"'Twas here where the urchins would gather to play,In the shadows of twilight or sunny midday."
"'Twas here where the urchins would gather to play,In the shadows of twilight or sunny midday."
"'Twas here where the urchins would gather to play,In the shadows of twilight or sunny midday."
ISOBEL found hernamesake waiting for her on the beach next morning.
"I thought you'd be coming out soon," announced Belle, "so I just stopped about till I saw you. We're all starting off to play cricket again on the common down under the cliffs, and I want you to go with us. I've takensucha fancy to you! I told mother I had, and she laughed and said it wouldn't last long; but Iknowit will. I feel as if you were going to be my bosom friend. You'll come, won't you?"
"Of course I will," replied Isobel, accepting the offered friendship with rapture. "Mother told me to do what I liked this morning."
"Let us be quick, then. The others have run on in front, but we'll soon catch them up."
"Are you going to the same place where you were playing yesterday?" asked Isobel.
"Yes; we call it our club ground. We mean to have matches there almost every day. It'll be ever such fun. You see there are several families of us staying at Silversands that all know one another, so we've joined ourselves together in a club. We call it 'The United Sea Urchins' Recreation Society,' and it's not to be only for cricket, because we mean to play rounders and hockey as well, and to go out boating, and have shrimping parties on the sands. We arranged it last night after tea. There are just twenty of us, if you count the Wrights' baby, so that makes quite enough to get up all sorts of games. Hugh Rokeby's the president, and Charlie Chester's secretary, and Charlotte Wright's treasurer. We each pay twopence a week subscription, and at the end of the holiday we're going to have what the boys call a 'regular blow-out' with the funds—ginger beer, you know, and cakes, and ices if we can afford it. I wanted to make the subscription sixpence, but Letty Rokeby said the little ones couldn't give so much. I'll ask them to elect you a member. You'd like to join, wouldn't you?"
"Immensely. But I haven't any money with me now."
"Oh, never mind! You can give it to Charlotte afterwards. Here we are. I expect they're all waiting. I see they've put the stumps up. You don't know anybody except me, do you? I'll soon tell you their names."
The party of children who were assembled upon the green patch of common certainly appeared to be a very jolly one. First there were the Rokebys, a large and tempestuous family of seven, who were staying at a farm on the cliffs by the wood.
"A thoroughly healthy place," as Mrs. Rokeby often remarked, "with a good water supply, and no danger of catching anything infectious. We've really been so unfortunate. Hugh and Letty took scarlet fever at the lodgings in Llandudno last year, and I had the most dreadful time nursing them; Winnie and Arnold had mumps at Scarborough the year before; and the three youngest were laid up with German measles at Easter in the Isle of Man; so it has made me quite nervous."
Just at present the Rokebys did not seem in danger of contracting anything more serious than colds or sprained ankles, for a more reckless crew in the way of falling into wet pools, climbing slippery rocks, or generally endangering their lives and limbs could not be imagined. It was in vain that poor Mrs. Rokebydried their boots and brushed their clothes, and implored them to keep away from perilous spots; they were full of repentance, and would vow amendment with the most warm-hearted of hugs, but in half an hour they had forgotten all their promises, and would be racing over the rocks again as wet and jolly as ever.
"I really do my best to keep them tidy," sighed Mrs. Rokeby pathetically to Mrs. Barrington. "Their father grumbles horribly at the bills, but they seem to wear their clothes out as fast as I buy them. Bertie's new Norfolk suit is shabby already, and Winnie's Sunday frock isn't fit to be seen. As to their boots, I sometimes think I shall have to let them go bare-foot. Other people's children don't seem to give half the trouble that mine do. Look at them now—dragging Lulu down the sands, when I told them she mustn't get overheated on any account! The doctor said we were to be so careful of her, and keep her quiet; but it seems no use—shewillrun after the others. Oh dear! I can't allow them to turn her head over heels like that!"
And Mrs. Rokeby flew to the rescue of her delicate youngest, administering a vigorous scolding to the elder ones, which apparently made as little impression upon them as water on a duck's back. The untidyappearance and unruly behaviour of her undisciplined flock were really a trial to Mrs. Rokeby, since they generally managed to compare unfavourably with the Wrights, a stolid and matter-of-fact family who were staying in rooms near the station.
"You never see Charlotte Wright with her dress torn to ribbons, or her hair in her eyes," she would remonstrate with Letty and Winnie. "Both she and Aggie can wear their sailor blouses for three days, while yours aren't fit to be seen at the end of a morning."
"The Wrights are so stupid," replied Winnie, "you can hardly get them to have any fun at all. They spend nearly the whole time with that mademoiselle they've brought with them. They're so proud of her, they do nothing but let off French remarks just to try to impress us. She's only a holiday governess too—they don't have her when they're at home—so there's no need for them to give themselves such airs about it. I believe their French isn't anything much either, they put in so many English words."
"Arthur Wright actually brings his books down on to the shore," said Letty, "and does Greek and Euclid half the morning. He says he's working for a scholarship. You wouldn't catch Hugh or Cecil at that."
"I'm afraid I shouldn't," sighed Mrs. Rokeby. "To judge from their bad reports at school, it seems difficult enough to get them to learn anything in term time. As for mademoiselle, you might take the opportunity to talk to her a little, and improve your own French."
"No, thank you!" said Winnie, pulling a wry face. "No holiday lessons for me. I loathe French, and I never can understand a single word that mademoiselle says, so it's no use. If the Wrights like to sit on the sand and 'parlez-vous,' they may. They're so fat, they can't rush about like we do. That's why they keep so tidy. Charlotte's waist is exactly twice as big as mine—we measured them yesterday with a piece of string—and Aggie's cheeks are as round as puddings. You should see how they all pant when they play cricket. They scarcely get any runs."
"And they really eat far more even than we do, mother," said Letty. "Aggie had five buns on the shore yesterday, and Eric took sixteen biscuits. I know he did, for we counted them, and he nearly emptied the box."
"The Chesters are five times as jolly," declared Winnie. "Both Charlie and Hilda went out shrimping with us this morning, and got sopping wet, butthey didn't mind in the least, and Mrs. Chester only laughed when they went back. She said sea water didn't hurt. She's far nicer than Mrs. Barrington. I wouldn't be Ruth Barrington for all the world. She and Edna never have any breakfast, and they're made to do the queerest things."
The unlucky little Barringtons were possessed of parents who clung to theories which they themselves described as "wholesome ideas," and their friends denounced as "absurd cranks." Many and various were the experiments which they tried upon their children's health and education, sometimes with rather disastrous results. Being at present enthusiastic members of a "No Breakfast League," which held that two meals a day were amply sufficient for the requirements of any rational human being, they had limited their family repasts to luncheon and supper, at which only vegetarian dishes were permitted to appear; and the poor children, hungry with sea air and with running about on the sands, who would have enjoyed an unstinted supply of butcher's meat and bread and butter, were carefully dieted on plasmon, prepared nuts, and many patent foods, which their mother measured out in exact portions, keeping a careful record in her diary of the amount they were allowed to consume, and taking the pair to be weighedevery week upon the automatic machine at the railway station. Their costumes consisted of plain blue over-all pinafores and sandals, and they wore neither hats nor stockings.
"It's all right for the seaside," grumbled Ruth to her intimate friends, "because we can go into the water without minding getting into a mess; but we have to wear exactly the same in town, and it's horrible. You can't think how every one stares at as, just as if we were a show. Sometimes ladies stop us, and ask our governess if we've lost our hats, and hadn't she better tie our handkerchiefs over our heads? We shouldn't dare to go out alone even if we were allowed, we look so queer. We went once to the post by ourselves, and some rude boys chased us all the way, calling out 'Bare-legs!' It's dreadfully cold in winter, too, without stockings, and when it rains our heads get wet through, and we have to be dried with towels when we come in again. I wonder why we can't be dressed like other people. I wish I had Belle Stuart's clothes; they're perfectly lovely!"
Ruth's rather pathetic little face always bore the injured expression of one who cherishes a grievance. She was a thin, pale child, who did not look as though she flourished upon her peculiar system of bringing up, which seemed to have the unfortunateeffect of completely spoiling her temper, and making her see life through an extremely blue pair of spectacles. This summer she certainly thought she had a just cause of complaint, since her two schoolboy brothers, instead of spending their holidays as usual at the seaside, had been dispatched on a walking-tour to Switzerland with a certain German professor, who, in accordance with the latest educational fad, was conducting a select little party of boys on an open-air pilgrimage, the main features of which seemed to be to walk bare-foot by day and to sleep in a kind of wigwam at night, which they erected out of alpenstocks and mackintoshes.
"It's too disgusting!" said Ruth dolefully. "Just when Edna and I had been looking forward all the term to the boys coming home, and making so many plans of what we would do and the fun we would have, some wretched person sent father a copy ofThe Educational Times, with a long account of this horrid walking-tour, and he said it was the exact thing for Clifford and Keith, and insisted upon arranging it at once. I think mother was really dreadfully disappointed. I believe she wanted to have them home as much as we did, because she said they ought to go to the dentist's, and she must look over their clothes, and she should like to give themsome phosphates tonic; but father said they could have their teeth attended to at Geneva, and she could send the tonic to the professor, and ask him to see that they took it. I know the boys will be furious; they hate taking medicine: they generally keep it in their mouths, and spit it out afterwards. They'll have to talk German all day long too, and they can't bear that. You've no idea how they detest languages. I had a picture post-card from Clifford yesterday, and he said his feet were horribly sore with walking bare-foot, and his tent blew away one night, and he was obliged to sleep in the open air."
No greater contrast could be found to the Barringtons than the Chester children. Charlie, the elder, a lively young pickle of twelve, was on terms of great intimacy with all the fishermen and sailor boys whose acquaintance he could cultivate, talking in a learned manner of main-sheets, fore-stays, jibs, gaffs, booms and bowsprits, and using every nautical term he could manage to pick up. He had a very good idea of rowing, and would often persuade the men to let him go out with them in their boats, taking his turn at an oar, much to their amusement, and setting log lines with the serious air of a practised hand. His jolly, friendly ways won him general favour, and he was allowed to make himself at home on many ofthe little fishing smacks, learning to hoist sails, to steer, and to cast nets, though sometimes a too inquiring mind led him to interfere on his own account in the navigation, with the result that he would be unceremoniously bundled back to shore again, with a warning to "keep out of this" in the future.
He was the envy of his eight-year-old sister Hilda, who would have liked to follow him through thick and thin, but the sailors drew the line at little girls, and would politely request "missy" to "returnhome to her ma," as there was no place for her "on this 'ere craft," much to her indignation. She consoled herself, however, by organizing the games of the younger Wrights and Rokebys, making wonderful sand harbours with their aid, and sailing a fleet of toy boats with as keen an enthusiasm as if they were real ones.
At the end of a morning on the common Isobel found herself on quite an intimate footing with the Wrights, the Rokebys, the Barringtons, and the Chesters, besides being a duly elected member of "The United Sea Urchins' Recreation Society."
"I've never had such fun in my life," she confided to her mother at dinner-time. "We played cricket, and then we went along the shore, because the tide was so low. I picked up the most beautiful screw shells, and razor shells, and fan shells you ever saw. I had to put them in my pocket handkerchief because I hadn't a basket with me. Bertie Rokeby got into a quicksand up to his knees, and Lulu sat down in the water in her clothes. You must come and see our club ground, mother, when you can walk so far. We have it quite to ourselves, for it's right behind the cliff, and none of the other visitors seem to have found it out yet; and if anybody else tries to take it, the boys say they mean to turn them off, because we got it first. They're all going to carry their tea there this afternoon, and light a fire of drift-wood to boil the kettle. So may I go too, and then we shall play cricket again in the evening?"
"I was a child, and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea."
"I was a child, and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea."
"I was a child, and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea."
BY the time Isobel had been a week at Silversands she had begun to feel as much at home there as the oldest inhabitant. She had won golden opinions from Mrs. Jackson at the lodgings, and had been invited by that worthy woman into the upper drawing-room during the temporary absence of its occupiers, and shown a most fascinating cabinet full of foreign shells, stuffed birds, corals, ivory bangles, sandal-wood boxes, and other curiosities brought home by a sailor son who made many voyages to the East.
"Don't you wish you could have gone with him and got all these things for yourself?" said Isobel ecstatically, when she had examined and admired every article separately, and heard its history.
"Nay," replied Mrs. Jackson, "I've never had no mind for shipboard, though my second cousin wasstewardess on a Channel steamer for a matter of fifteen year, and made a tidy sum out of it too. She could have got me taken on by the Anchor Line as runs to America if I'd have signed for two years. That was when my first husband died, and afore I married Jackson; but I felt I'd rather starve on dry land than take it, though it was good wages they offered, to say nothing of tips."
"Why, it would be glorious to go to America," said Isobel, sighing to think what her companion had missed. "You might have seen Red Indians, and wigwams, and medicine men, and 'robes of fur and belts of wampum,' like it talks of in 'Hiawatha.' Do you know 'Hiawatha'?"
"There were an old steamer of that name used to trade from Liverpool in hides and tallow when I were a girl, if that's the one you mean. I wonder she hasn't foundered afore now."
"Oh no!" cried Isobel hastily. "It isn't a steamer; it's a piece of poetry. I've just been reading it with mother, and it's most delightful. I could lend it to you if you like. We brought the book with us."
Mrs. Jackson's acquaintance with the muse, however, seemed to be limited to the hymns in church, and a hazy remembrance of certain pieces in herspelling book when a child, and being apparently unwilling to further cultivate her mind in that direction, she declined the offer on the score of lack of time.
"Not but what Jackson's fond of a bit of poetry now and again," she admitted. "He sings a good song or two when he's in the mood, and he do like readin' over the verses on the funeral cards. He pins them all up on the kitchen wall where he can get at them handy. What suits me more is something in the way of a romance—'Lady Gwendolen's Lovers,' or 'The Black Duke's Secret'—when I've time to take up a book, which isn't often, with three sets of lodgers in the house, and a girl as can't even remember how to make a bed properly, to say nothing of laying a table, and 'ull take the dining-room dinner up to the drawing-room."
The much-enduring Polly, though certainly not an accomplished waitress, was the most good-tempered of girls, and an invaluable ally in saving the treasured specimens of flowers or sea-weeds which Mrs. Jackson, in her praiseworthy efforts at tidiness, was continually clearing out, under the plea that she "hadn't imagined they could be wanted."
"She even threw away my mermaids' purses and the whelks' eggs that we found on the sand-bank,"said Isobel to her mother. "But Polly climbed into the ashpit and grubbed them up again. She washed them in a bucket of water, and they're quite nice now; so I shall put them in a box, to make sure they'll be safe. Polly's father is part owner of a schooner, and sometimes they fish up the most enormous fan shells. She says she'll ask him to give me a few when she's time to go home, but she hasn't had a night out for nearly three weeks, the season's been so busy."
"Perhaps old Biddy could get you some large fan shells," suggested Mrs. Stewart. "I believe they find them sometimes very far out on the beach when they're shrimping."
Biddy was a well-known character in Silversands. She was a lively old Irishwoman, with the strongest of brogues and the most beguiling of tongues. In a blue check apron, and with a red shawl tied over her head, she might be seen every morning wheeling her barrow down the parade, where her amusing powers of blarney, added to the freshness of her fish, secured her a large circle of customers among what she called "the quality." She had a wonderful memory for faces, and always recognized families who paid a second visit to the town.
"Why, it's niver Masther Charlie, sure?" she exclaimed with delight, on meeting the Chesters one day. "It's meself that knew the bright face of yez the moment I saw ut, though ye're growed such a foine young gintleman an' all. Ye was staying at No. 7 two years back with yer mamma—an illigant lady she was, too—and your sister, Miss Hilda, the swate little colleen. Holy saints! this must be herself and none other, for it's not twice ye'd see such a pair of eyes and forgit them."
What became of Biddy during the winter, when there were no visitors to buy her fish, was an unsolved mystery. "Sure, I makes what I can by the koindness of sthrangers during the summer toime!" she had replied when Isobel once sounded her on the subject. "There's many a one as gives me an extra penny or two, or says, 'Kape the change, Biddy Mulligan!' The Blessed Virgin reward them! Thank you kindly, marm," as Mrs. Stewart took the hint. "May your bed in heaven be aisy, and may ye niver lack a copper to give to them as needs it."
Besides Biddy, Isobel had a number of other acquaintances in Silversands. There was the coastguard at the cottage on the top of the cliffs, who sometimes allowed her to look through his telescope, and who had an interesting barometer in the shape of a shell-covered cottage with two doors, from one ofwhich a little soldier appeared when it was going to be fine, while a nautical-looking gentleman in a blue jacket came out to give warning of wet weather. Then there was the owner of the pleasure boats, who had promised to take her for a row entirely free of charge on the day before she was going home; and the bathing woman, who always tried to keep for her the van with the blue stripes and the brass hooks inside because she knew she liked it. The donkey boy had christened the special favourite with the new harness "herdonkey," and made it go with unwonted speed even on the outward journey (as a rule it galloped of its own accord when its nose was turned towards home); and the blind harpist by the railway station had waxed quite confidential on the subject of Scottish ballads, and had allowed her to try his instrument.
As for the members of the Sea Urchins' Club, she felt as if she had known them all her life, and the sayings and doings of the Chesters, the Rokebys, the Wrights, and the Barringtons occupied a large part of her conversation. Jolly as they were, none of them in Isobel's estimation could compare with Belle Stuart, who from the first had claimed her as her particular chum. The two managed to spend nearly the whole of every day together, sometimes incompany with the other children, or sometimes alone on the beach, hunting for shells and sea anemones, picking flowers, or just sitting talking in delicious idleness under the shade of a rock, listening to the dash of the waves and the screams of the sea gulls which were following the tide.
"I'm not generally allowed to make friends with any one whom we don't know at home," Belle had confided frankly. "But mother said you looked such a very nice lady-like little girl, she thought it wouldn't matter just for this once. I told her your father had been an officer, and she said of course that made a difference, but I really was to be careful, and not pick up odd acquaintances upon the beach, for she doesn't want me to talk to all sorts of people who aren't in our set of society, and might be very awkward to get rid of afterwards."
Isobel did not reply. She would never have dreamt of explaining that it was only due to her most urgent entreaties that she, on her part, had been allowed to pursue the friendship. Mrs. Stewart, from somewhat different motives, was quite as particular as Belle's mother about chance acquaintances, and had been a little doubtful as to whether she was acting wisely in allowing Isobel to spend so much of her time with companions of whom she knewnothing, and whether this new influence was such as she would altogether wish for her.
"But I can't keep her wrapped up in cotton wool," she thought. "She has been such a lonely child that it's only right and natural she should like to make friends of her own age, especially when I'm not able to go about with her. She'll have to face life some time, and the sooner she begins to be able to distinguish the wheat from the chaff so much the better. Thus far I've perhaps guarded her too carefully, and this is an excellent opportunity of throwing her on her own resources. I think I can trust her to stick to what she knows is right, and not be led astray by any silly notions. She'll soon discover that money and fine clothes don't represent the highest in life, and I believe it's best to let her find it out gradually for herself. She's like a little bird learning to fly; I've kept her long enough in the nest, and now I must stand aside and leave her to try her wings."
For the present, at any rate, Isobel could see no fault in her new friend. Belle had completely won her heart. Her charming looks; her fair, fluffy curls; her little, spoilt, coaxing ways; the clinging manner in which she seemed to depend upon others; her very helplessness and heedlessness; even the artless opennesswith which she sought for admiration—all appealed with an irresistible force to Isobel's stronger nature. If it ever struck her that her companion was lacking in some of those qualities which she had been taught to consider necessary, she thrust the thought away as a kind of disloyalty; and if it were she who generally carried the heavy basket, searched for the lost ball, fetched forgotten articles, or did any of the countless small services which Belle exacted almost as a matter of course from those around her, it certainly was without any idea of complaint. There are in this world always those who love and those who are loved, and Isobel was ready with spendthrift generosity to offer her utmost in the way of friendship, finding Belle's pretty thanks and kisses a sufficient reward for any trouble she might take on her account, and perhaps unconsciously realizing that even in our affections it is the givers more than the receivers who are the truly blessed. Belle, who usually found a brief and fleeting attraction in any new friend, was pleased with Isobel's devotion, and ready to be admired, petted, and waited on to any extent. I think, too, that, to do her justice, she was really an affectionate child, and at the time she was as fond of her friend as it was possible for her light little character to be. She would not have troubledto put herself out of the way for Isobel, and it would not have broken her heart to part with her, but she enjoyed her company, and easily gave her the first place among the dozen bosom friends each of whom she had taken up in turn and thrown aside.
One particular afternoon found the namesakes strolling arm in arm along the narrow sandy lane which led inland from the beach towards the woods and the hills behind. It was the most delightful lane, with high grassy banks covered with pink bindweed and tiny blue sheep's scabious, and bright masses of yellow bedstraw, and great clumps of mallows, with seed-vessels on them just like little cheeses, which you could gather and thread on pieces of cotton to make necklaces. There was a hedge at the top of the bank, too, where grew the beautiful twining briony, with its dark leaves and glossy berries; and long trails of bramble, where a few early blackberries could be discovered if you cared to reach for them; and down among the sand at the bottom of the ditch you might find an occasional horned poppy, or the curious flowers and glaucous prickly leaves of the sea holly. Isobel, on the strength of a new bright-green tin vasculum, purchased only that very morning at the toy-shop near the station, and slung over her shoulder in the style of a studentin a German picture-book, felt herself to be a full-fledged botanist, and rushed about in a very enthusiastic manner, scrambling up the banks after pink centaury, diving into the hedge bottom for campions, or getting her hair caught, like Absalom, in a prickly rose-bush in a valiant endeavour to secure a particularly fine clump of harebells which were nodding in the breeze on the stones of the old wall.
"They're perfectly lovely, aren't they?" she cried. "I've got fourteen different sorts of flowers already, and I'm sure some of them must be rare—anyway, I've never seen them before. I'm going to press them directly I get home. Do you think this stump will bear me if I climb up for that piece of briony?"
"I'm afraid it won't," said Belle, fastening some of the harebells in her dress (they matched her blue sash and hat ribbons). "It looks fearfully rotten. There! I told you it wouldn't hold," as Isobel descended with a crash. "And you're covered with sand and prickly burrs—such a mess!"
"Never mind," said Isobel, the state of whose clothing rarely distressed her. "They'll brush off. But I must have the briony. I'll climb up by the wall if you'll hold these hips for a moment."
"Oh, do come along—that's a darling!" entreated Belle. "I don't want to wait. They're only wildthings, after all. I wish you could see our garden at home, full of lovely geraniums and fuchsias and lobelias, and the orchids and gloxinias in the conservatory. They're really worth looking at. Carter, our gardener, takes tremendous pains with them, and he gets heaps of prizes at shows."
"But I like wild flowers best," said Isobel. "You can find them yourself in the hedges, and there are so many kinds. It's most exciting to hunt out their names in the botany book."
"Do you care for botany?" said Belle. "I have it with Miss Fairfax, and I think it's hateful—all about corollas, and stigmas, and panicles, and umbels, and stupid long words I can't either remember or understand."
"I haven't learnt any proper botany yet," said Isobel, "only just some of the easy part; but when we come into the country mother and I always hunt for wild flowers, and then we press them and paste them into a book, and write the names underneath. We have eighty-seven different sorts at home, and I've found sixteen new ones since I came here, so I think that's rather good, considering we've only been at Silversands a week. How hot it is in this lane! Suppose we go round by the station and up the cliffs."
The little lane with its high banks was certainly the most baking spot they could have chosen for a walk on a blazing August afternoon. The sun poured down with a steady glare, till the air seemed to quiver with the heat, and the only things which really enjoyed themselves were the grasshoppers, whose cheery chirpings kept up a perpetual concert. In the fields on either side the reapers had been busy, and tired-looking harvesters were hard at work binding the yellow corn and the scarlet poppies into sheaves. Little groups of mothers and children and babies had come to help or look on, as the case might be, and brought with them cans of tea and checked handkerchiefs full of bread and butter.
"Don't they look jolly?" said Isobel, peeping over the hedge to watch a family who were picnicking among the stooks, the father in a broad-brimmed rush hat, his corduroy trousers tied up with wisps of straw, wiping his hot forehead on his shirt sleeves; the mother putting the baby to roll on the corn, while she poured the tea into blue mugs; and the children, as brown as gypsies, sitting round in a circle eating slices of bread, and evidently enjoying the fun of the thing.
"Ye-e-s," said Belle, somewhat doubtfully, "I suppose they do. Are you fond of poor people?"
"I like going with mother when she's district-visiting, because the women often let me nurse the babies. Some of them are so sweet they'll come to me and not be shy at all."
"Aren't they rather dirty?"
"No, not most of them. A few are beautifully clean. Mother says she expects they know which day we're coming, and wash them on purpose."
"Babies are all very well when they're nicely dressed in white frocks and lace and corals," remarked Belle, "so long as they don't pull your hair and scratch your face."
"One day," continued Isobel, "we went to thecrèche—that's a place where poor people's children are taken care of during the day while their mothers are out working. There were forty little babies in cots round a large room—suchpets; and so happy, not one of them was crying. The nurse said they generally howl for a day or two after they're first brought in, and then they get used to it and don't bother any more. You see it wouldn't do to take up every single baby each time it began to cry."
"I wish you'd tell that to the Wrights; they give that 'Popsie' of theirs whatever she shrieks for. She's a nasty, spoilt little thing. Yesterday she caught hold of my pearl locket, and tugged it sohard she nearly strangled me, and broke the chain; and the locket fell into a pool, and I couldn't find it, though I hunted for half an hour. The nurse only babbled on, 'Poor pet! didn't she get the pretty locket, then?' I felt so cross I wanted to smack both her and the baby."
"And haven't you found the locket yet?"
"No, and I never shall now; it's been high tide since then."
"What a shame! I should have felt dreadfully angry. I don't like the Wrights' nurse either. She borrowed my new white basket, and then let the children have it; and they picked blackberries into it, and stained it horribly. Why, there's Aggie Wright now, with the Rokebys. Whatarethey doing? They're hanging over that gate in the most peculiar manner. Let us go and see."
"We saw the great ocean ablaze in the sun,And heard the deep roar of the waves."
"We saw the great ocean ablaze in the sun,And heard the deep roar of the waves."
"We saw the great ocean ablaze in the sun,And heard the deep roar of the waves."
THE gate in question proved to be the level crossing, which had just been closed by the man from the signal-box to allow a train to pass through. Charlotte and Aggie Wright and five of the Rokebys were all standing upon the bars, hanging over the top rail and gazing at the metals with such deep and intense interest that you would have thought they expected a railway accident at the very least, and were looking out for the smash.
"Whatisthe matter?" cried Belle and Isobel, racing up to share in whatever excitement might be on hand. "Do you see anything? Is it a cow on the line?"
"No," said Bertie Rokeby, balancing himself rather insecurely upon the gate post; "we're only waiting for the train to pass. We've put pennies on the rail,and the wheels going over them will flatten them out till they're nearly twice as big. You'd hardly believe what a difference it makes. Would you like to try one? I'd just have time to climb down and put it on before the train comes up. I will in a minute, if you say the word."
"I haven't a penny with me, I'm afraid," answered Isobel, rummaging in her pockets, and turning out several interesting pebbles, a few shells, a mermaid's purse, and the remains of a spider crab. "Stop a moment! No, it's only a button after all, and a horn one, too, that would be smashed to smithereens. If it had been a metal one I'd have tried it."
"I've nothing but a halfpenny," said Belle. "It's all I possess in the world till to-morrow, when I get my pocket-money. But do put it on, Bertie; it would be fun to see how large it makes it."
Bertie climbed over the gate and popped the coin with the others on the rail, much to the agitation of the pointsman, who ran in great anger from the signal-box, shouting to him to get off the line, for the train was coming. He was barely in time, for in another moment the express came whirling by with such a roar and a rattle, and making such a blast of wind as it went, that the children had to shut their eyes and cling on tightly.
"You'll get into trouble here if you get over them bars when I've shut 'em," grunted the pointsman surlily, opening the gates to admit a waiting cart from the other side. "I'll take your name next time as you tries it on, and report you to the inspector, and you'll get charged with trespassing on the company's property."
"Oh, bother!" cried Bertie; "I wasn't doing any harm. I can take jolly good care of myself, so don't you worry about me." And he rushed impatiently after the others, who were already picking up their pennies from the rail.
"It's crushed them ever so flat!" exclaimed Aggie Wright, triumphantly holding up a dinted copper which seemed to be several sizes too large.
"You can scarcely see which is heads and which is tails," said Arnold Rokeby.
"Just look at my halfpenny," said Belle; "it's twice as big as it was before."
"Why, so it is! Any one would take it for a penny if they didn't look at it closely. Come along. They want to shut the gates again for a luggage train, and we shall have to clear out. We're all going to the Pixies' Steps. Are you two coming with us?"
"No, I think not," replied Belle. "It's too hotto walk so far. Isobel and I just want to stroll about."
"Then good-bye. We're off.—Come along, Cecil. For goodness' sake don't go grubbing in the hedge now after caterpillars. Even if itisa woolly bear, you'll find plenty more another day.—Here, Arnold, you young monkey, give me my cap." And the Rokebys tore away up the road with a characteristic energy that even the blazing August heat could not quench.
"If we go behind Hunt's farm," said Isobel, "we can turn up the path to the churchyard, and get on to the cliffs just over the quay. It's a short cut, and much nicer than the road."
So they crossed the line again by the footbridge, passing the station, where the porter, overcome with the heat, was having a comfortable snooze on his hand-barrow; then, facing towards the sea, they climbed the steep track which zigzagged up the face of the cliff to the old church. The door was open, and the children stole inside for a minute and stood quietly gazing round the nave. It was cool and shady there, with the rich glow from the stained-glass windows falling in checkered rays of blue and crimson and orange upon the twisted pillars and the carved oak pews. The choir was practising in the chancel, andas they sang, the sun, slanting through the diamond panes of the south transept, made a very halo of glory round the head of the ancient, time-worn monument of St. Alcuin, the Saxon abbot, below. Crosier and mitre had long ago been chipped away by the ruthless hands of Cromwell's soldiers, but they had spared the face, and the light shone full on the closed eyes and the calm, sleeping mouth. Isobel moved a little nearer, trying to spell out the half-effaced letters of the inscription. She knew the story of how the pagan Norsemen had sacked the abbey, and had murdered the abbot on the steps of the altar, where he had remained alone to pray when his monks had fled to safety; but the words were in Latin, and she could not read them.
"For all the saints who from their labours rest," chanted the choir softly, the music of their voices mingling strangely with the shouts of the children at play which rose up from the beach below.
"He looks as though he were resting," thought Isobel; "not dead—only just sleeping until he was wanted again. I suppose he's one of the 'saints in light' now. What a long, long time it is since he lived here! I wonder if he knows they built a church and called it St. Alcuin's after him."
"Here's the verger coming," whispered Belle, pulling at her hand. "I think we'd better go."
"Let us sit down; shall we?" said Isobel, when they were out in the glare of the sunshine once more on the broad flagged path which led from the church door to the steps looking down on to the sea.
"Not here, though," replied Belle; "I don't like gravestones—they make me feel horrid and creepy."
"Under the lich-gate, then," suggested Isobel. "It'll be cooler, for it's in the shade, and there's a seat, too."
"What a simply broiling day!" said Belle, settling herself as luxuriously as possible in the corner, and pulling off her hat to fan her hot face. "I don't like such heat as this; it takes my hair out of curl," tenderly twisting one of her flaxen ringlets into its proper orthodox droop.
"It's jolly here. We get a little wind, and we can watch everything all round," said Isobel, sitting with her chin in her hands, and gazing over the water to where the herring fleet was tacking back to the harbour.
The children could scarcely have chosen a sweeter spot to rest. Below them lay the sea, a broad flat expanse of blue, getting a little hazy gray on the horizon, and with a greenish ripple where it nearedthe rocks, upon which its waves were always dashing with a dull, booming sound.
The old town, with its red roofs and poppy-filled gardens, made such a spot of brightness against the blue sea that it suggested the brilliant colouring of a foreign port, all the more so in contrast to the gray tower of the church behind and the wind-swept yew trees which had somehow managed to survive the winter storms. The grass had been mown in the churchyard, and filled the air with a fragrant scent of hay; a big bumble-bee buzzed noisily over a bed of wild thyme under the wall, and a swallow was feeding a row of young ones upon the ridged roof of the sexton's cottage. In the great stretch of blue above, the little fleecy clouds formed themselves into snowy mountains with valleys and lakes between, a kind of dream country in purest white, and Isobel wondered whether, if one could sail straight on to the very verge of the distance where sea and sky seemed to meet, one could slip altogether over the invisible line that bounds the horizon, and find oneself floating in that cloudland region.
"It's like the edge of heaven," she thought. "I think the saints must live there, and the cherubim and seraphim much farther and higher up—right in the blue part. One could never seethem; but perhaps sometimes on a day like this the saints might come back a little way out of the light and nearer to the earth where they used to live, and if one looked very hard one might manage to catch a glimpse of them just where the sun's shining on that white piece."
"O blest communion! fellowship divine!We feebly struggle; they in glory shine!"
"O blest communion! fellowship divine!We feebly struggle; they in glory shine!"
"O blest communion! fellowship divine!We feebly struggle; they in glory shine!"
came wafted through the open church door, the sound of the singing, rather far off and subdued, seeming to join in harmony with the lap of the waves, the hum of the bees, the cries of the sea-gulls, the twittering of the swallows, and all the other glad voices of nature. It looked such a beautiful, joyful, delightful, glorious world that Isobel sat very quietly for a time just drinking in the sweet air and the sunshine, and feeling, without exactly knowing why, that it was good to be there.
"Are you asleep?" said Belle at last, in an injured tone; "you haven't spoken to me for at least five minutes. I'm sure it must be getting near tea-time. Let us go now."
"All right," said Isobel, recalling herself with a start—she had almost forgotten Belle's existence for the moment. "It's so nice on these steps, one feels as if one were up above everything. It's like beingon the roof of the world. Perhaps that was why St. Alcuin and the monks built the abbey here; it seems so very near to the sky."
"What a queer girl you are sometimes!" said Belle, looking at her curiously; "I believe you're fond of old churches and musty-fusty monuments. Come along. We'll buy some sweets or some pears as we go home."
It was a change indeed from the cliff top to the bustle and noise of the little town below. Most of the fish-stalls were empty in the market, for the stock of herrings and mackerel had been sold off earlier in the day; but a travelling bazaar was in full swing, and exhibited a bewildering display of toys, tea-cups, mugs, tin cans, looking-glasses, corkscrews, and many other wonderful and miscellaneous articles, any of which might be bought for the sum of one penny. The main street, narrow and twisting, ran steeply uphill, the high gabled houses crowding each other as if they were trying to peep over one another's shoulders; from the side alleys came the mingled odours of sea-weed and frying fish, and a persistent peddler hawking brooms shouted himself hoarse in his efforts to sell his wares. Under the wide archway at the corner by the market stood a tiny fruit-shop, where piles of plums and early apples,bunches of sweet peas and dahlias, baskets of tomatoes, lettuces, broad beans, cauliflowers, and cabbages, were set forth to tempt customers.
"There are the most delicious-looking pears," said Belle, peeping through the small square panes of the window, "and so cheap. I shall go in and get some."
"Yes, love, six for a penny," said the woman, a motherly-looking soul, as Belle entered the shop and inquired the price. "They're fine and ripe now, and won't do you no harm. A pen'orth, did you say?" And picking out six of the best pears, she put them into a paper bag and handed them to Belle, who, turning to leave the shop, laid down on the counter the coin which she had placed that afternoon on the railway line.
The woman did not look at it particularly, but naturally supposing from the size that it was a penny, she swept it carelessly into the till.
"Belle! Belle!" whispered Isobel, catching her friend hastily by the arm as she went out through the door, "do you know what you've done? You paid her your big halfpenny instead of a penny."
"Oh, did I?" said Belle, flushing. "I didn't notice. I never looked at it."
"What a good thing I saw the mistake! Give her a proper penny, and get the halfpenny back."
Belle fumbled in her pocket in vain.
"I don't believe I have another penny, after all," she said at last. "I thought I had several. I must have lost them while we were up on the cliffs, I suppose."
"Whatarewe to do?" exclaimed Isobel anxiously. "We can't take the pears when we haven't paid for them properly; it would be stealing."
"I'll bring her another halfpenny to-morrow," suggested Belle.
"But suppose before that she looks at the money and finds out; she'll think we have been trying to cheat her."
"Perhaps she won't remember who gave it to her."
"Oh! but that wouldn't make it any better," said Isobel. "Look here; let us take back the bag, and tell her we paid the wrong money, and ask her to give us only half the pears."
"Very well," answered Belle. "You go in, will you? I don't like to."
Isobel seized the parcel, and quickly re-entered the shop.
"I'm ever so sorry," she said breathlessly, "but we find we've made such a dreadful mistake. We meant to give you a penny, and it wasn't a penny at all—only a halfpenny squashed out flat on the railway line; so, please, will you take back half the pears, because we neither of us have a proper penny in our pockets."
The woman laughed.
"I didn't think to notice what you give me," she said. "But you're an honest little girl to come and tell me. No, I won't take back none of the pears. You're welcome to them, I'm sure."
"It was very nice of her," said Belle sweetly, peeling the juicy fruit slowly with her penknife as they turned away down the street. "So stupid of me to make such a mistake! Have another, darling; they're quite delicious, though they are so small."
Isobel walked along rather silent and preoccupied. Though she would not allow it to herself, down at the bottom of her heart there was the uncomfortable suspicion that Belle had known all the time, and had meant to give the wrong coin.
"Shecouldn't!" thought Isobel. "Shemusthave made a mistake, and thought she really had a penny in her pocket. Yet at the level crossing she certainly said the halfpenny was all she had until she got her weekly money to-morrow. Perhaps she forgot. Oh dear! I know she didn't mean to cheat or tell stories—I'm sure she wouldn't for the world—but somehow Iwishit hadn't happened."