CHAPTER VIIIThe "Stunt"
The general verdict on Rona, when she arrived back at The Woodlands, was that she was wonderfully improved.
"It isn't only her dresses," said Gertrude Oliver, "though she looks a different girl in her new clothes; her whole style's altered. She used to be so fearfully loud. She's really toned down in the most amazing fashion. I couldn't have believed it possible."
"I'm afraid it's only a veneer," declared Stephanie, with a slighting little laugh. "You'll find plenty of raw backwoods underneath, ready to crop up when she's off her guard. You should have heard her this morning."
"And she broke an ink-bottle," added Beth Broadway.
"Well, she's not perfect yet, of course, but I stick to it that she's improved."
"Oh, I dare say! But Ulyth's welcome to keep her cub. She'll always be more or less of a trial. What else can you expect? 'What's bred in the bone will come out!'"
"Yes, I'm a great believer in heredity," urgedBeth, taking up the cudgels for her chum. "If you have ancestors it gives you a decided pull."
"Everybody has ancestors, you goose," corrected Gertrude.
"Well, of course I mean aristocratic ones. The others don't count. It must make a difference whether your grandfather was a gentleman or a farm-boy. Rona says herself she's a democrat. I'm sure she looked the part when she arrived."
"I don't know that she exactly looks it now, though," said Gertrude, championing Rona for once.
Everyone at the school realized that the Cuckoo was trying to behave herself. The struggles towards perfection were sometimes almost pathetic, though the girls mostly viewed them from the humorous side. She would sit up suddenly, bolt upright, at the tea table, if Miss Bowes' eye suggested that she was lolling; she apologized for accidents at which she had laughed before, and she corrected herself if a backwoods expression escaped her.
"Am I really any shakes smarter—I mean, more toned up—than I was?" she asked Ulyth anxiously.
"You're far better than you were last term. Do go on trying, that's all!"
"Will they take me as a candidate in the Camp-fire League?"
"I expect so, but we shall have to ask Mrs. Arnold about that."
Since the great reunion by the stream in September there had been no meetings of the Camp-fireLeague. Mrs. Arnold had been ill, and then had gone away to recruit her health, and no one was able to take her place as "Guardian of the Fire". She was recovered now, and at home again, and had promised to help to make up for lost time by superintending a gathering at the beginning of the new term. It was to be held in the big hall of the school, though the girls begged hard to have it out-of-doors, pleading that on a fine evening they could keep perfectly warm, and it would only resemble a Fifth of November affair.
"That may be all very well for you, but I'm not going to risk Mrs. Arnold's catching cold," returned Miss Bowes; which argument put a final stop to the idea.
"We'll have ripping fun in the hall, if we can't be outside," beamed Addie. "I always enjoy a stunt."
"What's a stunt?" asked Rona.
"A stunt? Why, it's just a stunt!"
"It's an American word," explained Lizzie. "It means just having any fun that comes. An impromptu kind of thing, you know. We sing, or recite, or act, or dance, on the spur of the moment—anything to keep the ball rolling, and anybody may be called upon at any moment to stand up and perform."
"Without knowing beforehand?" queried Rona, looking horror-stricken.
"Yes, that's the fun of it. We have a bag with all our names written on slips of paper, and we draw them out one by one to fill up the programme.Nobody knows who's to come next. You may be the very first, or you may sit quaking all the evening, and never be called at all."
"I hope to goodness—I mean, I hope very much—I shan't be drawn."
"You never know; so you'd better have something in your mind's eye."
Punctually at six o'clock on the appointed night the whole school filed into the hall, each girl carrying a candle in a candlestick. Saluting their leader, they ranged themselves round the room for the opening ceremony. At an indoor meeting this was of necessity different from the kindling of the camp-fire, but it had a certain impressiveness of its own. First the lamps were extinguished, and the room was placed in entire darkness. Then Mrs. Arnold struck a match and lighted her candle, which she held towards the Torch-bearer of highest rank, who lighted hers from it, and performed the same service for her next neighbour. In this way, one after another, the candles were lighted all round the room, every girl saying, as she offered the flame to her comrade: "I pass on my light!" After the "shining" song was sung, all the candlesticks were arranged on the large central table, taking the place the camp-fire would have occupied out-of-doors.
The business of the meeting came first, the roll-call was read, and the recorders gave their reports of the last gathering. Several members were awarded honours for knowing the stars, being able to observe certain things in geology and field botany, or for ability in outdoor sports or indooroccupations, such as carpentry, stencilling, or sewing. The ambulance work and the knitting done last term were specially noted and commended. A few new candidates applied for enrolment, and their qualifications were carefully considered by the Guardian of the Fire. Rona, after undergoing the League Catechism from Catherine Sullivan, the head girl and chief Torch-bearer, had submitted her name as candidate, and now waited with much anxiety to hear whether she would be accepted. After several others had been admitted, Mrs. Arnold at last called:
"Corona Margarita Mitchell."
Quite startled at the unaccustomed sound of her full Christian name, Rona saluted and stepped forward.
"You have passed only three out of the seven tests required," said Mrs. Arnold. "I'm afraid you will have to try again, Rona, and see if you can be more successful before the next meeting. No candidate can be accepted except on very good grounds. That is the law of the League."
Much crestfallen, the Cuckoo fell back into her place, and Mrs. Arnold was just about to read the next name when Ulyth interrupted:
"Please, Guardian, if a candidate has shown unusual presence of mind, may that not stand in place of some of the other tests?"
"It depends on the circumstances. How does that apply in this case?"
"Rona has saved a life," declared Ulyth, then explained briefly how Dorothy had fallen on to thehearth and had been caught back from the fire in the very nick of time.
"In her thin dress she would probably have been burnt to death but for Rona's quickness," added Ulyth, with a tremble in her voice.
"I had not heard of this," replied Mrs. Arnold. "Rona is very greatly to be congratulated on her presence of mind. Yes, I may safely say that it can cancel the tests in which she has failed, and that we may enrol her to-night as a candidate. Corona Margarita Mitchell, if for three months you preserve a good character in the school, and learn to recite the seven rules of the Camp-fire Law, you may then present yourself as eligible for the initial rank of Wood-gatherer in the League. There is your Candidate's Badge."
Immensely gratified, Rona received her little bow of blue ribbon. She had hardly dared to hope for success, as Catherine had been rather withering over her Catechism, and had warned her that she would probably be disqualified. It was pleasant to meet with encouragement, and especially to be commended before the whole school. She had never dreamt of such luck, and she looked her grateful thanks at Ulyth across the room.
She was the last but one on the list of applicants, and when Jessie Howard (alas, poor Jessie!) had been rejected the ceremonial part of the meeting was over. The girls smiled, for now the "stunt" was to begin. Catherine produced the bag, shook it well, and handed it to Mrs. Arnold, who drew out a slip of paper.
"Marjorie Earnshaw!" she announced.
"Glad it's one of the Sixth to open the ball," murmured some of the younger girls as Marjorie stepped to the circle reserved for performers in front of the table.
The owner of the one guitar in the school was always much in request at Camp-fire gatherings, so it seemed a fortunate chance that her name should be drawn first. She had brought her instrument, so as to be prepared in case the lot fell on her, and giving the E string a last hurried tuning she sat down and began a popular American ditty. It was a favourite among the girls, for it had a lively, rollicking chorus, which they sang with great gusto. Fifty voices roaring out: "Don't forget your Dinah!" seemed to break the ice and set the fun going.
Marjorie's E string snapped suddenly, but she played as best she could on the others, though she confessed afterwards that she felt like a horse that has lost its shoe. Except for this accident she would have responded to the enthusiastic calls of "Encore!"; as it was, she retired into the background to fix a new string. It lent a decided element of excitement to the programme that nobody knew what the next item was to be. The lot, as it happened, fell on one of the younger girls, who was overwhelmed with shyness and could only with great urging be persuaded to recite a short piece of poetry. By the law of the Stunt everybody was obliged to perform if called upon, so Aveline fired off her sixteen lines of Longfellow with breathless speed, and fled back joyfully to the ranks of theJuniors. Two piano solos and a step-dance followed, then the turn came to Doris Deane, a member of the Upper Fifth. Doris's speciality was acting, so she promptly begged for two assistants, and chose from IVba couple of junior members who had practised with her before. Taking Nellie and Trissie for "Asia" and "Australia", she gave the scene fromMrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patchwhere that delightful but haphazard heroine gets herself and the children ready to go to the opera. The zeal with which she ironed their dresses, her alternate scoldings and cajolings, her wild hunt for the tickets, which all the while were stuck in her belt, the grandeur of her deportment when the family was at last prepared for the outing, all were most amusingly represented. Doris was really a born actress, and so completely carried her audience with her that the lack of costumes and scenery was not felt in the force of the reality that she managed to throw into her part. Covered with glory, she gave place to her successor, who, while bewailing the hardness of her luck in having to follow so smart a performance, recited a humorous ballad which won peals of applause. Mrs. Arnold again dipped her hand into the bag and unfolded a twist of paper.
"Corona M. Mitchell," she read.
"Not me, surely! I can't do anything," objected Rona hastily.
"You'll have to," laughed the girls. "No one's let off."
"I can't, I tell you. I've no parlour tricks."
"Give us a story, Rona," suggested Ulyth. "One of those New Zealand adventures you used to tell to Peter and Dorothy. They loved them."
"Yes, yes! A camp-fire story. That would be spiffing!" clamoured the girls. "Sit on the floor, near the fire, and we'll all squat near you. We haven't had a story for ages and ages!"
"Tell it just as you did at home," urged Ulyth.
"I'll try my best," sighed Rona, taking a small stool near the fire, so as to be slightly above the audience clustered round the hearthrug.
"It happened about a year ago," she began; "that's summer-time in New Zealand, you know, because the seasons are just opposite. It was Pamela Higson's birthday, and I'd been asked to go over for the day. I saddled Brownie, my best pony, and started at seven, because it's a twelve-mile ride to the Higsons' farm, and I wanted to be early so as to have time for plenty of fun. Brownie was fresh, and he wasn't tired when I got there, so we decided to give him an hour's rest and then ride up into the bush and have a picnic. Pamela showed me her birthday presents while we waited. She'd had a box sent her by the mail, and she was very delighted about it.
"Well, at perhaps eleven o'clock I set off with Pamela and the rest of the Higson children. There was Jake, just my own age, and Billy, a little younger, and Connie and Minnie, the two smallest. Oh yes, we each had our own horse or pony: Everybody rides out there. We slung baskets and tin cans over our saddles and then started up bythe dry bed of the river towards the head of the gully. It was very hot (January's like July here), but we all had big hats and we didn't care. It was such fun to be together. When your nearest neighbours are twelve miles off you don't see them often enough to get tired of them. Billy was always making jokes, and Jake was jolly too in a quiet kind of way. Sometimes we could all ride abreast, and sometimes we had to go in single file, and our horses seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. Brownie loved company, so it was a treat for him as well as for me. The place we were going to was a piece of high land that lay at the top of the valley above the Higsons' block. There were generally plenty of berries up there, and we thought they'd just be ripe. It took us a fairly long time to do the climb, because there was no proper road, only a rough track. It was lovely, though, when we got up; we had a splendid view down the gully, and the air was so much cooler and fresher than it had been at the farm. We tethered our horses and gathered scrub to make a fire and boil our kettle. In New Zealand no one thinks of having a meal without drinking tea with it. We'd the jolliest picnic. The Higsons were famous for their cakes, and they'd brought plenty with them. I can tell you we didn't leave very many in the baskets.
"'Best put out our camp-fire,' Jake said when we'd finished; so we all set to work and stamped it out carefully. Everything was so dry with the heat that a spark might easily have set fire to the bush. Then we took our cans and went off to find berries.There were heaps of them; so we just picked and picked and picked for ever so long. Suddenly, when we were talking, we heard a noise and looked round. There was a stampede among the horses, and two of them, Billy's and Connie's, had broken loose and were careering down the gully. We ran as quick as lightning to the others for fear they might also free themselves and follow. I caught Brownie by the bridle and soothed him as well as I could; but he was very excited and trembling, and kept sniffing. Then I saw what had frightened him, for a puff of wind brought a puff of smoke with it, and ahead of us I saw a dark column whirl up towards the sky. Even the youngest child who's lived in the bush knows what that means. When all the grass and everything is so dry, the least thing will start a fire. Sometimes campers-out are careless, and the wind blows sparks; sometimes even a piece of an old bottle left lying about will act as a burning-glass. We didn't inquire the reason; all we knew was that we must tear back to the farm as rapidly as we could. Bush fires spread fearfully fast, and this one would probably sweep straight down the gorge.
"With two animals gone, luck was against us. Billy took Minnie's pony, Connie mounted behind Jake, and I made Minnie come with me on Brownie, because he was so strong, and better able to bear the double burden than Pamela's horse. It was well for us we were good riders, for we pelted down that gully fit to break our necks. Brownie was a sure-footed little beast, but the way he went slithering over rocks would have scared me if I hadn't been more afraid of the fire behind. We knew it would be touch and go whether we could save the farm or not. If the men were all far away there would be very little chance, though we meant to do our level best.
"Well, as I was saying, we just stampeded down the gully, and our horses kept their feet somehow. I guess we arrived at the house like a tornado. We yelled out our news, and coo-eed to some of the men we could see working in the distance. They came running at once, and Mrs. Higson sent up the rocket that was used on the farm as a danger-signal. Fortunately the rest of the men had only gone a short way. They were back almost directly, and everybody set to work to make a wide ring of bare land round the farm. They cut down trees, and threw up earth, and burnt a great patch of grass, and we children helped too for all we were worth. We were only just in time. We could see the great cloud of smoke coming down the valley, and as it grew nearer we heard the roaring or the fire. It seemed to bear down on us suddenly in a great burning sheet. For a moment or two the air was so hot that we could scarcely breathe, then the flame struck our ring of bare land, and parted in two and passed on either side of us, leaving the farm as an island. We watched it go crackling farther down the valley, till at last it spent itself in a rocky creek where it had nothing to feed on. All the place it had passed over was burnt to cinders, a horrible black mass. Only the house and thebuildings and a few fields round them were untouched. It was an awful birthday for poor Pamela."
"Was your own farm hurt?" asked the girls breathlessly, as Rona paused in her story.
"Not at all. You see it was in quite a different valley, and the fire hadn't been near. Jake rode home with me, to make sure I was safe. Dad hadn't even seen the smoke."
"Suppose you hadn't noticed the fire when you were up in the hills?"
"Then we should have been burnt to cinders, farm and all."
"I think Rona's most thrilling adventure will have to end our Stunt," said Mrs. Arnold. "It's nearly eight o'clock. Time to wind up and get ready for supper. Attention, please! Each girl take her candle. Where's our pianist? Torch-bearer Catherine, will you start the Good-night Song?"
"I'm a candidate now, thanks to you!" exulted Rona to Ulyth; "perhaps by Easter I may be a Wood-gatherer!"
"It's something to work for, isn't it?" said Mrs. Arnold, who happened to overhear
CHAPTER IXA January Picnic
Winter in the Craigwen Valley, instead of proving a dreary season of frost or fog, was apt to be as variable as April. Sheltered by the tall mountains, the climate was mild, and though snow would lie on the peaks of Penllwyd and Cwm Dinas it rarely rested on the lower levels. Very early in January the garden at The Woodlands could boast brave clumps of snowdrops and polyanthus, a venturous wallflower or two, and quite a show of yellow jessamine over the south porch. The glade by the stream never seemed to feel the touch of winter. Many of the oak-trees kept their brown leaves till the new ones came to replace them, honeysuckle trails and brambles continually put out verdant shoots, the lastrea ferns that grew near the brink of the water showed tall green fronds untouched by frost, and the moss was never more vivid. The glen, indeed, had a special beauty in winter-time, for the bare boughs of the alders took exquisite tender shades of purples and greys, warming into amber in the sunshine, and defying the cunningest brush which artist could wield to do them justice. By the middle of January the tightly rolled lambs' tailson the hazels were unfolding themselves and beginning to scatter pollen, and a few stray specimens of last summer's flowers, a belated campion or hawkweed, would struggle out from the rough grass under a protecting gorse-bush. The days varied: rain, the penalty for living near mountains, often swept down the valley, bringing glorious cloud-effects, and sending the stream swirling over its boulders with a boom of myriad voices. Sometimes the sudden swelling of its tributaries made the Craigwen River overtop its banks, flooding the low-lying meadows till, augmented by the high tide, its waters filled the valley from end to end like a lake. This occasional flooding of the marsh was good for the fields, and ensured a rich hay-crop next summer, so the school felt it could enjoy the picturesque aspect without needing to deplore loss to the farmers.
On the 21st of January Miss Teddington had a birthday. She would have suppressed the fact altogether if possible, or treated it in quite a surreptitious and off-hand fashion, but with her autograph plainly written in forty-nine separate birthday-books the Fates were against her. She was obliged to receive the united congratulations of the school, to accept, with feigned surprise, the present which was offered her, and to say a few appropriate words of appreciation and thanks. She did not do it well, for her manner was always abrupt, and even verged on the ungracious, the greatest contrast to the bland and tactful utterances of Miss Bowes.
This year the annual ceremony was gone throughas usual: Catherine, as head girl, proffered the good wishes and the volume of Carlyle; Lucy Morris, on behalf of the Nature Study Union, handed a bouquet of polyanthus, rosemary, periwinkle, pansies, and pink daisies culled from the garden, the earliness of which Miss Teddington remarked upon, as though she had not watched their progress for the last week.
"I'm very much obliged to you all," she said jerkily, looking nevertheless as if she were longing to bolt for the door.
But she was not yet to make her escape. There was another time-honoured ceremony to be observed. All eyes were turned to Miss Bowes, who rose as usual to the occasion.
"I think, girls," she said pleasantly, "that, considering it is Miss Teddington's birthday, we ought to take some special notice of the occasion. Suppose we ask her to grant a holiday, so that we may make an expedition in her honour. Who votes for this?"
Forty-nine hands were instantly raised, and forty-nine voices cried "I do!" Miss Teddington, who utterly disapproved of odd holidays during term-time, submitted with what grace she could muster, and gave a rather chilly assent, which was immediately drowned in a storm of clapping. The girls, who always suspected the Principals of an annual argument on the subject, felt they had scored for this year at any rate, and were certainly one holiday to the good.
There was no question at all as to where theyshould walk. Every 21st January, weather permitting, they turned their steps in the same direction. On certain portions of the marsh, near the river, grew fields of wild snowdrops, and to go snowdropping before February set in was as much an institution as turning their money when they first heard the cuckoo, or wishing at the sight of the earliest white butterfly. As a matter of fact, though the delicate fiction of asking for the holiday was preserved, it was such asine qua nonthat the cook was prepared for it. She had baked jam tartlets and made potted meat the day before, and was already cutting sandwiches and packing them in greaseproof paper. Every girl at The Woodlands possessed a basket, just as she owned a penknife or a French dictionary. It was equally indispensable. She would carry out her lunch in it, and bring it back filled with flowers, berries, or nature specimens, as the case might be. Each was labelled with the owner's name, and hung in a big cupboard under the stairs. Some of the girls also used walking-sticks with crooked handles, which were found convenient weapons for hooking down brambles or branches of catkins.
Shortly after ten o'clock the school started, every Woodlander bearing her basket, containing sandwiches, two tartlets, an orange, and a small enamelled drinking-mug. There were to be no camp-fires to-day, so cold water from the stream would have to suffice, and would make tea all the more welcome when they returned home. It was quite a fine morning, with sudden gleams of sunshinethat burst from the clouds and spread in long, slanting, golden rays over the valley; just the kind of sky the early masters of landscape painting loved to put in their pictures, with a background of neutral tint and a bright, scraped-out light in the foreground. The little solitary farms stood out white here and there against the green of the fields, the pine-trees on the hill-sides showed darkly in contrast to the bare larches. Cwm Dinas was inky purple to-day, but Penllwyd was capped with snow. Miss Bowes, who was not a good walker, had not ventured to join the expedition, but Miss Teddington strode along at the head of the party, chatting to some of the Sixth Form.
"I'm sure she's wishing she were giving a Latin lesson instead," said Lizzie Lonsdale. "She looks rather grim."
"Perhaps she's remembering she's a year older to-day," returned Beth Broadway.
"How old is she, do you think?" giggled Addie Knighton.
"That, my child, is a secret that will never be divulged. I dare say you'd like to know?"
"I should, immensely."
"Then you won't be gratified, unless you go to Somerset House and hunt her name up in the register of births. Even then you'd find it difficult, for you don't know her Christian name, only her initial."
"Yes; she never will write more than 'M. Teddington' in anybody's birthday-book. M might stand for Mary or Martha or Margaret or Millicent or anything. Doesn't even Miss Bowes know?"
"If she does she won't tell. It's a state-secret."
"Well, never mind; we call her Teddie, and that will do."
Many were the ingenious devices which the girls had adopted for trying to find out both Miss Teddington's Christian name and her age. They spoke of historic events that had happened before their parents had been born, fondly hoping she might betray some memory of them and commit herself. But she was not to be caught; she treated all events, however recent or old, from a purely impersonal standpoint, and left them still in the dark as to whether she was an infant in arms at the time or an adult able to enjoy the newspapers. On the subject of names she was indifferent, and would express no opinion on the relative merits of Mary, Martha, Margaret, Millicent, Marion, Muriel, Mona, or Maud.
"It's either plain Mary, or something so fearfully fancy she won't own up to it," decided the girls.
In whatever decade Miss Teddington's birthday placed her, this year she was certainly in the prime of life and energy as concerned the school. Her keen eyes noticed everything, and woe betide the slacker who thought to escape her, and dared bring an unprepared lesson to class. Her sarcasms on such occasions made her victims writhe, though they were apt to be witty enough to amusethe rest of the form. Though, like John Gilpin's wife, she was on pleasure bent to-day, she never for a moment forgot she was in charge, and kept turning to see that everybody was following, and nobody straggling far off in the rear.
It was a three-mile walk from The Woodlands to the snowdrop meadows—first along the high road, with an occasional short cut across a field or through a spinney, then down a deep, narrow lane past a farm, where the sight of a new-born lamb (the first of the season) caused great excitement. Some of the girls, who loved old superstitions, pretended to divine their luck by whether it was standing facing them or otherwise when they first caught a glimpse of it; but, the general verdict deciding that it was exactly sideways, they found it impossible to give any accurate predictions for the future.
"You'd better keep to something vague that can be construed two ways, like the Delphic Oracle orOld Moore's Almanac," laughed Ulyth.
Once past the farm the walk began to grow specially interesting. The deep lane, only intended for use in summer, when carts brought loads of hay from the marsh, was turned by winter rains into the bed of a stream. The girls picked their way at first along the bank, then by jumping from stone to stone, but finally the water grew so deep it was impossible to proceed farther without wading. They had been in the same emergency before, so it did not daunt their enthusiasm. One and all they scaled the high, wide, loosely built wall to their left. Here they could walk as on aterrace, with the flooded lane on one side and on the other the rushing Porth Powys stream, making its hurrying way to join the Craigwen River. It was not at all an easy progress, for the wall was overgrown with hazel bushes and a tangle of brambles, and its unmortared surface had deep holes, into which the unwary might put a foot. For several hundred yards they struggled on, decidedly to the detriment of their clothing, and rather encumbered by their baskets; then at last they reached the particular corner they were seeking, and scrambled down into the meadow.
This field was such a favourite with the girls that they had come to regard it almost as their own property. Miss Teddington had found it out many years ago, and its discovery was always considered a point in her roll of merit. It was an expanse of grassy land, bounded on one side by the Porth Powys stream and on the other by a deep dyke, and leading down over a rushy tract to the reed-grown banks of the river. The view over the many miles of marshland, with the blue mountains rising up behind and the silvery gleam of the river, was superb. The brown, quivering, feathery reeds made a glorious foreground for the amber and vivid green of the banks farther on; and the gorgeous sky effects of rolling clouds, glinting sun, and patches of bluest heaven were like the beginning of one of St. John's visions.
Near at hand, dotted all over the field, bloomed the wild snowdrops in utmost profusion, with a looser habit of growth, a longer stalk, and a widerflower than the garden variety. Lovely pure-white blossoms, with their tiny green markings, they stood like fairy bells among the grass, so dainty and perfect, it seemed almost a sacrilege to disturb them. The girls, however, were not troubled with any such scruples, and set to work to pick in hot haste.
"I'm going down by the stream," said Ulyth; "one gets far the best there if one hunts about, and I brought my stick."
Rona, Addie and Lizzie joined her, and with considerable difficulty scrambled down to the water's edge. For those who preferred quality to quantity, and who did not mind getting torn by briers, this was undoubtedly the place to come. In pockets of fine river-sand, their roots stretching into the stream, grew the very biggest and finest of the snowdrops. Most of them peeped through a very tangle of brambles; but who minded scratched arms and torn sleeves to secure such treasures?
"Look at these. The stalks must be nine inches long, and the flower's nearly as big as a Lent lily," exulted Ulyth. "I shall send them to Mother, with some hazel catkins and some lovely moss."
"Everybody will be sending away boxes to-night," said Addie. "The postman will have a load."
"What's that?" cried Lizzie, for a sudden rush and scuffle sounded on the other side of the stream, a rat leaped wildly from the bank, and a shaved poodle half jumped, half fell after it into the water.
The rat was gone in an eighth of a second, but the dog found himself in difficulties. It was a case of "look before you leap", and a fat, wheezy, French poodle is not at home in a quick-rushing stream.
"Oh, the poor little beast's drowning!" exclaimed Ulyth in horror.
Rona, with extreme promptitude, had flown to the rescue. Close by where they stood the trunk of a half-fallen alder stretched out over the water. It was green and slippery, and anything but an inviting bridge, but she crawled along it somehow, and, clinging with one hand, contrived to reach the dog's collar with the other and hold him up. What she would have done next it is impossible to say, for he was too heavy to lift in her already precarious position; but at that moment a gentleman, evidently in quest of his pet, parted the hazel boughs and took in the situation at a glance.
"Hold hard a moment," he called, and, scrambling down the bank, managed to make a long arm and hook his stick into the poodle's collar and drag the almost strangled creature to shore.
Until Rona had cautiously wriggled round on the bough, and crept back safely, the spectators watched in considerable anxiety. They need not have been alarmed, however, for after her many New Zealand experiences she thought this a very poor affair.
The owner of the dog shouted his thanks from the opposite bank of the stream and disappeared behind the high hedge. The whole episode had not taken five minutes.
"Do you know who that was? It was Lord Glyncraig," said Addie in rather awestruck tones.
"Was it? Well, I'm sure I don't care," returned Rona a trifle defiantly. "I'd have saved John Jones's dog quite as readily."
"What a pity he didn't ask your name! He might have invited you to tea at Plas Cafn, then you'd have scored over Stephie no end."
"I'm sure I don't want to go to tea at Plas Cafn, thank you," snapped Rona, rather out of temper.
"But think of the fun of it," persisted Addie. "I only wish they'd ask me."
"They won't ask any of us, so what's the use of talking?" said Lizzie. "Let's go back to the others; it must be time for lunch."
They found the rest of the girls seated on the wall, as being the driest spot available, and already attacking their packets of sandwiches. Some had even reached the jam-tartlet stage.
"It's a good thing we've each got our own private basket, or there wouldn't be much left for you," shouted Mary Acton. "Where have you been all this while?"
"Consorting with members of the Peerage," said Addie airily. "Oh yes, my dear girl! We've had quite what you might call a confidential talk down by the stream with Lord Glyncraig."
"Not really?" asked Stephanie, pricking up her ears.
"Really and truly! He's not your special property any longer. Rona has quite supplanted you."
"I don't believe it. You're ragging." Stephanie was rather pink and indignant.
"Ask the others, if you want to know."
No one was particularly sorry to take a rest after all the scrambling. The lunch tasted good out-of-doors, and the last tartlet had soon disappeared. Rona, perched on a tree-stump, began her orange, and tossed long yellow strands of peel on to the bank below her.
"Oh, stop that, before Teddie catches you!" urged Ulyth; but she was too late, for Miss Teddington had already spied the offending pieces.
"Who threw those?" she demanded. "Then, Rona Mitchell, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Go and pick them up at once, and put them inside your basket. What do you think the field will look like if more than fifty people strew it with orange-peel and sandwich-paper! We don't come here to spoil the beautiful spots we have been enjoying. I should be utterly disgraced if the school behaved like a party of cheap-trippers. Woodlanders ought to respect all natural scenery. I thought you would have learnt that by this time, but it appears you haven't. Don't forget it again."
Much crushed, Rona collected the peel, and, wrapping it carefully in her piece of sandwich-paper, put it in the very bottom of her basket, under a layer of catkins. The girls had brought bobbins of thread with them, and were making their snowdrops into little bunches, with ivy leaves and lambs'-tails from the hazel. A few lucky explorers had even found some palm opening on the sallows.Several had nature notes to contribute. Nellie Barlow and Gladys Broughton had seen a real weasel, and plumed themselves accordingly, till Evie Isherwood capped their story by producing the remains of a last year's chaffinch's nest she had found in a tree.
"If I said I'd seen a snake, should I be believed?" whispered Rona.
"Certainly not. Everyone knows that snakes hibernate; so don't try it on," returned Ulyth, laughing.
"Half-past two. We must be going back at once, girls, or there won't be time to send off your snowdrops," said Miss Teddington. "Pack your baskets and come along."
CHAPTER XTrespassers Beware!
The girls left the snowdrop field with reluctance, though they realized the necessity for hurry. Nearly everyone wished to dispatch her spoils home, and unless the boxes were sent very early to the post-office the chances were that there would not be time for the postmaster to stamp them officially, and that they might languish somewhere in the background of the village shop until next day, and consequently arrive at their destination in an utterly withered condition.
The school scrambled back along the top of the wall, therefore, with what haste the brambles and hazel-bushes allowed them, splashed recklessly among the pools of the flooded lane, and regained the high road with quite record speed. Ulyth, walking with Lizzie Lonsdale, had left Rona in the rear. Rona, owing to her intimacy with Ulyth, tried to tag on to Vb, often receiving snubs from some of its members. Her own form-mates were all considerably younger than herself. At first they had teased her shamelessly, but since the Christmas holidays, recognizing that she was gaining a more established position in the school, theyhad begun to treat her more mercifully. Some of them were really rather jolly children, and though twelve seems young to fourteen, the poor Cuckoo was still a lonely enough bird to welcome any crumbs of friendship thrown in her way.
At the present moment Winnie Fowler and Hattie Goodwin were clinging to her arms, one on either side. Their motives, I fear, were a trifle mixed. They found Rona amusing and liked her company, but also they were tired and found if they dragged a little she would pull them along without remonstrance.
"My shoes are ever so wet," boasted Winnie. "I plumped down deep in the lane, and the water went right through the laces at the top. It squelches as I walk. I feel like a soldier in the trenches."
"I've torn my coat in three places," said Hattie, not to be outdone. "It will be a nice little piece of work for Mrs. Johnson to mend it."
"Glad they don't make us mend our own coats here," grunted Winnie.
"Miss Bowes would be ashamed to see me in it if I did," Hattie chuckled, "but I've knitted a whole sock since Christmas, and turned the heel too. Cuckoo, aren't you tired?"
"Not a scrap," replied Rona, who was stumping along sturdily in spite of her encumbrances.
"Well, I am. I wish it wasn't three miles back."
"It's not more than two as the crow flies."
"But we're not crows, and we can't fly, and there are no aeroplanes to give us a lift. We've got to tramp, tramp, tramp along the hard high road.I begin to sympathize with Tommies on the march."
"Why need we stick to the high road?" said Rona, pausing suddenly. "If we struck across country we'd save a mile or more. Look, The Woodlands is over there, and if we made a beeline for it we'd cut off all that enormous round by Cefn Mawr. Who's game to try?"
"Oh, I am, if we can dodge Teddie!"
"Likewise this child," added Winnie.
"Oh, we'll dodge Teddie right enough! It will be good scouting practice," chuckled Rona. "Sit down on that stone and tie your shoelace, and we'll wait for you while the others go on; then we'll bolt through that gate and over the wall into the next field."
The idea that it was scouting practice lent a vestige of sanction to the proceeding. Winnie took the hint, and adjusted her shoelaces with elaborate care and deliberation.
"Don't be all day over that," said Miss Teddington, who passed by but did not wait.
The moment she was round the corner of the road, and the high hedge screened her from view, the three deserters were through the gate and running across the field. They scaled a wall without much difficulty, and found themselves on a wide gorse-grown pasture. Though they could not now see the chimneys of The Woodlands in the distance, there were other landmarks quite sufficient to guide them. They plodded on cheerfully.
"It would be prime to have our snowdrops allpacked up before the others got back," ventured Hattie. "They'd be so surprised. They'd wonder how we'd stolen a march on them."
"If Teddie asks where we were, we can truly say 'at the front'," Winnie giggled.
"You'd better not pick up any nature specimens, though, or she'll want to know 'the exact locality' where you found them."
"Um—yes! That might be awkward. This toadstool shall stay on its native heath, in case it tells tales."
It was rather a fascinating walk, all amongst the gorse-bushes. None of the three had been there before, and instinctively the younger ones left Rona to lead the way. Her bump of locality had been well developed in New Zealand, so she strode on with confidence. But the ground shelved down suddenly, revealing a natural feature upon which they had not counted, a fairly wide brook, running between sandy banks. Here indeed was an obstacle. Winnie and Hattie stared at it with blank faces and groaned.
"We'd forgotten the wretched Llanelwyn stream. What atrocious luck! Don't believe there's the ghost of a bridge anywhere. Shall we have to go back?"
"I'm not going back," declared Rona sturdily. "There must be some way of getting over it some where. Come along and we'll prospect."
"Oh, for the wings of a dove!" sighed Hattie. "Even those of the raggedest sparrow would be welcome."
"Better wish yourself a fish, for you may have to try swimming," grunted Winnie.
"I can't swim—not a stroke! You'll suggest I shall jump it next, I suppose. Look here, we shall have to go back. There's nothing else for it. Rona! Corona Mitchell! Corona Margarita! Cuckoo! Where've you gone to?"
"Coo—ee!" came in reply from the distance, and presently Rona appeared beckoning vigorously.
"We're—going—back," shouted Hattie.
"No, no! Come along here."
Anxious to see if she had found any solution of the problem, the others pelted down a slope and joined her.
"Here's our bridge," said Rona proudly, as soon as they rounded the corner.
"That thing!" exclaimed Winnie, looking aghast at the decidedly slim pole, that was fixed across the stream as a cattle bar.
"I'm not a tight-rope dancer, thank you!" sneered Hattie rather indignantly.
"It'll be quite easy," Rona urged.
"Oh, I dare say! You won't find me trying to walk across it, I can tell you."
"I didn't ask you to walk. I'm going to sit on it cross-legged, like a tailor, and shuffle myself over. It's broad enough for that. I'll go first."
"Oh, I daren't! I'd drop in!" wailed the younger ones in chorus.
"Now don't funk. What two sillies you are! It won't be as hard as you think. Just watch me do it."
Fortunately the pole had two great advantages: it was firmly fixed in the bank on either side, so that it did not sway about, and, being the trunk of a fir-tree with the bark still left on, its surface offered some grip. Rona's progress was slow but steady. She worked herself over by a few inches at a time. When she reached the water's edge on the far side she dropped on to a patch of silver sand and hurrahed.
"Buck up, and come along," she yelled lustily.
This was scouting with a vengeance, and more than the others had bargained for; but the stronger will prevailed, and though they shook in their shoes they were persuaded to make the experiment.
"I'm all dithering," panted Hattie, as Winnie pushed her forward to try first.
It was not as bad as she had expected. She was able to cling tightly with hands and knees, and though she had one awful moment in the middle, when she thought she was overbalancing, she reached Rona's outstretched hand in due course.
"You squealed like a pig," said the Cuckoo.
"I thought I was done for. Wouldn't you like to feel how my heart's beating?"
"No, I shouldn't. Don't be affected. Come along, Win. We can't wait all day. I'll fish you out if you tumble in, I promise you. It isn't deep enough to drown you."
With many protestations, Winnie, really very much scared, followed the others' lead, and got along quite successfully till within a foot of the brink; then the sudden mooing of a cow on thebank startled her, and so upset her equilibrium that she splashed into the water, wetting one leg thoroughly.
"Ugh! My shoes were squelchy enough before," she lamented. "You can't think how horrid it is."
"Never mind, you've got across."
"But you might sympathize."
"Haven't time. We shall have to hurry up if we mean to be back before the others."
"Did you think the cow was Teddie calling you?" laughed Hattie, who, having got her own trial over, could afford to jest at other people's misfortunes.
"You'd have jumped yourself. Oh dear, I spilt most of my snowdrops, though I did tie the basket round my neck!"
"Never mind; you can't fish them out of the stream now. I'll give you some of mine. Here, take these," said Rona. "I've nobody to send them to," she added, half to herself, as she climbed the bank.
"Oh, thanks awfully! I always send Mother a big bunch. She looks forward to them. I've brought a cardboard box from home on purpose to pack them in, because the cook runs quite out of starch-boxes. Some of the girls last year had to wrap theirs just in brown paper. If you don't want yours, can you spare me a few more?"
"I'll keep just these to put in my bedroom, and you may have the rest if you like," replied Rona, stalking ahead.
Every now and then the sense of her loneliness smote her. She would probably be the only girlin the school who was not sending flowers away to-night. How different it would be if she had anybody in England who took an interest in her and cared to receive her snowdrops!
"It's no use crying for the moon," she decided, blinking hard lest she should betray symptoms of weakness before her juniors. "When a thing can't be helped it can't, and there's an end of it."
"Cuckoo! Corona Margarita! Do wait for us! You walk like the wind."
"Or as if a bull were chasing you," panted Hattie, overtaking her and claiming a supporting arm. "Do you see where we've got ourselves to? The only way out of this is to go straight through the Glynmaen Wood."
"Well, and why shouldn't we go through the Glynmaen Wood? Is it any different to any other wood?"
"No, only they're horribly particular about trespassing. They stick up all kinds of notices warning people off."
"What rubbish! Why, in New Zealand we go where we like."
"Oh, I dare say, in New Zealand!"
"Look, there's a notice up there," said Winnie, pointing over the hedge to a tree whereon was nailed a weather-stained board bearing the inhospitable legend: "Trespassers Beware".
Rona stared at it quite belligerently.
"I should like to pull it down," she observed. "What right has anybody to try to keep places all to themselves?"
"I suppose it belongs to Lord Glyncraig."
"All the more shame to him then. I shall take a particular pleasure in going, just because he sticks up 'Don't'."
"Suppose we're caught?"
"My blessed babes, you don't suppose I've come all this short cut and scrambled over a pole to be turned back by a trespass notice! Do you want to cross the stream again and trail home by the road?"
"Rather not!"
"Then I'll give you a boost to get over the fence there."
The property was well protected. It took Rona's best efforts to help her companions to scale the high oak boards. When they had all dropped safely to the other side they set off through the trees in the direction they judged would bring them out nearest to The Woodlands.
Three girls in thick shoes do not pass absolutely silently through a wood, especially if they indulge in giggles. Winnie and Hattie, moreover, could never be together without chattering incessantly. For the moment they had forgotten every principle of scouting. In that quiet, secluded spot their shrill voices rang out with extreme clearness. A rabbit or two scuttled away, and a pheasant flew off with a whirr. Presently another and heavier pair of boots might be heard tramping towards them, the bushes parted, and a dour-looking face, with lantern jaws and a stubbly chin, regarded them grimly. The gamekeeper glowered a moment, then growled out:
"What are you three a-doing here?"
"That's our own business," retorted Rona briskly.
" Indeed? Well, it happens to be my business too. You're trespassing, and you know it."
"We're doing no harm."
"Aren't you? I suppose it's nothing to scare every pheasant in the wood. Oh dear no!"
"What nonsense! It was only one," exclaimed Rona, standing up against the bullying tone. "You're making the most unnecessary fuss. What right have you to stop us?"
"More right than you've got to be here. I won't have anybody in these woods, schoolgirls or no schoolgirls, so just you get back the way you came, or——"
"That will do, Jordan," said a voice behind him.
The keeper started, turned, and touched his cap obsequiously.
"Beg pardon, my lord, but the trespassing that goes on here gets past bearing, and wants putting a stop to."
"Very well, I'll settle it myself," and Lord Glyncraig—for it was he—readjusted his glasses and stared reprovingly at the three delinquents.
"Ah! girls from The Woodlands—evidently out of bounds. I shall have to report you to your headmistress, I'm afraid. Your names, please."
"Winnie Fowler," "Hattie Goodwin," murmured two subdued voices.
Rona did not answer at all. She kept her head down and her eyes fixed on the ground.
"It's—it's surely not the same girl who did mesuch a service this morning on the marsh? Then I must repeat my thanks. Now, look here, you've been up to some mischief, all three of you. Get back to school as quick as you can, and I'll say nothing about it! There! Off you go!"
Without another word the sinners pelted along through the wood, never pausing till they reached the railing and climbed over on to the high road. Here, on free ground, they felt at liberty to express their indignation.
"He's a nasty, horrid old thing to turn us out!" panted Hattie.
"How he looked at you, Rona!" said Winnie. "He stared and stared and stared!"
"Wondering where he'd seen me before, I suppose. I expect the green stains on my coat reminded him. I got them hauling up his precious dog."
"It wasn't with him in the wood."
"Oh, it's sitting by the fire drinking linseed tea! It looked a pampered brute."
"We shall have to scoot to keep clear of Teddie."
"All right. Scooterons-nous. Thank goodness, there's the hedge of The Woodlands! We'll slip in through the little side gate."
The three certainly merited discovery for their misdeeds, but on this occasion they evaded justice; for, as luck would have it, they reached the house just a moment or two before the rest of the school, and Miss Teddington, who was in a hurry to pack her boxes of snowdrops, concluded that they must have been in front with Ulyth and Lizzie, and did not stop to remember that she had left them tyingWinnie's shoelace by the roadside. It was seldom that such a palpable lapse escaped her keen eye and even keener comprehension; so they might thank their fortunate stars for their escape. Hattie and Winnie made great capital out of the adventure, and recounted all the details, much exaggerated, to a thrilled audience in IVb.
Rona did not mention the matter to Ulyth. Perhaps, knowing her room-mate's standards, in her heart of hearts she was rather ashamed of it.