early arrival which had come before thecuckoo, but whirled past with unmistakable forked tail and white breast. The primroses were a dream, and Mavis gathered a bunch of wild hyacinths and some purple ground ivy, and Merle thought she saw a snake, but was not perfectly sure about the matter. They were following a footpath which led through the field where the tumulus lay, on to the headland. When they reached the usual point where they had always passed through a gap in the hedge to get down to the tiny quarry they found their way barred. A strong fence had been erected, with prickly gorse placed upon the top of it. The girls halted in much dismay.
"Who's been stopping the path?" asked Merle blankly.
"Some of those keepers, I expect," answered Bevis. "They've no right to do it. It's been a public way for years and years. People come across the hill, and go along the headland, and down to the beach. They always have done, and they always will. There was a bother once before about a right of way through the woods, and Mr. Glyn Williams went to law about it, but he lost his case."
"What are we going to do now?"
"Take down the fence, that's all. It's easily done."
Bevis set calmly to work, and pulled away first the gorse, and then enough of the fence to enable his companions to scramble across. He laughed as he handed them over.
"Those keepers will be jolly vexed when they findtheir work spoilt, but it serves them right. They shouldn't try to stop a public footpath."
The girls had an uneasy remembrance that last Saturday Tudor had spoken of this very matter of a right of way along the headland, and had said that he had urged his father to dispute it. They had not mentioned to Tudor that they knew the spot, though they had guessed where it was from his description. They did not care for him to know about Blackthorn Bower, or the cups of rough pottery, and their picnics and talks about the prehistoric people. They felt instinctively that he would not understand or sympathize in the least, and would only sneer at it all as nonsense. They did not say anything about Tudor to Bevis now, because the subject always seemed a sore one, and their friend was in such a particularly jolly mood that they did not want to bring the cloud that sometimes settled over his face. They took his word for it that they were not trespassing but pursuing a perfectly legitimate path, and climbed down the bank to the little quarry.
Here a horrible surprise awaited them. Their beautiful bower, put up with so much skill and trouble, had been completely pulled to pieces. The staves of its roof were stacked in a pile, and the sods had been thrown down the cliff. For a ghastly moment they stared as if hardly able to believe the evidence of their own eyes. Then their indignation found vent.
"What an abominable shame!" exploded Merle.
"Oh, it'stoobad! Ourlovelyhut!" quavered Mavis, practically in tears.
Bevis said nothing. He gazed round the ruin, then stooped and picked something up from the ground. It was a fragment of the blue pottery cup smashed to atoms. He looked at it with somewhat the same consternation with which a hedge-sparrow might regard her torn and robbed nest and broken eggs.
"I'll make somebody pay for this!" he muttered.
The girls were still exclaiming in much wrath and annoyance. At first they were so busy bemoaning the hut that they never heard sounds on the bank behind, then becoming aware of voices they walked out from the quarry to find Tudor, and two of the keepers standing by the fence.
"Hello!" cried Tudor, springing down and greeting them joyously.
But at that moment Bevis stepped from the ruins of Blackthorn Bower and faced him.
"Is this your doing?" he asked abruptly.
The two boys glared at one another with looks that suggested clashing of steel.
"Certainly it's by my orders," returned Tudor in his most lofty and insolent tone. "What business had you building a hut on my property? A regular squatter! I won't have you fellows from the village coming poaching up here. I'll throw every rabbit trap I find down the cliffs, so I give you warning. I could prosecute you for breaking down that fence."
"Oh, Tudor! Bevisdoesn'tpoach," interposed Merle.
"He built the hut forus," put in Mavis.
Unfortunately the girls' remarks only made matters worse.
"A nice fellow you are to take young ladies about!" continued Tudor tauntingly. "I wonder they'll condescend to walk with you. A nobody like you, who doesn't know where he comes from! You may fancy yourself no end——"
But here Bevis, whose dark face held a "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy" expression, sprang at him in an anger too deep and furious for words.
Both the boys were wrestlers. For one wild minute they held each other, and swayed to and fro as they struggled, while the girls shrieked in alarm, and the keepers, standing by the fence, gaped too utterly amazed to interfere. Then Bevis, by far the fitter and stronger of the two, gained the mastery, and seizing Tudor, flung him violently away. He fell, and rolled over and over nearly twenty feet down the side of the cliff. Then the keepers recovered from their frozen paralysis, and rushed to the rescue of their young employer.
Fortunately Tudor had landed upon a platform of rock, but he lay there quite quiet and still, and did not stir when the men carried him up. His eyes were closed, and his head hung loosely as they laid him down beside the ruined bower. One of them fetched water in a hat and bathed his temples, and the otherrubbed his hands. The girls looked on in pitiful distress. Bevis was still standing on the patch of grass that was the scene of their combat. He stared at Tudor's prostrate form with wild, horror-stricken eyes.
"I've murdered him," he gasped to Mavis and Merle. "It's murder! Yes, that's what it is! I'm going away, and you'll never see me any more! I'm not fit to say good-bye to you!"
And without another look he turned and began scrambling recklessly down the cliff, not following a path, but dropping anyhow over the rocks as if he did not care what happened to him. For a moment or two he was visible, and then he vanished.
After more water and vigorous rubbing Tudor at last revived and opened his eyes. He was stiff and much shaken, but there seemed no bones broken, and with the help of the two keepers he was able to walk home. Mavis and Merle fled back to Grimbal's Farm with the disastrous news. They poured out the story to Mrs. Penruddock as she was feeding the fowls. She dropped her pan of Indian corn on to the ground.
"There now! I always said it would come to that," she bemoaned. "Bevis flown at young Williams and run away. What will his father say? The lad's so hasty, and he flares up when he's roused. Don't you cry! You say there's not much harm done after all, and I dare say Bevis will come creeping back at dark when things are quiet. It's not the first time he's run off, and turned up again when he felt hungry."
"He said we'd never see him any more," sobbed Mavis, much upset by the whole affair.
"He'd say anything, but he doesn't mean it. I'm sorry it's happened because it will make fine trouble with The Warren, and we've trouble enough as it is, goodness knows! But I'm not afraid for Bevis. He'd never go off without fetching some of his things at any rate. He loses his temper and there's a flash, and then it's all over. I know Bevis! He'll come back all right, don't you fear!"
For once Mrs. Penruddock was mistaken in her calculations. Bevis did not come back. His supper waited in the oven, and his room over the kitchen was ready, but the potatoes were spoilt, and his bed was never slept in. Nobody in Chagmouth had seen anything of him, and all inquiries were in vain. Day after day passed without bringing news of the truant. When Mavis and Merle motored over with Dr. Tremayne on the following Saturday they found sad trouble at Grimbal's Farm.
"It's not like Bevis," proclaimed Mrs. Penruddock. "He's never treated us in this way before. To run off without a word when he'd know well enough we'd take his part even if there was a little trouble with The Warren. We thought he might have gone to his school, and we telegraphed to the headmaster, but they'd seen nothing of him. We're afraid the silly lad must have tramped to Port Sennen, and got on some vessel there. If that's so goodness knows where he may be by now, or when we shall have a letter from him. If we could only be sure he was all right weshouldn't mind so much. It's this waiting that wears one out. Young folks don't think of all it means to their elders when they do these things. I can't sleep at nights for worrying. The place doesn't seem the same without Bevis. Such a good lad he's always been too."
Mrs. Penruddock's pleasant face looked quite puckered, and there was a choke in her voice which she had to cough away. She was busier than usual, and hurried off into the dairy to serve customers who came for their Saturday portions of scalded cream. (Chagmouth people could not eat their Sunday tea without jam and cream on their bread.) She missed her foster-son's help with the poultry, and in many other matters. He had never shirked work on the farm, and had always been ready to lend a strong hand when she needed it.
Mavis and Merle, strolling round the stackyard, agreed with her. The place was certainly not the same without Bevis. It seemed very slack and slow indeed now he was gone. To kill time before lunch, while Dr. Tremayne saw his patients in the surgery, the girls took a walk down the town towards the beach. Midway in the quaint steep street there was a spot railed off where people could sit on benches and look out over the sea. It was a favourite lounge, and two or three old fishermen were generally there discussing catches and tides, or the village invalids were sunning themselves and collecting local news. In the middle stood a flagstaff where the Union Jack was kept flying.To-day as the Ramsays passed this observation point they noticed that the flag was at half-mast.
"I wonder what's the matter?" said Merle.
"I don't know. Somebody dead, I suppose, and we haven't heard yet. I hope it's not the King! Shall I ask?"
"Yes, do. Ask that old man!"
"Oh, I daren't! You do!"
Merle, having more courage with strangers, made the necessary inquiry. The blue-jerseyed individual whom she addressed pulled his pipe from his mouth and grunted a reply:
"It's General Talland as is gone. There was a telegram come this morning from the West Indies. He was only sixty-one. He ought to a' been good for another ten year or more."
"They do say the climate is awful over there," chimed one of the loungers, quite willing to discuss the event.
"Ay! He should a' stayed in his native air!"
Other listeners had strolled up and began to give their opinions.
"I don't hold with foreign parts myself."
"Not to live, though it's nice to see them."
"There's always fever about in those hot places."
"He'll be buried out there!"
"And his son was buried in India!"
"It seems as if the luck was against the family."
"Mr. Glyn Williams will be for buying the property now!"
"If he can get hold of it."
"It's what he's been after ever since he came here."
"Well, I suppose he'd make a better landlord than some."
Mavis and Merle were not remarkably interested in General Talland, so they said "Thank you" for the information they had received, and walked down to the shore, where they amused themselves till it was time to return for lunch. When they got back to Grimbal's Farm, however, they found Mrs. Penruddock full of the news, which she had learnt from some of her customers.
"It seems trouble on trouble," she declared. "Everybody is saying that Mr. Glyn Williams will be sure to get hold of the estate now, and with our lease just falling in, and this business between Bevis and young Williams which they'll likely not forgive, we may be turned out of the farm for all I know. I came here when I was married twenty-five years ago, and Mr. Penruddock was born here. It would break our hearts to have to go anywhere else."
"Oh, I hope it won't be as bad as that!" said Mavis consolingly.
At lunch-time the girls told Uncle David about the matter.
"Will Mr. Glyn Williams really buy the property?" asked Mavis.
"I don't think he can," replied Dr. Tremayne; "the estate's entailed."
"What's 'entailed'?" said Merle, looking puzzled.
"It's a legal term, which means that a property cannot be sold, but must always pass to the next heir in the male line, so that the owner really only has a life interest in it."
"And who is the heir then?"
"A distant cousin of General Talland's, Mr. George Talland, a most unsuitable man from all accounts. I believe he spends most of his time gaming at Monte Carlo. Very probably he will make the same arrangement as before with Mr. Glyn Williams, and will let him the The Warren and the shooting. There's a possibility, though, that Mr. George Talland and his son might 'cut the entail'. If owner and heir both agree to sell a property they can legally do so, and they might care to have the ready money and settle up their debts rather than only the income of the estate."
"Pity General Talland hadn't a son to leave it to."
"Yes, poor Austin. He died in India. It must be fifteen years ago now. There was a persistent rumour at the time that he'd been privately married out there, and had a son of his own, but no wife and child ever turned up to claim his heritage, which they would most certainly have done if they had existed. It was all gossip and hearsay. People love to invent these stories, but when you come to sift them there's no truth in them. I'm sorry the estate will go to the George Tallands. The son—also a George—has six daughters, but no son, so the male line comes to anend in that direction. That's why I fancy they may cut the entail—to get a little money for the girls. It seems a sad pity for an old family to die out absolutely. There have been Tallands at Chagmouth from time immemorial. After the younger George goes, the name will become quite extinct. Many of the old Devon families have died away like that for want of heirs."
The troubles of the Tallands seemed to Mavis and Merle quite a minor business, however, compared with the overwhelming misfortune of Bevis's running away. They did not quite know what to do with themselves after lunch. They would have gone with Uncle David to the Sanatorium, but he wished to drive a patient up there, and had no room for them in the car. They might of course have gone to The Warren, where they had a general invitation to play tennis, but they hesitated, partly because they felt a delicacy in going without being definitely asked and certain of welcome, and partly because after what had happened the week before they were not very keen to meet Tudor. They could not forget the way he had taunted Bevis, and they had not yet forgiven him for it.
"Gwen would be sure to say something nasty about last Saturday," ventured Merle, who had carefully avoided the Williamses at school on French days.
"I vote we go a walk by ourselves," decided Mavis.
So they set off, and instinctively their steps turned in the direction of their dismantled bower. They did not, however, choose the upper road to it, which wouldhave led them over the forbidden fence, but went the same way as on their first visit, taking the footpath among the woods. Spring had come since they were there before, and had brought out the leaves, so that the sea was seen through a screen of greenery. The primroses were nearly over, but hyacinths were opening like a blue cloud, and great purple orchises were shooting up. In clumps at the edges of the cliff bloomed the pink thrift and white sea-campion, and patches of the yellow lady's-fingers. Merle thought she heard the cuckoo, though Mavis was certain it was only a little boy who was anticipating the well-known call. They lingered and loitered for a long time in the wood, picking flowers and hunting about for birds' nests, and wishing Bevis were there to find them for them. At last they left the trees behind, and coming out on to the headland reached the grassy plateau that jutted out from the sloping cliff.
The cave looked very dark and particularly "spooky" to-day. Merle peeped timorously inside, and turned away shuddering. Mavis, more deeply interested, ventured farther. She had neither matches nor candle, and could only trust to the faint twilight that reigned within. It seemed to her as if in a dark corner a heap of something was lying. She did not think it had been there on their former visit. Wild thoughts of smugglers and contraband goods flashed into her mind. Were there smugglers nowadays? Was it a bale of silk or a case of champagne that was being stored there for safety? With rather a flutteringfeeling she crept nearer. It was no case of wine or bale of silk; in the darkness it looked more like a tumbled bundle of clothing. What could it be? She was frightened, and almost turned to go; but some attraction greater far than curiosity seemed to draw her on. She was quite close to it now. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light, and she could just distinguish the sleeping figure of a boy, covered with a mackintosh coat.
"Bevis!" she whispered. "Oh, Bevis!"
He roused at her voice, and sprang to his feet with a cry, turning to her such a white, haunted face that she scarcely knew him. Merle ran forward from the entrance, and seeing both the girls he came slowly towards them.
"It's you, is it?" he said. "Have you brought the police with you?"
"Police! Why no, Bevis, of course not!"
"Why should we?"
He put his hand wearily to his head. His face was very pale, and his eyes were bright and big with dark rings round them.
"No, you wouldn't bring them, I know, but they'll come all the same! I'm wanted. Wanted by the police. They're after me!"
"Oh, Bevis, don't talk like this! No police want you. Why don't you go home?"
"Go home! Go to Chagmouth! His ghost would stop me! Tell me, where have they buried him?"
"Buried whom?"
"Why, Tudor Williams of course—the poor boy that I murdered."
"But Tudor's all right. He wasn't really much hurt. He walked home."
Bevis stared searchingly at Mavis, then shook his head.
"Iknowhe's dead. It's no use telling me he isn't. I murdered him. Haven't I heard the bell tolling for his funeral? It never stops. I tell you it never stops. I hear it night and day, and I feel like Cain!"
The girls glanced at one another. Bevis was plainly very ill. He looked ghastly, and his knees trembled so greatly that he had to lean against the wall of the cave.
"Where have you been all this week?" Mavis asked him.
"I don't know. Here mostly, I think. I thought I'd walk to Port Sennen and try to get on board a ship, but somehow I feel weak. Perhaps I could get off to-night if I tried."
"Come home, Bevis," persuaded Merle.
But he sank down again on to the bed of leaves which he had made, and drew the mackintosh coat over him.
"It's so cold," he shivered. "First I'm burning hot and then I'm cold. It's the curse of Cain!"
Mavis took Merle's arm, and drew her outside the cave.
"He's in a high fever, and simply raving," she whispered. "He's not fit to walk home even if wecould get him to try. You go back to the farm and tell Mrs. Penruddock, and I'll stay here. We mustn't both leave him or he might wander off somewhere on to the cliffs. Be as quick as you can."
"I shall run all the way," declared Merle. "Oh, thepoorboy. Think of staying here by himself the whole week."
Mavis went back into the cave, and kneeling down by Bevis tried to soothe him. She had been ill so often herself that she could sympathize as he shuddered and shivered. His hands were burning hot, and his great dark eyes shone like fires in his white face. She told him over and over again that Tudor was safe; but he scarcely seemed to understand, and kept moaning that he had murdered him.
"I'm not fit for any one to speak to. It's the curse of Cain," he repeated.
Meantime Merle, who was swift of foot and had won many long-distance races at school sports, flew back to Chagmouth with record speed, and carried her news to Grimbal's Farm. Mrs. Penruddock was in the kitchen. She ran at once and called her husband from where he was working in the orchard.
"I'll put the horse in the trap," he said briefly. "We'll go by the upper road, and then slip across the fields to the cave. Best take his overcoat and a rug."
Merle went with them, not that she could be of any special use, but because she simply could not stop behind, and after all she was able to render a service, for she held the horse while Mr. and Mrs. Penruddockhurried down the fields to the cave. They came back after a short time half-carrying Bevis along, with Mavis, looking extremely grave, walking beside them. They lifted him into the trap, and drove him home, meeting Dr. Tremayne on the very doorstep.
The Doctor shook his head when he heard of the nights in the damp cave.
"Get him to bed, and we'll do our best," was his verdict. "He has youth and strength on his side at any rate. Please God we'll pull him round again. I've seen people worse than he is, Mrs. Penruddock, so keep your heart up. While there's life there's hope, remember. That's a proverb I always tell my patients, and one of the best that was ever invented."
"I know, Doctor," gulped poor Mrs. Penruddock. "I know if anybody can pull him through, you will. But it's hard to see him looking like this all the same—Bevis, who's hardly had a day's illness in his life before."
All the next week Bevis lay desperately ill, and in the gravest danger. Every morning Dr. Tremayne motored over to Grimbal's Farm to see him, and arrived back with the same unsatisfactory report. Mavis and Merle, who waited anxiously for the daily bulletin, would run in from school at lunch-time hoping for better news. When Saturday came round again they begged to be allowed to go to Chagmouth as usual.
"We wouldn't be a scrap of bother to Mrs. Penruddock," said Mavis. "If Jessop may give us some lunch we could eat it on the cliffs or in the woods."
"That's a great idea," declared Uncle David. "I'll do the same to-day. Jessop shall make us up a lunch basket, and we'll all have a picnic meal together somewhere before I go up to the Sanatorium. It will certainly save them trouble at the farm. Mrs. Penruddock won't want to do any cooking for us, I'm sure, when she's so busy nursing."
As they motored along towards Chagmouth, the girls felt strongly, what had sometimes struck them before, that it was good to belong to a Doctor's family, and to be taking skilled help where it was so greatlyneeded. They had the utmost confidence in Uncle David, and knew that he would give every service that human aid could render or his long experience could suggest. He came down that morning from his patient's room with no better report:
"He's still very ill. I can't get his temperature down. But I'm trying different treatment, and we must see what that will do. I'm glad I shall be about the place to-day. They know where to find me if they want me."
Dr. Tremayne went into his surgery to attend to the string of other patients who were waiting for him, and Mavis and Merle sat in the little front garden, on the green bench under the fuchsia tree outside the French window. They had not the heart to go for a walk. Mrs. Penruddock, kind as usual, but overwhelmed with trouble, had greeted them, and taken them upstairs for one brief peep at the invalid. They had not gone inside the room, but from the doorway they had seen Bevis lying in bed with ice on his head, so thin and changed and hollow-eyed, that he scarcely looked like their old friend. As they sat in the garden, talking in undertones, the gate clicked, and Tudor Williams came up the path to the door—such a subdued Tudor, without any of his former jauntiness and gay flippancy of manner. When he saw the girls he crossed the grass and shook hands with them.
"I've come to ask about the poor chap," he said quietly. "Mother sent down a message to Dr. Tremayne to say that if there's anything we can dowe'll be very glad. We'd send Jones for ice or anything of that sort, you know. He'd take out the car directly and get what was wanted."
"Thanks very much, we'll tell Uncle David. Oh, there's Mrs. Penruddock! Perhaps you'd better speak to her and give her the message. There might be something wanted at once."
Mrs. Penruddock had come into the parlour, and now walked to the French window to meet Tudor, who inquired about Bevis, and explained his errand. She mopped her eyes as she thanked him.
"I'm sure people have all been so kind," she gulped. "Everything that can be done has been done. But there he lies rolling his head on his pillow, and talking for ever about the 'curse of Cain'. He can't get it out of his mind but what he's murdered you. It seems no use telling him. He just listens, and goes on again how he knows you're lying dead on the cliff. I wonder if he saw you if it would put that right? Could I ask you to step up to his bedroom for a minute, and let him have a look at you, and see for himself that you're alive?"
"Oh, may I?" said Tudor, passing through the French window into the parlour, and following Mrs. Penruddock upstairs.
He came down again after perhaps five minutes, and, big manly boy though he was, his eyes were red, and his voice was choking.
"I'd no idea the poor chap was in such a state," he burst out to Mavis and Merle. "It's awful to seehim with his hollow eyes and his white hands. He asked me to forgive him! Forgive him! It's I who ought to ask for forgiveness. It was all my fault! Mine entirely! I was an utter vulgar brute and beast! I never thought—" But seeing somebody coming to the gate, and boy-like not wanting to give an exhibition of his feelings, Tudor bolted back into the parlour, and going out by the side door into the stackyard, crossed the orchard, and went home over the fields to The Warren.
Mavis and Merle were rather glad that they were not having lunch to-day at the farm. Mrs. Penruddock was busy and upset, and though many neighbours had come in to help her, nobody seemed to know exactly what to do, and they sat in the kitchen talking and shaking their heads.
"Just like a set of old crows. As if that could do Bevis any good!" exclaimed Mavis rather impatiently.
"They're telling each other all sorts of tales about early deaths and funerals. Nice cheerful kind of conversation for a sick-house," agreed Merle.
Of course as they were in a hurry to get away, Dr. Tremayne had more patients than usual, and was detained a long time in the surgery. They waited for him in the garden, where the lilac bush under Bevis's window was already breaking into blossom, and swallows were darting past. To-morrow would be Palm Sunday, and next week was Easter week, and Father and Mother would be coming down to Durracombefor a brief holiday. It was three months since they had seen them, and to-day, in the midst of all the sadness around them, the girls felt rather home-sick, and were longing for a peep at their "ain folk".
"Are they going to take us back with them to Whinburn?" speculated Merle.
"I don't know! I've asked Mother in almost every letter, and she's not answered my question."
"I'm torn in two!"
"So am I. I want Dad and Mother, and yet I don't want to leave dear Devonshire."
"Or Uncle David?"
"No. I've got real right-down fond of Uncle David. He's a darling! There's nobody else in the world exactly like him."
Dr. Tremayne worked through his list of waiting patients at last, and went round to the stackyard to fetch his car. Mavis and Merle jumped joyfully in, and they drove away up the hill. They went in the opposite direction to the Sanatorium because the Doctor had a visit to pay at a farm, and he wished to combine with it a call on Mrs. Jarvis, whose cottage would be close by his destination. The manager of Trotman's Circus had sent some few possessions which had belonged to her son Jerry, and they had brought the parcel with them in the car.
"We'll have our lunch first," decreed Uncle David, "then we'll go and see the poor old body afterwards. I want something to eat before I interview any more patients."
They chose a quiet spot at the edge of a wood, and drawing up the car on a patch of grass by the roadside, they took their basket among the trees and spread forth their picnic. Jessop had provided handsomely for them, and they immensely enjoyed the meal in the open air.
"If I'd only time, I'd go skirmishing all over Devonshire. It's my ideal of a holiday, to motor just where you like, and not have to think of your surgery," admitted Dr. Tremayne, throwing pine cones at the girls, and behaving quite boyishly in spite of his sixty-five years.
"Can't Daddy take surgery for you while he's over and give you a rest?" suggested Merle. "I'm sure he'd help if he could."
"It's rather a brain wave. Perhaps he might," said Dr. Tremayne thoughtfully. "I'm growing a little tired of being perpetually in harness. When a man gets to my age he begins to crave for some leisure. I've been trying for the last three years to write a book on 'The Treatment of Tuberculosis', but I can't find the time to do it. Directly I begin somebody rings up and wants me to go and see them."
"I should smash the horrid old telephone and then they couldn't ring you up," laughed Merle.
"That's all right, little Pussie, but they'd send a messenger to fetch me instead, so it would come to just the same thing in the end."
"Why do doctors always go?"
"Because people can't do without us, I suppose.Of course we don't make unnecessary journeys, but when a case is serious we turn out whatever the weather or however late it is."
"I know; that's what Daddy always says," put in Mavis. "He comes in tired to death, and goes out again in a snowstorm because the case is serious. I think doctors are just the best and kindest men in all the world."
They were quite sorry to leave the wood and go back to the car, but time was creeping on fast. Dr. Tremayne paid his visit at Clavedon Farm, then drove on to Mrs. Jarvis's cottage, which was close by. The girls took the parcel between them, and they all three walked together up the little garden to the open door. They found Mrs. Jarvis sitting in her kitchen with a neighbour to keep her company. Since the death of her son the postwoman had failed greatly, and for the last week she had not undertaken her duties in connection with the pillar-box. To-day she seemed hysterical and excited. She sprang up at the sight of Dr. Tremayne, and began a loud complaint of pains in her head, mixed up with lamentations on the death of General Talland.
"She's been like this all the week, Doctor," explained the neighbour. "She's not fit to be left alone. Ever since she heard the news about General Talland, she's been going on with this wild talk. We take no notice of her. He's nothing to her. It's just one of those queer fancies she gets sometimes. She'll perhaps calm down again."