For the School Colours
by Angela Brazil · English · Gutenberg #35972 · 392,486 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: For the School Colours
Author: Angela Brazil
Illustrator: Balliol Salmon
Release date: April 26, 2011 [eBook #35972]
Language: English
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FOR THE SCHOOL COLOURS
* * * * *
By ANGELA BRAZIL
"Angela Brazil has proved her undoubted talent for writing a story of
schoolgirls for other schoolgirls to read."--Bookman.
The School in the South.
Monitress Merle.
Loyal to the School.
A Fortunate Term.
A Popular Schoolgirl.
The Princess of the School.
A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl.
The Head Girl at the Gables.
A Patriotic Schoolgirl.
For the School Colours.
The Madcap of the School.
The Luckiest Girl in the School.
The Jolliest Term on Record.
The Girls of St. Cyprian's.
The Youngest Girl in the Fifth.
The New Girl at St. Chad's.
For the Sake of the School.
The School by the Sea.
The Leader of the Lower School.
A Pair of Schoolgirls.
A Fourth Form Friendship.
The Manor House School.
The Nicest Girl in the School.
The Third Class at Miss Kaye's.
The Fortunes of Philippa.
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LTD., 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "WHAT'S THIS? WHAT HAVE THEY SENT ME?" SHE GASPED
_page 199_]
FOR THE SCHOOL COLOURS
by
ANGELA BRAZIL
Author of "A Patriotic Schoolgirl"
"The Luckiest Girl in the School"
"The Madcap of the School"
&c. &c.
Illustrated by Balliol Salmon
Blackie and Son Limited
London Glasgow and Bombay
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
CHAP. Page
I. ENTER AVELYN 9
II. AN INVASION 22
III. WALDEN 37
IV. AN ENCOUNTER 51
V. RUCTIONS 65
VI. REPRISALS 79
VII. MISS HOPKINS 94
VIII. SPRING-HEELED JACK 104
IX. CONCERNS DAY GIRLS 120
X. MISCHIEF 131
XI. MOSS COTTAGE 145
XII. "LADY TRACY'S AT HOME" 158
XIII. REPORTS 168
XIV. WAR WORK 178
XV. THE SCHOOL BIRTHDAY 193
XVI. UNDER THE PINES 204
XVII. THE LAVENDER LADY 214
XVIII. THE LOYAL SCHOOL LEAGUE 227
XIX. THE SURPRISE TREE 240
XX. PAMELA'S SECRET 254
XXI. PAMELA'S NIGHT WALK 266
XXII. THE LECTURE HALL IS DEDICATED 277
Illustrations
Page
"WHAT'S THIS? WHAT HAVE THEY SENT ME?" SHE GASPED _Frontispiece_
"DO YOU KNOW THIS WOOD'S PRIVATE PROPERTY?" HE SHOUTED 56
AVELYN, CROUCHED UNDER THE MANGER, COULD HEAR THE BULLYING
TONE IN HIS VOICE 152
AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS THOMPSON 176
AVELYN AND THE LAVENDER LADY 224
WHO COULD SAY HOW MUCH MIGHT DEPEND ON THEIR SPEED? 272
FOR THE SCHOOL COLOURS
CHAPTER I
Enter Avelyn
"It's the limit!" exploded Laura.
"An atrocious shame!" agreed Janet.
"Gives me nerve shock!" mourned Ethelberga gloomily.
"You see," continued Laura, popping the tray of her box on to the floor
and sitting down on her bed, so as the better to address her
audience--"you see, it's been plumped upon us without any warning. Miss
Thompson must have arranged it long ago, but she never let out so much
as a teeny-weeny hint. If I'd known before I came back I'd have asked
Father to give a term's notice and let me leave at Christmas. Crystal
clear, I would."
"Rather! so would this child."
"I guess we all should."
"I call it so mean to have sprung it on us like this! I really couldn't
have believed it of Miss Thompson. She's gone down miles in my
estimation. I can never feel the same towards her again--_never!_ Those
Hawthorners! Oh, to think of it!"
"What's the matter?" asked a fourth voice, as another girl, still in hat
and coat, and carrying her travelling-bag, entered the dormitory.
"Irma! Is it you, old sport? D'you mean to say you haven't heard the
news yet?"
"Only just this minute arrived, and I've flown straight upstairs. I met
Hopscotch in the hall, and asked, 'Am I still in the Cowslip Room?' and
she nodded 'Yes,' so I didn't wait for any more. Has anything grizzly
happened? You're all looking very glum!"
"We may well look glum," said Laura tragically. "Something particularly
grizzly's happened. You remember that day school at the other side of
the town?"
"The Hawthorns--yes."
"Well, it's been given up."
Irma flung her hat on to her bed and her coat after it.
"That doesn't concern us," she remarked contemptuously.
"Doesn't it? Oh, no, of course--not in the least!" Laura's voice was
sarcastic. "It wouldn't have been any concern of ours--only, as it
happens, they've all come on here."
Irma turned round, the very picture of dismay.
"_What?_ Not _here_, surely! Great Minerva, you don't mean it! Hold me
up! I feel rocky."
Laura looked at her, and shook her head in commiseration.
"Yes, that's how it took us all when we heard," she remarked. "You'd
better sit down on your bed till you get the first shock over. It's
enough to make a camel weep. I couldn't believe it myself for a few
minutes, but it's only too true, unfortunately for us."
"The Hawthorns! Those girls whom we never spoke to--wouldn't have
touched with a pair of tongs!" gasped Irma.
"You may well marvel," sympathized Janet.
"But what's Miss Thompson _thinking_ of? Why, she always looked down so
on the Hawthorns! Wouldn't let us arrange matches with their teams, and
kept us away from them at that bazaar as if they'd been infectious. It's
been the tradition of the school to have nothing to do with them."
"Traditions have flown to the four winds. There'll be nearly fifty
Hawthorners turning up by nine o'clock to-morrow morning."
"Nearly fifty! And we were only thirty-six ourselves last term! Why, the
school will be swamped!"
"Exactly, and with day girls too. When there were twenty-four boarders
to twelve day girls, we could have things pretty well as we liked, but
if we've to hold our own against sixty or so--well!"
"It'll mean war!" finished Ethelberga, setting her mouth grimly.
"But what's possessed Miss Thompson to do such an atrocious thing?"
cried Irma in exasperation.
"_L, s. d._, my child, I suppose. Miss Perry was giving up the school,
and Tommiekins bought the connection. She's completely veered round in
her opinions. She told Adah Gartley they were nice girls, and would soon
improve immensely at Silverside. 'I hope you'll all make them welcome,'
she said to Adah."
"Welcome!" echoed Irma, Janet, and Ethelberga eloquently.
"It wouldn't have been so bad," continued Laura, "if just a few of
them--say a dozen--had been coming. We could have kept ourselves to
ourselves and quite ignored them. But we're being absolutely cuckooed
out. Do you know that our recreation room has been commandeered for an
extra class-room?"
Howls of dismay issued from the trio now seated on Irma's bed.
"Yes, you'd hardly believe it, but it is a fact," ran on Laura with
dismal volubility. "When I went to take my painting things there I found
our tables and easy chairs gone, and the whole place filled up with new
desks and a blackboard."
"Where are we going to sit in the evenings?" demanded Ethelberga
fiercely.
"Goodness only knows! In the dining-room, I suppose."
"We evidently don't count for anything with Tommiekins now," said Janet
bitterly. "The Daisy dormitory has been taken for a class-room, and an
extra bed has been put in each of the other dormitories to make up.
Didn't you notice, Irma, that there are five here now, instead of only
four?"
"Why, so there are! What a hateful cram! Who's to have the fifth?"
"I asked Hopscotch, and she said, 'A new girl.' I couldn't help flying
out at that, and she simply sat flat upon me and withered me. Told me to
go away and mind my own business, and she was coming round to inspect
the Cowslip Room in half an hour, and I'd better get on with my
unpacking."
"Oh, she will! Why didn't you tell us that before?" exclaimed the
others, bouncing up with considerable haste, and setting to work again
to empty their boxes.
"I forgot. I can think of nothing but those wretched Hawthorners. It's
made me feel weak."
"You'll feel weaker still if Hopscotch comes in and finds you with
nothing unpacked!" observed Laura sagely, stowing underclothes in her
middle drawer with the utmost rapidity. "I advise you to make some sort
of a beginning, even if you don't put things away tidily. Fling them in
anyhow, stick a blouse for a top layer, and straighten them up
afterwards. Don't let her see them still inside your box."
For a few minutes the girls suspended talk for work. Laura's flaxen head
vibrated between box and wardrobe. Janet arranged her dressing-table and
replaited her dark pigtail. Ethelberga hung up a selection of
photographs, and placed her nightdress inside its case; Irma spread her
bed with her possessions, preparatory to filling her drawers, and
comforted her ruffled feelings with the last pear-drop in the paper bag
she had brought with her.
The dormitory was of fair size, and though the girls might grumble,
contained ample space for the fifth bed. It was a pretty room with a
yellow wall-paper, and chintz curtains with little bunches of cowslips
on them. There were pictures of cowslips also on the walls, and all the
pin-cushions and hair-tidies had yellow ribbons. The window looked over
the garden, and behind the belt of trees that bordered the lawn gleamed
the grey waters of the estuary, where ships were stealing out from port
into the dangers of the great waters. The girls prided themselves upon
this view, though at the present moment they were too busy to think of
it. Three years' previous experience had taught them that, when Miss
Hopkins made a tour of inspection on the first afternoon of term, she
meant business, and woe betide the luckless slacker who had gossiped and
dawdled instead of bestowing her property in her own lawful drawers. If
she had announced her intention of visiting them shortly, she might
certainly be trusted to keep her word.
Their expectations were not mistaken, for before the half-hour had
expired the door opened, revealing the short stout figure and rather
angular features of the second mistress. The girls jumped up and stood
obediently at attention, ready to go through the usual routine of
dormitory superintendence. Miss Hopkins, however, was not alone. In her
wake followed a girl of fifteen, whom she bustled in, in a hurry.
"This is your dormitory, Avelyn--the Cowslip Room, we call it. Here's
your bed, and these are your dress hooks and your drawers. The janitor's
bringing your box upstairs. Oh, he's here now! Put it at the end of the
bed, Tom, please. I suppose you have the key, Avelyn? Then you'd better
unlock it at once. These are your room-mates--Laura Talbot, Irma Ridley,
Janet Duncan, and Ethelberga Carnforth. Girls, this is Avelyn Watson. I
hope you will make her welcome. Begin your unpacking now, Avelyn. I
shall be back directly to see how you are getting on."
Miss Hopkins, whose duties on the first day of term were multifarious,
withdrew as hurriedly as she had entered. Her visits generally resembled
the brief career of a whirlwind--sometimes her pupils considered that
they carried equal desolation.
The new girl remained standing by the bed, and for the moment made no
effort to obey orders and unlock her box. She was pretty--her four
critics decided that point at their first glance--her chin was softly
rounded, and her nose was small and straight. Her general colouring was
brunette, but the big wide-open eyes were grey as the estuary outside.
She flushed vivid pink under the scrutiny of her room-mates. For a brief
instant they thought she was going to cry, then she winked rapidly and
began to whistle instead.
"I shouldn't advise you to whistle too loud," counselled Janet, by way
of breaking the ice.
"Miss Hopkins is only in the next dormitory, and she's got a crusade on
against whistling--at least she had last term, and I don't suppose she's
changed her tactics; she doesn't generally."
"Do the eternal snows change?" murmured Ethelberga.
The new girl stopped with her mouth puckered into a button. A look of
consternation spread over her face, then passed into a smile.
"I was told I'd have to be jolly careful and mind my p's and q's here!"
she remarked cheerily. "I've been just five minutes in the school, and
my first impressions are that Miss Thompson aims at unadulterated
dignity, and that Miss Hopkins is concentrated essence of fuss. Am I
near?"
"Not so far off!" laughed Laura. "They can exchange characters
sometimes, though. I've seen Miss Hopkins ride her high horse and be
dignity personified, and on the other hand I've seen Miss Thompson more
ruffled than a head mistress has any business to be. You'll soon get to
know them."
"I suppose I shall. Whether I shall altogether like them is another
question."
"You'll like Silverside!" gushed Irma. "It's a perfectly delightful
school--at least it used to be. We're afraid it is going to be utterly
and entirely spoilt now."
"Why?"
"Because it's being invaded. It used to be quite small and select, more
boarders than day girls, you know. And now we've just had a horrible
shock--the whole of another day school is being plumped upon us--a
school we've always despised. We're too indignant for words."
Avelyn, who was fumbling with the lock of her box, lifted her head.
"Don't you like them coming?"
"Like them! Sophonisba! How can you ask such a question? We've always
looked down on them so fearfully. Why, if we met any of them in the
street, we used just to stare straight through them, as if they didn't
exist. They wore dark-blue coats and horrid stiff sailor hats with
coloured bands, for all the world like an institution. I tell you we
simply wouldn't have touched them."
"You'll have to know them now."
"To a certain extent, worse luck! But they needn't think we'll be
friendly with them, for we shan't. We shall keep a strict line drawn."
Avelyn had lifted the tray of her box on to the floor, and was busy
taking books from the bottom portion. She was too intent on her
occupation to reply. Irma, whose writing pad and fountain pen had just
come to hand, was hastily scribbling a letter home; Ethelberga, leaning
out of the window, exchanged greetings with a schoolmate in the garden
below; Janet's vision was focused on her drawers; and Laura had just
come across the postcard album, which she was afraid she had forgotten
to pack, and was rejoicing in its possession. For five minutes or so the
girls were engrossed with their own affairs, then the attention of the
room was concentrated again on Avelyn.
"You haven't told us yet where you live," said Laura, looking up
suddenly from the contemplation of post cards.
"My home is at Lyngates just now."
"Where's Lyngates?"
"About twenty miles from here."
"You say 'just now'. Haven't you lived there long?"
"Only since last spring."
"You've brought very few clothes and things with you," commented Irma,
who had been watching the unpacking of the new girl's box with critical
eyes. "You'll never get through a term on those, I should say."
"There isn't any need to bring so many things when I'm going home for
the week-ends."
"For the week-ends? Heavens! You don't mean to say you're a weekly
boarder?"
"Why not?"
An expression of deep consternation spread over the faces of Avelyn's
four room-mates. Their disapproval was evident, and they voiced their
objections.
"We've never had such a thing as a weekly boarder before!"
"You'll be away all Saturdays and Sundays!"
"You'll be out of all the fun!"
"Almost as bad as being a day girl!"
"Miss Thompson said once that she didn't approve of weekly boarders."
"I can't understand Tommiekins, she's changed so lately."
"Have you ever been to school before?"
"Why, yes," replied Avelyn, smoothing out the folds of her evening
dress, and hanging it on the hooks behind the curtain. "Though not since
last Christmas."
"To boarding school?"
"No; it was a day school."
"Where?"
"I went to The Hawthorns in Harlingden."
If a bomb had fallen in the dormitory it could not have caused a greater
upheaval. For a moment the girls stared at Avelyn as if scarcely
crediting her statement.
"Do you mean to say you're one of those wretched Hawthorners?" exploded
Janet at last.
"I used to be, but I suppose I'm a Silversider now."
"And we've got you in our dormitory!" gasped Laura.
"So it seems."
"Miss Thompson ought to be thoroughly ashamed of herself!" fluttered
Ethelberga.
"You'll be rid of me on Saturday and Sunday, remember," returned Avelyn
bitterly.
At this crisis, the clamour of the gong for tea fortunately put an end
to an extremely embarrassing situation. The four room-mates fled,
leaving their new companion to follow them to the dining-room as best
she could. When she entered, they were already seated at table, and did
not look in her direction. She took a seat next to a complete stranger,
who indeed handed her the bread and butter, but vouchsafed no single
word of conversation.
When the meal was over, the original inmates of the Cowslip Room retired
to a secluded portion of the garden, and held an indignation meeting.
For the first frenzied five minutes they allowed their wrath full swing,
and vibrated between a dormitory strike and writing to their parents to
beg for instant removal from the school. Then reason reasserted itself,
and decided the impracticability of both methods. Previous experience
had shown them that their head mistress was a tough dragon to tackle,
and scarcely likely to be coerced by even the best organized dormitory
strike, while in her heart of hearts each knew that, after paying her
term's fees in advance, her father would need some very solid cause of
complaint to justify so extreme a measure as a return to the bosom of
the family. They began to discuss the matter more sanely.
"The fact is, she's here, and I suppose we can't get rid of her,"
admitted Irma.
"After all, she's a boarder!" ventured Ethelberga.
"Only a weekly one," qualified Janet.
"And a Hawthorner!" added Laura.
"She said she hadn't been to school since last Christmas," commented
Ethelberga.
"Why, so she did! Then she's had a sort of a break from The Hawthorns,
and in a way she's making a fresh start here."
"I suppose so."
"If she'd be loyal to Silverside, though we could never like her, we
might bring ourselves to tolerate her."
"A boarder's a boarder!"
When the girls returned to the Cowslip Room, they found their new
companion with emptied box putting the last of her possessions into her
drawers.
"Look here, Avelyn Watson," said Laura. "We've been talking you over.
Although you go home for the week end, you're still a boarder, and at
Silverside boarders are a very different thing from day girls, as you'll
soon find out. If you've had two whole terms away from those
Hawthorners, just forget them, and consider yourself entirely one of us.
If you do that, we'll count you on our side; but if you've anything to
do with day girls, we'll cut you dead."
"I don't quite understand," returned Avelyn.
"You soon will!" said Janet significantly.
"I advise you to think it over," added Laura.
CHAPTER II
An Invasion
The changes which were taking place this term at Silverside certainly
marked a new era in its traditions. Up till now it had been essentially
a boarding school. There had, indeed, been day girls, who had shared the
classes and some of the games, but they were in the minority, both in
numbers and in influence. They had had no part in the various guilds and
societies, and had been made by the boarders to feel that they were
inferior beings who did not count. The mistresses, themselves resident,
had been accustomed to view the boarders as the more important factors,
and arranged everything to suit their convenience. It had been the
unwritten code of the school that to be a boarder meant to procure
preferential treatment.
Miss Thompson, however, was a level-headed woman, who marched with the
times. When the opportunity arose of acquiring the connection of The
Hawthorns, the large day school at the other side of the town, she
closed with the bargain, and decided upon an entire change of tactics.
Henceforward Silverside was to be run as _the_ girls' day school of
Harlingden. The house was large, its accommodation had hitherto exceeded
the needs of the pupils, there was plenty of room for added numbers, and
even in war-time it would be possible to run up a corrugated iron or
portable wooden building to serve as lecture hall and gymnasium. The big
garden already contained several tennis courts, and there was a field
close at hand which might be rented for hockey. Altogether, Miss
Thompson congratulated herself that she had performed a most excellent
stroke of business, and she looked forward to establishing a very
flourishing educational centre, and to laying by a comfortable provision
upon which she might retire when the burden of teaching grew too heavy
for her to bear.
Certainly, Silverside was most excellently situated for the purpose she
had in view. The property had been bought some years before the town of
Harlingden had expanded, and while land was still cheap. The house stood
in its own beautiful grounds, on the top of a hill commanding a fine
view over the estuary. It was breezy and healthy, with large lofty
rooms, big windows, and ample accommodation in the way of side doors and
bathrooms: just sufficiently in the country to allow of walks through
fields and woods, yet near enough to the town to permit most girls to
return home for their mid-day dinners. As a day school, it was far more
conveniently situated than The Hawthorns. Harlingden, formerly a
moderate-sized and not particularly important town, had since the
outbreak of the war been turned into a great munition centre; the
Government, attracted by the advantages of the estuary, had established
large permanent works there, together with a shipbuilding industry. In a
few short years the population had doubled. Fresh suburbs sprang up like
mushrooms. In the Silverside district this was particularly noticeable,
for where formerly there had been quite a rural walk between hedges,
leading to the town, there now stood rows of neat villas with stuccoed
fronts and balconies, and conspicuously new gardens.
The boarders at Silverside, who preferred country to town, greatly
deplored this suburban growth. They had always begged to take their
walks in an opposite direction, and had ignored Harlingden and its
industries as persistently as possible. The advent of about fifty day
girls into Silverside they regarded as neither more nor less than an
alien invasion. They sat together in a tight clump when school opened at
nine o'clock on Wednesday morning. Until the new gymnasium could be
erected, it was difficult to find a room large enough to accommodate
everybody. The old drawing-room had been emptied of furniture and fitted
with forms, and here, by sitting very close, the girls managed to cram
themselves in for the opening ceremony. Miss Thompson, elated at heart,
but more stately and dignified than ever in manner, addressed her pupils
in a short speech.
"As Silverside is entering on a new chapter of its career," she began,
"I should like to put before you all, as briefly as possible, what I
consider to be the ideals of the school. Those who have been here some
years already know our traditions, but it will do them no harm to hear
them again, and those of you who are new will, I hope, understand, and
be prepared to accept them with equal readiness.
"First of all, we stand for Work. We are living in very strenuous times,
and it is the duty of all who love their country to do their best. Every
faithful struggle with your lessons here makes you more fit to help your
country by and by. If you have no ambition for yourselves, remember that
you are part of a great nation, and as such you must not slack, but do
your bit to raise the general standard of education. You'll find there's
a joy and a satisfaction in mastering rules of arithmetic or irregular
verbs, when you feel that you are doing it not only for yourselves but
for the general good. Then there are certain other things for which
Silverside has always stood--truth and straightforward dealings, and a
spirit of unity and of loyalty to the school. We have striven to
establish a high tone here, and at all costs let us preserve it.
"This term there is a very large proportion of new girls, and hence a
big opportunity for everybody. There will be inevitable changes, and
much pioneer work to be done, and each girl may find a chance of taking
a share in consolidating our traditions. I trust that old and new will
join hands and do their utmost to work together harmoniously for the
good of the school, and the influence which, through you, it may
exercise on the community later on."
At the end of Miss Thompson's speech the girls separated, and went to
their class-rooms. At the eleven o'clock "break" they poured into the
garden. They stood about in little groups, eating packets of lunch, and
talking. Adah Gartley, Isobel Norris, and Joyce Edwards, the three
eldest boarders, kept together. To them presently advanced two of the
invaders, a ruddy-haired girl of perhaps seventeen, and a stout,
dark-eyed girl a trifle younger.
"Our names are Annie Broadside and Gladys Wilks," began
she-of-the-chestnut-locks. "If we'd stayed on at The Hawthorns, one or
other of us would have been head this term. You look about the oldest of
the old lot here, so perhaps you'll tell us how this school's managed.
Do you have monitresses, or prefects, or what? Miss Thompson didn't
mention a word about that in her speech. We'd like to know."
Adah glanced at her rather superciliously.
"We've never had anything of the sort here," she replied.
Annie Broadside's eyes grew round with amazement.
"What? No prefects or monitresses? How in the world did you manage,
then?"
"We didn't find them necessary," maintained Adah stiffly.
Gladys Wilks whistled, and looked eloquently at her friend.
"Of course it was a very small school," she remarked, "so I dare say you
somehow muddled on; but _now_--surely there'll have to be something of
the sort instituted?"
"Those juniors will give trouble if there's no one to tackle them,"
added Annie. "Just look at them over there!"
The juveniles in question were certainly behaving with a lack of decorum
entirely foreign to the former atmosphere of Silverside. They were, in
fact, engaged in jumping over Miss Thompson's most cherished flower
beds, with disastrous consequences to the pet geraniums and
calceolarias.
"The little hooligans!" exclaimed Adah, rushing to the rescue of the
unfortunate flowers. "Here, get away, you kiddies! this sort of
performance isn't allowed. Stop, this minute!"
The five long-legged children who were making a display of their jumping
agility called a temporary halt, and stared aggressively at Adah.
"Who says it's not allowed?" enquired a pert ten-year-old, who was
evidently the ringleader.
"_I_ do."
"Are you a teacher?"
"No."
"A prefect or a monitress?"
"No."
"Then, what are you?"
"I'm a boarder," announced Adah with dignity.
The junior sniggered rudely.
"Boarders have no right to interfere with us, that I can see. We'll do
as we like. Come along, girls, follow the leader!" and, turning, she
made a long leap across the bed, landing in the edging of blue lobelias.
Adah stood by, raging and impotent. She would have interfered by force,
but very fortunately at that moment the school bell rang, and the
irrepressible juniors desisted from their occupation and raced one
another to the side door. Adah followed thoughtfully. Her brain was a
whirlpool of new impressions, most of them not at all favourable, and
she had not yet had time to assort them and put them into mental
pigeon-holes. One idea loomed large. Silverside was going to be an
utterly different place from what it had been before. That brief tussle
had revealed much. Hitherto the little girls had been well-behaved
children, rather in awe of their elders, and easily held in check; these
new juniors seemed a different generation, and a very perverse and
untoward one.
Everything, indeed, was changed. Her form room overflowed with
strangers, and there was a new mistress, whose methods were different
from those of Miss Hopkins. Adah, mindful of her position as oldest
pupil, did the honours of the school, showing teacher and girls where
books, exercise paper, and other necessaries were kept, but she
performed this charity more in the spirit of _noblesse oblige_ than with
any goodwill.
When the last of the day girls had taken her departure after four
o'clock, Adah heaved an immense sigh of relief, and sent a scout round
to call a boarders' meeting for 5.15 prompt.
Immediately after tea, therefore, all the resident pupils of Silverside
assembled in the summer-house at the bottom of the garden. They had
chosen that spot because it was secluded, and they were not likely to be
disturbed. Their consultations were to be of a private nature, and they
did not wish any mistress to overhear them. The summer-house was not
very large--much too small, in fact, to contain twenty-four girls--but
some squatted on the steps, and some on the window-sills, and some
overflowed on to the lawn. Adah, seated on the little rustic table,
looked round to see that her full audience was assembled, and opened the
proceedings in a voice that trembled with indignation.
"It seems to me, and I expect to most of you, that matters here have
just about come to a crisis. The school's turned topsy-turvy. It's been
invaded by this horde of day girls, and everything is altogether
different. Now, Silverside has always existed for the boarders. Miss
Thompson has recognized that, and we've had a great many special
privileges. It's _we_ who have set the tone of the school, and made
Silverside what it is. As long as we outnumbered the day girls that was
pretty easy, but, now that this huge flock has trooped in, it may be a
difficult matter to cope with them. We must make up our minds what we
intend to do. Has anybody any suggestion to offer?"
"I thought of writing to my father, and asking him to take me away at
Christmas," propounded Irma, flushing with nervousness at the sound of
her own voice.
Adah gazed at her with an expression of mingled amazement and sorrow.
"Irma Ridley, I shouldn't have expected this from _you_! Leave the
school, indeed! Where's your loyalty? I hope you haven't been spreading
such an abominable notion. No, indeed! We Silversiders mustn't desert
the old ship. We've got to stick to her, and steer her course for her
through very troubled waters. Don't let anyone suggest ratting again."
Irma, covered with confusion, blushed yet more furiously. The sentiment
of the meeting was against her, and she felt that she had blundered
badly. She murmured an incoherent apology, and began nervously tying
knots in her pocket-handkerchief.
"Surely someone has a better suggestion to offer than this?" said Adah,
her clear blue eyes searching the faces of her companions. "Please don't
be afraid of airing your opinions."
"Silverside must stick to its traditions," ventured Joyce Edwards. "We
mustn't let everything be swamped by the invasion."
"Let's make a Boarders' League," proposed Isobel Norris, "and pledge
ourselves to hold together and support one another--a kind of Blood
Brotherhood, you know."
"The very thing!" agreed everybody.
The idea was so manifestly satisfactory that each girl wondered why it
had not occurred to herself to suggest it. To bind themselves in so
close a bond of union seemed picturesque and romantic in the extreme. It
appealed to their imaginations tremendously.
"We shall be fighting for the school colours!" said Adah, with a light
of enthusiasm shining in her blue eyes. "It's _we_, the little band of
old pupils, who are to preserve the ideals of the school. These new
girls must be made to realize that they're at Silverside now, and not at
The Hawthorns."
"I guess we'll rub it into them," murmured Laura Talbot to the
still-confused Irma.
It was a new girl after all, however, who made the really practical
suggestion of the meeting. Avelyn Watson had sat very quietly during the
proceedings, feeling herself in a somewhat awkward position. She had
been a pupil at The Hawthorns for two years, but her mother had never
really liked the school, and had removed her from it the preceding
Christmas. Avelyn had come to Silverside quite ready to embrace its
traditions and to erase The Hawthorns from her memory. To be confronted
with more than fifty of her old schoolfellows, some of whom had to-day
claimed affectionate intimacy with her, had been somewhat of a shock.
She did not quite know where she stood. She was not sure whether the
boarders were disposed to receive her into the bosom of the League, or
if they would regard her as among the aliens. One fact, culled from
former experience, rose to her lips. She was too shy to state it
publicly, but she bent towards Laura Talbot and whispered:
"Tell them, if they want to do anything, they ought to have
prefects--you see, I _know_!"
Laura immediately broached the suggestion as her own, and gained the
whole credit for it. The idea, hinted at by Annie Broadside and Gladys
Wilks in the morning, had been fermenting in Adah's brain all day, and
she grasped at it eagerly.
"It would give us just the authority we want," she agreed. "We'd better
make a deputation and speak to Miss Thompson about it. Who'll go with
me?"
The Principal, busy and burdened with a hundred new cares, sat in her
study that evening answering letters from parents. She pushed away her
papers rather wearily as the deputation, consisting of Adah Gartley,
Isobel Norris, Consie Arkwright, and Joyce Edwards, entered the room
with a kind of bashful assurance. She was tired, but she was always
ready to listen to what her girls had to say. It had been her invariable
rule to meet them half-way. She heard them now patiently, asking many
questions, for they were shy in stating their case, and did not at first
explain their objects lucidly. When at length she had got at the gist of
the matter, she leaned back in her chair and thought for a moment or two
before she replied.
"What you say is very true. The influx of another school into
Silverside may certainly endanger our old traditions. I look to you
boarders, who have been with me for years, to uphold every principle for
which we have hitherto stood. I agree that you might find your task very
difficult unless you were armed with some authority. We have never had
school officers before, but that was because we did not feel them a
necessity. I will try the experiment and see how it answers. You four
are among my oldest pupils. You know what Silverside has stood for in
the past, and you shall help to mould its future. I appoint you
prefects, and give you power to report to me, or to any other mistress,
breaches of discipline which come under your notice, and in certain
cases to take off order marks. Adah, who is the eldest, and was first in
last term's examination list, shall be head girl. I will announce this
at nine o'clock to-morrow. My great object is to amalgamate the two
schools into one as quickly as possible, and I trust that you will not
show any favouritism towards old girls, but will give the new ones equal
justice."
"We'll do our best, Miss Thompson," declared Adah, Isobel, Consie, and
Joyce in an obedient chorus.
And doubtless they really meant to do their best; but schoolgirls are
prejudiced beings, and apt to be conservative to the core. They had
decided beforehand that the former pupils of Silverside, and the
boarders in particular, had the sole prerogative of high ideals,
culture, and gentility, and that such refinements could not, and did
not, exist among those who had come from The Hawthorns. In their minds
the division was as complete as that between the sheep and the goats.
They looked upon the Hawthorners as heathen, and upon themselves in the
light of missionaries. They set to work very patronizingly to make their
influence felt. Now, there is nothing which most people resent so much
as patronage. The Hawthorners had been happy enough in their old school,
and they were keenly insulted at being given to understand that they
were regarded by the Silversiders as inferiors. They held indignation
meetings of their own on the subject.
"Why should those stuck-up things lord it over us?" exploded Annie
Broadside.
"They're not as clever as we are. We beat them easily in class," added
Gladys Wilks.
"I should just think we do. They're simply not in the running at
maths.," declared Gertrude Howells.
"And yet they're prefects, if you please."
"At The Hawthorns prefects were always chosen from those who got the
highest marks in the examinations."
"You were top last term, Annie, and would have been head girl if the
school had gone on."
"You were only two marks behind me, Gladys, and you know Miss Perry
hadn't counted the botany papers. It was really a toss-up between us."
"Well, we're both out of it now."
"Very much so."
"I don't call it fair that these four boarders should have all the
authority."
"It isn't!"
"If they think we're going to knuckle under to them they're very much
mistaken."
"Giving themselves such airs about being old Silversiders, and treating
us like inferiors!"
"Can't we do anything?"
"Let's form an 'Old Hawthorners' Guild', and vow to stick to one
another. There are more of us than of them, and we'll beat them in
lessons and at games, and let them see who's inferior."
"Right you are! You shall be captain, Annie."
"Then you shall be secretary, Gladys."
"I know everybody will be only too delighted to join."
"They will. But don't let those Silversiders know one single word about
it."
"They shan't, indeed!"
"We're here, and the school is as much ours as theirs!"
"Our old set will follow us, and not care a toss about the prefects!"
Adah and her fellow-officers had indeed made a terrible mistake by their
superior and patronizing ways. Instead of welding the school into one,
as Miss Thompson had hoped and intended, they had entirely alienated the
new element and had set up a most unhappy barrier of division.
Silverside resolved itself into two parties, each apparently determined
to misunderstand the other, and obstinately resolute not to mix. Miss
Thompson, anxiously watching the result of her experiment, saw only the
surface of things, for most of the trouble lay below, deeper than the
ken of head mistresses. The teachers were aware of an undercurrent of
discontent, but could not absolutely discover the reason. Only the girls
themselves knew that the school was split into rival factions, between
whom there was going to be war.
CHAPTER III
Walden
As Avelyn Watson is one of the central figures of this story, it will be
well to go back some months, and follow the events which preceded her
appearance at Silverside. Though apparently trivial enough, they are
important, because if they had not happened, she would have come to
school as a day girl instead of a boarder, and the part which fate put
into her hands to play could never have been acted.
It all began with Daphne forgetting to change her wet stockings. Daphne
had done many imprudent things before, and had suffered more or less
from them. This time Dame Nature, tired of having her laws flouted,
determined to teach her a lesson. The specialist who was called in to
consult with the family doctor made an exhaustive examination of the
case, then pronounced his verdict.
"She mustn't live in the town. If you want her to grow up into healthy
womanhood, a year or two in the country is an imperative necessity."
Up to the time when Sir Basil Hunter delivered this ultimatum, the
Watsons had always lived in Harlingden. Daphne and Avelyn could
remember the old days when Daddy had been alive, and Mother's hair had
been brown and not grey; and she had laughed as gaily and easily as they
did now. That was many years ago, and to David and Anthony, at any rate,
their father was little more than an enlarged photograph on the
dining-room wall. They had all been born in the comfortable, commonplace
house in Gerrard Square, and had taken it and its uninteresting view,
and its smoky little garden, together with the round of town life,
entirely for granted. Then the change came. Mrs. Watson, thoroughly
alarmed at the doctor's diagnosis, and nervous over the health of her
whole family, took immediate steps to carry out his advice. She let the
house in Gerrard Square, and removed into the country. The place she
selected was a tiny village named Lyngates, two miles from the station
at Netherton, and twenty miles away from Harlingden. Its pure air,
gravel soil, and record of sunshine were exactly what Daphne required;
the boys could go in to town every day by train, and thus continue at
King James's School, and Avelyn, who was sufficiently like Daphne to
make the fatigue of a daily train journey seem a risky experiment, could
be sent as a weekly boarder to Silverside.
By a most fortunate chance, Mrs. Watson came across the very little
property she wanted. It was an old farm-house, with a few outbuildings
at the back, and a field or two for poultry--the doctor had suggested
that Daphne should interest herself in poultry. It was smaller by far
than No. 7 Gerrard Square, but big enough for their requirements.
"With present war prices, and income-tax what it is, and four children
to educate, I consider I'm very wise to make the move," she decided,
"though I should never have had the courage to do it if Sir Basil Hunter
hadn't been so emphatic."
So the house, gardens, outbuildings, and fields that composed the small
holding were bought and paid for, and formally transferred by deed from
their former owner, George Hethersedge, yeoman, to the possession of
Helena Watson, widow, and the bargain was complete. That it was a
bargain the children had no doubt. So many extra things were included
that were never even mentioned in the title-deeds--the thrushes and
blackbirds and tits in the garden, the wagtails that flitted up and down
the little stream, the owls that sat and hooted in the elm tree at dusk,
the wild bees' nest in the bank, the ferns in the crannies of the old
wall, the morning view when the sun shone over the valley, and the calm,
quiet sunsets when the sky was aflame with rose and violet. It was the
most exciting experience to explore their new kingdom. They were always
making fresh discoveries. Up till now, beyond their annual summer
holiday at some seaside resort, they had had no practical knowledge of
the country. To live side by side with Nature was like being transferred
into another world.
To Mrs. Watson, no less than to her children, the change was welcome.
She had often pored over Nature books from the library, and they had
been wont to stir in her a vague yearning to get away from bricks and
mortar and chimneys, and spend a sylvan year somewhere far from the
sound of trams or steam hooters. She chafed sometimes against the
monotony of her daily shopping and household cares. She longed for lanes
and woods, but there seldom seemed time to go for walks at Harlingden;
it was a long way from Gerrard Square into the fields. We are such
creatures of habit, that it had never struck her to uproot herself and
reorder the lives of herself and her children; and if Daphne had not
forgotten her galoshes, and thus brought about the visit of Sir Basil
Hunter, the family might have remained town birds to the end of the
chapter. As it was, they stepped into a fresh inheritance. They named
the house "Walden", after Thoreau's famous _Walden_, a book which her
mother loved, and which Avelyn was just beginning to read and
appreciate; the magic of its radiant love of Nature, and the breadth of
its philosophy appealed to her strongly.
Though the Watsons' Walden was quite unpretentious, it was certainly
more comfortable than the shanty in Concord, Massachusetts, where Henry
David Thoreau spent his immortal two years and two months. There was a
sitting-room on each side of the little hall, a big kitchen and pantry
behind, and four bedrooms upstairs. Outside, across the yard, was a
cottage, with a lower room which could be used as a den for fretwork,
painting, carpentering, or the pursuit of any other cherished hobbies,
and an upper storey containing two extra bedrooms for emergencies. The
stable and barn were interesting, and held dim, cobwebby recesses, where
bats hung head downwards, and a brown owl sometimes perched blinking
upon the cross-beams.
In front was a small raised garden, bordered by a very wide ivy-covered
stone wall. The house stood on the slope of a steep hill, so that this
wall overtopped the road below like a crag. When you leaned your arms on
its golden sweet-scented ivy blossom, or sombre berries and smooth
leaves, you could look out over a tract of country that spread for
miles--green meadows, hazel copses bursting into leaf, thick woods that
hid the stream whose rushing waters yet made themselves heard, the reedy
reaches of a river, and fir-clad hills that melted faint and blue into a
misty horizon. There was a patch of gravel in front of the wall, and a
rustic garden seat, dilapidated, but firm enough for occupation. The
site made a natural outdoor parlour: a yew tree, grown slantwise with
the prevailing wind, formed an umbrella overhead. At the side of the
cottage, between the yard and the kitchen garden, purled a shallow
little brook, at the edge of which grew watercresses and marsh
marigolds. It was spanned by a bridge made of rough slabs of stone.
Beyond the stables lay a couple of small meadows, containing an upper
reach of the stream, and a little marshy tract interspersed with gorse
and alder bushes.
The Watson family had reviewed the whole premises slowly, critically,
and with unbounded satisfaction.
"It's the sort of place you read about in a novel," sighed Daphne, whose
tastes were romantic. "Somehow you feel as if anything could happen
here--interesting things, I mean. Mysteries and tragedies, and--and
even----"
"Love affairs!" finished Avelyn promptly. "Perhaps they may--sometime."
Avelyn was at the stage when life is full of dreams. It was her constant
amusement to imagine all kinds of delightful but wildly improbable
future happenings for Daphne, for herself, and for the boys. The number
of castles in the air which she constructed would have built a city.
They were all shadowy and unsubstantial, but none the less fascinating
for that. Walden appeared to her, as to Daphne, an appropriate setting
for golden visions.
David and Anthony, still in the age of blunt uncompromising frankness,
regarded the new home from a practical standpoint.
"It's top-hole!" decided David. "I'll have a thingumjig--what d'you call
it?--lathe, I mean, inside that cottage, and a joiner's bench. There's a
man in the village who says he's got one to sell cheap, and a vice with
it. I'm going to make a rabbit hutch, and all sorts of things."
"There are trout in that part of the stream up the field," beamed
Anthony. "Not very big ones, but certainly trout. I saw them jump. The
boy who brought the telegram yesterday told me that he catches them
with his hands. He knows of sixteen birds' nests on the road to the
station, and he's got a young hedgehog at home. I'm going to just sit
and sit in the field when it's getting dark till I see one for myself."
"I shall grow ten years younger when I've had a summer here," announced
Mrs. Watson to her flock. "You won't know your poor old mother very
soon. The country air's making her so frisky and juvenile, she wants to
run about like a girl!"
"_Do_, Muvvie darling! We love you in your skittish moods," implored
Avelyn. "When you wear that short skirt and that rush hat you don't look
a day older than Auntie Belle--truly! You never climbed up step ladders
in Gerrard Square!"
"I've begun to do many things I never did before," laughed Mrs. Watson,
"partly from necessity. If I could have found anybody else to go up the
step ladder, perhaps I shouldn't have tried. We've all got to work if we
want to make the place look nice. It'll be worth it when we've
finished."
Walden had been empty for two years before its owner sold it, and,
though it was in a fair state of repair as regarded masonry and
woodwork, it sadly needed decorating. The question of its repapering
and painting had been the one hitch in the proceedings, for, when Mrs.
Watson had sought to obtain estimates for its renovation, she found
that, in the present war-time shortage of workmen, no firm would
undertake to carry out a job so far in the country. For three horrible
days matters had seemed at a dead-lock, and the purchase of Walden (not
quite concluded) had trembled in the balance. But Daphne's white cheeks
brought all Mrs. Watson's native obstinacy to the fore. She was
determined not to be vanquished. She enquired in the village, and
secured the services of an old soldier who used to be handy-man at the
Vicarage, and with his experienced aid and the willing, though unskilled
hands of her young flock, she determined to do up Walden herself. She
secured lodgings for a few weeks at a farm close by, and the family
devoted the Easter holidays to the purpose. It was a new experience for
them, and they enjoyed it thoroughly. Armed with pails of distemper and
whitewash brushes, they splashed away at the walls, painted woodwork,
stained floors, or laid linoleum. They made a delightful discovery in
the dining-room, for, when they came to tear down the old wall paper,
they found an overmantel of ancient oak beams. The fireplace was large
and old-fashioned, with ingle nooks on either side, the woodwork had
been completely covered with paper and plaster, but when this was
cleared away, and it was cleaned, stained, and varnished, it presented a
most quaint and handsome appearance. The great beam that spanned the
hearth had a flat surface, and on this Mrs. Watson decided to carve a
motto. The family put their heads together over it for many days. They
looked up mottoes in books, and consulted their friends, but could not
find exactly the right one. Daphne and Avelyn were in favour of English,
but Mrs. Watson and the boys plumped for Latin, and finally evolved the
following:--
POST LABOREM HAEC REQUIES HAEC FELICITAS.
(After work, here is rest and happiness.)
"When you've finished your lessons in the evenings, we can make a circle
round the fire and talk about the day's doings; and it will seem a
centre for the whole house and for our lives," said Mrs. Watson. "I
believe this little home is going to be far more precious to us than
Gerrard Square."
To the children the doing up of the establishment was the utmost fun.
Thoreau himself could not have obtained more enjoyment from his "Walden"
than they did from theirs. There were many humorous incidents; as when
Anthony sat down in the colour wash pail, or when Daphne dropped a pot
of pink paint on the top of David's head, or when Avelyn poured in
paraffin by mistake, instead of methylated spirit, to thin the varnish.
It was a proud day when at last colour wash and paint were dry, and the
floor was swept and cleaned, and the vans arrived and the furniture was
carried in. Mrs. Watson had sold most of the heavy possessions which
they owned in Gerrard Square, and had bought in their place tasteful
antiques which suited the house far better, and gave it an air of quaint
culture and comfort. When all was arranged it looked a charming little
abode, and thoroughly in harmony, from the black beams of its ingle nook
to the carved settle and gate-legged oak table, or the framed samplers
on its walls.
Many surprising incidents happened in the first days of occupation. Very
early one morning, as Daphne and Avelyn lay in bed, they were awakened
by a tweeting and whirr of wings, and found that a pair of newly-arrived
swallows had flown in through the open window, and were whirling
overhead, evidently with designs on the big cross beam for nesting
purposes. The sight of the girls, who sat up in bed, seemed to annoy
them, for they twittered with anger, scintillated rapidly round the
room, then flashed out through the window into the spring sunshine.
"Well," exclaimed Daphne, "this certainly is living in the country!
Actually swallows in our bedroom!"
"The poor darlings!" declared Avelyn. "They've had a horrible
disappointment. They'd made up their minds to have their nest on that
beam. I remember Martin Jones pulled down a swallow's nest before he
whitewashed, and said they had built there last year, and had got in
because the window was broken. They must think we're dreadful intruders.
They were scolding us as hard as they could in bird language."
"Shall we hang out a notice: 'To Let, Eligible Quarters for Swallows'?"
laughed Daphne. "We might even put nesting boxes round the walls, and
extend the invitation to other birds."
To anyone who wished to study natural history, Walden certainly offered
advantages. There was a friendly robin that domesticated itself, and
would fly into the dining-room at meal times, hop on to the table, and
even perch upon the loaf. He would haunt the kitchen in quest of crumbs,
and grew so cheeky that when Ethel, the maid, who resented his
occasional flounders into her pudding dishes, drove him out through the
window, he would merely fly round the corner and pop in again through
the open door.
As at first the Watsons possessed neither dog nor cat, their garden
became for that spring at any rate a veritable bird sanctuary. A pied
fly-catcher built in the thatch of the summer-house, a pair of
gold-crested wrens swung their dainty cradle under a pine bough, a
nettle creeper nested in the long grass of the orchard, cole tits and
blue tits haunted the yew tree, a family of young water wagtails issued
from a hole under the stone bridge, and a wood pigeon took possession of
the top storey of a fir tree, to say nothing of the blackbirds,
thrushes, robins, and other everyday birds that availed themselves of
the hospitality of the bushes.
"I thought I owned Walden, but I'm beginning to doubt it," said Mrs.
Watson. "It seems to me that the wild creatures put in a prior claim,
and come unasked to share it."
"They're welcome, bless 'em!" murmured Avelyn, fondling a newly-fledged
and quite undismayed young missel-thrush, which she had temporarily
taken from its nest just outside the drawing-room window.
Some of the incidents which happened were decidedly funny. The Watsons
were not used to the country, and had to learn by experience. One
morning they had left some washing in the field, and found that a
neighbour's calves had strayed through a hole in the hedge and were
contentedly sucking stockings and pyjamas, and reducing them to a
jelly-like pulp. It took several sharp lessons before the family grasped
that cardinal rule of country life: "Keep your gate shut". On the first
Sunday of their occupation they had gone to church, and on returning had
strolled into the dining-room, to find three pigs comfortably in
possession. A wild scene ensued, for the intruders, instead of allowing
themselves to be chased through the door, careered madly round and round
the table, squeaking and grunting in protest, and finally jumped on to
the sofa, and made their exit through the open window, knocking over
books, work-baskets, and pots of geraniums in their hurried flight, and
completely flattening a bed of young pansies that had just been planted.
One night the family, who had sat up later than usual, heard stealthy
steps in the garden, and, fearful of burglars, issued forth in a body,
armed with the poker and other implements of aggression, only to find a
melancholy donkey cropping the grass beyond the laurel bushes, with
apparent appreciation of its superior juiciness.
These little adventures, however, added a spice of excitement to their
existence. They agreed that life at Walden was supremely interesting.
Daphne, who was nearly eighteen, had finished with lessons, and for the
summer term Mrs. Watson allowed Avelyn also to stay at home and run
wild. She had been growing fast, and a rest was considered good for her.
David and Anthony left the house every morning at half-past seven,
walked to Netherton Station, caught the train to Harlingden, and
proceeded to King James's School, where they spent the day and dined,
returning home by about six in the evening. They were sturdy boys of
fourteen and twelve, and enjoyed the daily expedition. Time had often
hung heavy on their hands out of school hours in Gerrard Square; it was
now agreeably filled in with a railway journey and a walk across fields
where birds' nests might be found, and where they sometimes saw stoats
and squirrels.
To the whole family the first sylvan spring and summer had been one long
round of delight. By the end of August they felt that town had faded
away from their mental vision, and that they had become "sons of the
soil".
In September Avelyn began school again as a weekly boarder at
Silverside. She had left The Hawthorns the preceding Christmas, and the
nine months' absence, with the intervening removal to Lyngates, had very
much blurred its memory. She had liked some of the girls, though she had
never made any really intimate friends there. She had been mildly sorry
to leave, but the regret had soon worn off. She had come to Silverside
quite ready to hallmark herself with the stamp of her new school, and
centre her interests there. To find that the greater part of "The
Hawthorns" was now incorporated with "Silverside", and that the boarders
identified her with her old set, had struck her somewhat as a shock.
What attitude she should adopt she could not quite determine. She wanted
to think over the situation carefully before she committed herself to
either side.
CHAPTER IV
An Encounter
The little freehold of "Walden" was a triangle, consisting of about two
acres of land. Its base abutted on the high road, and its apex was
wedged into another and much larger estate. The owner of this property
resided at Lyngates Hall. The Watsons had as yet only seen him in the
distance, but they knew from report that he was a naturalized German,
and that his name was Hockheimer. They had heard rumours that he was not
popular in the district. So long as he kept his live stock on his own
side of the hedge, Mrs. Watson did not concern herself about her
neighbour. When his cows strayed into her field she drove them back, and
had the gap securely mended to prevent further trespassing. She
considered that to be the end of the matter, and did not give Mr.
Hockheimer another thought. As for the young people, they had not yet
realized his existence. They discovered it one day quite suddenly and
unpleasantly.
The second Monday morning after her start at school, Avelyn was walking
to the station with her brothers to catch the 8.15 train. The weather
was still fine and summer-like, and the late September sunshine gilded
the yellowing nut trees, and turned the dew-drops in the long webs of
gossamer into diamonds. There was an exhilaration in being up and out so
early. The three marched along very cheerily, chatting as they went. As
they rounded the corner beyond the smithy, they could see, about two
hundred yards in front of them, a little figure in blue sports coat and
tam-o'-shanter, also making its way in the direction of Netherton.
"Who's that girl?" asked Anthony. "We see her every day; she goes in to
Harlingden by the same train that we do. She must be going to school,
because she always has a satchel of books with her."
"It looks like Pamela Reynolds," returned Avelyn. "She's new at
Silverside this term, and, now you speak of it, I remember somebody told
me she came from Lyngates, but I'd quite forgotten all about it till
this moment. I don't even know where she lives. Shall we sprint and
catch her up?"
The Watsons hurried their footsteps, and by dint of what might be termed
a forced march overtook Pamela on the brow of the hill. Avelyn greeted
her by name from behind. She turned, surprised. She was a fine-looking
girl of nearly fourteen, with wide-open honest brown eyes, a clear pale
skin, and bronze-brown hair, which curled at the ends, and had a
tendency to make little rings round her forehead. She was really pretty
when she smiled.
"Hallo!" she exclaimed. "I never expected to see you here! Aren't you
Avelyn Watson? I thought you were a boarder!"
"So I am, but only a weekly one. I come home from Friday to Monday. Do
you like being a day girl? Isn't it a long way to go every morning?"
"I don't mind; I used to have much farther to go to school when we lived
in Canada."
"Used you to live in Canada?"
"Yes, I was born there. I've only come to England lately."
"I haven't met you about Lyngates before."
"We've only been here a month."
"Who's 'we'?"
"Just my mother and I."
"Do you like England?"
"Pretty well. It's too cultivated after Canada. All these little walls
and hedges to divide the tiny fields make me laugh. It's like a dolls'
country. And I hate the high roads. Look here--there's a short cut
through that wood to the station. I go that way nearly every day. Will
you come?"
The Watsons were perfectly ready to explore anything in the shape of a
new path or by-lane. They helped Pamela to open the gate, and followed
her into the wood. The long vista of trees was delightful. The short
grass under foot was a vivid emerald green, there were patches of
yellowing bracken, clumps of crimson and orange toad-stools, spindle
bushes covered with scarlet berries, and trails of pale late honeysuckle
twining over the brambles. From the direction they were taking, they
must be cutting off a long corner on their way to the station.
They had walked for perhaps a few minutes, and were strolling on,
chatting as they went, when they suddenly heard a shout in front of
them, and someone came crashing through the undergrowth and stood
barring their path. The somebody in question was undoubtedly very angry.
He was a fair, short, stout, roundabout little man, with a big blond
moustache. His light-blue eyes flashed, and his large teeth gleamed
unpleasantly as he spoke. But he not only spoke, he shouted.
"What are you doing here? Do you know this wood's private property?
You've no business to be in it! Get out as fast as you can, the same way
you came! Be quick about it, or I'll know the reason why. I could have
you all taken up for trespassing if I liked. Why, _Pamela_!"
Pamela was standing staring at the surly objector, with a look of
mingled amazement, disgust, and defiance in her clear eyes.
"It's my fault, Uncle," she replied calmly. "It's a short cut to the
station through this wood, and to-day I brought these--friends"--she
hesitated for a moment over the word--"with me. I come this way nearly
every morning."
"Then you won't do it again!" thundered the short man. "Don't let me
ever catch you here any more, or any of your friends. You may understand
that once and for all, and I'll be obeyed. Go back, I tell you!"
He waved them savagely in the direction of the gate through which they
had come.
"Mayn't we go on just this once?" pleaded Pamela. "I'm afraid we'll miss
our train."
"Then miss it! What do I care? It's your own faults for trespassing, and
I hope you'll all get into trouble at school. You richly deserve it.
Back, I tell you, you young rascals!"
With an angry man raving like a lunatic in their path, there was nothing
for it but to beat a retreat as speedily as they could. When they had
passed through the gate, David looked at his watch.
"Five past eight! Thunder! We shall have to sprint if we want to catch
that train."
There was no time for comment. All four immediately set off running.
Each, perhaps, was buoyed up with an obstinate determination to reach
the station by 8.15 in spite of the unamiable hopes of the owner of the
wood. They only wished he could be there to see them defeat his
prophecy. In spite of such hindrances as bumping satchels, streaming
hair, and, in Anthony's case, a trailing bootlace, they panted along,
and covered the ground somehow. They could hear the train rumbling in
the distance, and could see the smoke of the engine as they raced down
the last hill. By the greatest of good luck a special cargo of milk-cans
and butter baskets had to be placed that morning in the luggage van, and
the extra two minutes spent in stowing them away saved the situation.
The guard was just waving his green flag as the Watsons and Pamela,
scarlet with their exertions, popped into the last carriage.
For a few minutes they were too breathless to speak. It was Anthony who
first found words.
"Well, of all raggy old lunatics commend me to that one!"
"Strafe the baity old blighter!" gasped David.
"I never heard of such meanness!" put in Avelyn. "Actually to _want_ us
to miss our train!"
"I'd have knocked him over for two pins," declared David savagely.
"Wish we'd tried!" growled Anthony.
"I don't know who he is, but he's no gentleman!" exploded Avelyn,
divided between her ruffled clothes and her ruffled feelings. "Sorry,
Pamela, if he's your uncle, but I can't help saying what I think."
Pamela was leaning back in a corner. She had taken off her blue
tam-o'-shanter, and was trying to re-tie her bronze-brown hair. She
looked up quickly.
"You needn't mind me. You can say anything you like about him. I only
wish he wasn't my uncle. We don't choose our relations, do we?"
"Nobody'd choose him if they could help it, I should think," replied
Avelyn frankly. "What's his name?"
"Mr. Hockheimer."
"The Mr. Hockheimer who lives at The Hall?"
"Yes."
"Why, he's a German, isn't he?"
"Yes, but I'm not! I'm as English as I possibly can be."
"Then how are you related to him?"
"He married my aunt."
"Oh!"
[Illustration: "DO YOU KNOW THIS WOOD'S PRIVATE PROPERTY?" HE SHOUTED]
There was a long pause, and then Anthony volunteered:
"If Auntie Belle was to marry a German, I'd never call her 'auntie'
again--never!"
"It was before the war, and she's dead now," groaned Pamela. "Uncle
Fritz has lived twenty years in England."
"How is it he's not interned?" asked David.
"He's naturalized, you see."
"Need you call him 'uncle'?"
"I'd rather not, but I've got to. I'd never seen him till I came here a
month ago."
"And you don't like him?"
For answer, Pamela suddenly burst into a storm of passionate tears.
"Like him! I hate him! Oh! why did we ever leave Canada and come to
England? It's wretched here, and I'm miserable. I'd like to run away!"
Then, dabbing her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief: "There, don't take
any notice of me, please. I get these fits sometimes. I'll feel better
soon. Please don't talk any more to me about uncle."
The Watsons glanced at her compassionately, and began to converse among
themselves upon other topics. Pamela stared hard out of the window,
blinked, and presently regained her composure. When the train arrived at
Harlingden, she and Avelyn walked to Silverside together, but they
talked of school concerns, and did not reopen the subject of Mr.
Hockheimer.
Before this happening Avelyn, though she had been vaguely aware of
Pamela's existence, had not mentally singled her out among the general
crowd of her schoolfellows. From that Monday morning she began to take
an interest in her. She smiled at her when they passed on the stairs,
and spoke to her occasionally in the playground. As they were in
different forms they had few opportunities of meeting, and even at
dinner the boarders sat at a different table from the day girls. Avelyn
looked out for Pamela on Friday afternoon, but she was not at the
station. She had either left school early, or was travelling by a later
train. She seemed such an attractive, pathetic little figure that
Avelyn's curiosity was aroused. She wanted to know where Pamela lived,
and more about her. She cast round in her mind for any likely source of
information, and decided upon Mrs. Garside, a fat kindly old soul, who
owned a farm close to Walden, and was disposed to be neighbourly and
talkative. On the excuse of going for the weekly butter she tapped at
the house door, and was ushered in. Mrs. Garside was busy washing pots,
but she placed a chair for her visitor, fetched the butter from the
dairy, and, as she packed it in the basket, glided off into
conversation. Once started, it was difficult to stop her, or to lead her
away from the various topics upon which her tongue ran so glibly. It was
only after much manoeuvring and a considerable amount of patience that
Avelyn could get her to concentrate on the subject of Pamela Reynolds.
Even then her mind side-tracked.
"A young lady with dark hair, that wears a blue tam-o'-shanter. Yes,
I've seen her--not that I like tam-o'-shanters, and I wouldn't get one
for Hilda, though she begged hard; I bought her a felt instead. Mr.
Hockheimer's niece? Yes, he lives at The Hall, though many think he's no
right to be there; and if I'd my way, I'd say an internment camp was the
right place for him. With two sons in the trenches it doesn't give one
any patience for these naturalized Germans, coming and turning out
decent English folk, too, that ought to be there instead of him. It was
a queer business, and people ought to make their wills properly before
they come to die, instead of leaving them half-written. I've made mine,
and divided what I've got equal share and share alike among my six
children, so that there won't be any quarrelling after my funeral, for
I've told them beforehand what to expect. And people say the old
Squire's ghost haunts The Hall, and small wonder; though it's not much
use, for a ghost can't sign a will, and he should have had the sense to
do it while he was alive."
Mrs. Garside's statements were so rambling and involved, that it took
Avelyn a very long time indeed to sift the information she wanted from
among the large number of superfluous details supplied by her loquacious
neighbour. By dint of pertinacity and tact, however, she pieced together
the following narrative.--
Pamela's ancestors had for many generations been Squires of Lyngates,
and had resided at The Hall. Her grandfather, Mr. George Reynolds, had
lived there until his death, two years ago. Mrs. Garside could remember
him since her girlhood--a tall, handsome man with a brown beard, who
rode about the country on a favourite white horse named Champion. He had
been a good landlord, and was well liked in the neighbourhood. His wife
had died early, and left two children, a son and daughter. The son, Mr.
Leonard, had been a high-spirited lad, and it was said in the village
that he and his father did not get on well together. There was some
upset and a quarrel, the rights of which nobody ever knew, for the
Squire was too proud to air his troubles, and kept family skeletons
securely locked in their cupboards. At any rate, Mr. Leonard had gone
away to Canada and started farming, and had never returned to his old
home, though he had written that he was married, and, later on, that he
had a daughter. This was all the news that Lyngates people had heard of
him in fourteen years. Whether he had prospered or otherwise on his
far-off Canadian ranch they did not know. Squire Reynolds's other child,
Miss Dora, had been a pretty girl, and her father's favourite. Many
years went by, however, before she married. She had been fond of
hunting, and used to look very smart riding to hounds in her neat
navy-blue habit. It was at a meet that she had first met Mr. Hockheimer.
He rented a shooting-box in the neighbourhood, and came down frequently
from London for week ends. Nobody could understand how this naturalized
German had obtained such a hold over Miss Dora and her father, though it
was rumoured that he had reinvested the Squire's money for him to great
advantage. Being a City man he was well acquainted with finance. Miss
Dora was long past her first youth, but she was still handsome, and
everyone in Lyngates had said that she was far too good for Mr.
Hockheimer. The village worthies, however, were not consulted, and the
wedding took place.
A year afterwards the European war broke out. There was great comment in
Lyngates on the position of Mr. Hockheimer, but he had proved himself to
be a naturalized British subject, and declared he was heart and soul on
the side of the Allies. He had been very energetic on local committees,
and had given large sums to the Belgian Fund.
When red war flamed in Flanders, and Britain summoned all her sons to
her standard, Leonard Reynolds, on his far-away ranch in the Rockies,
had heard the call and answered it. He had joined one of the first
Canadian contingents, and had come over the sea to "do his bit" for the
Motherland, leaving his wife and child at the ranch to carry on the
brave but wellnigh impossible task of keeping the home fires burning. In
his passage through England he had had thirty-six hours' leave, and had
visited his father at Lyngates. The villagers had seen him again after
fourteen years' absence, and had admired him in his khaki uniform. He
had spoken to several of them--words of fire and patriotism and
enthusiasm for the coming conflict.
Everybody lived for the newspapers in those first months of war, and
Lyngates was no exception to the general rule. In farm-house and
cottage they read of the retreat from Mons. Duke's son and plough-boy,
Oxford graduate and City clerk, scientist, shopman and crossing-sweeper
alike, had paid the great sacrifice, and the name of Leonard Reynolds
stood among them. The Squire was in bed at the time, recovering from a
severe operation. The news was broken to him by an injudicious nurse at
a crisis in his illness, and it proved his death-blow. In his few last
gasping words he had tried to say something about a will, but those who
were with him could not understand what he meant to convey. With the
incoherent message still trembling on his stricken lips he had passed
away into the silence. He was buried with his ancestors in Lyngates
churchyard, but there was no cross to mark the grave of his son Leonard.
The survivors of the Canadian contingent could give no details beyond
the fact that a certain portion of them had been utterly wiped out by a
terrific explosion. It was impossible to identify the dead. War was
reaping a red harvest of human lives.
After Squire Reynolds's funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Hockheimer had taken
possession of The Hall. Though search was made everywhere the only will
which could be discovered was one in the custody of the family
solicitor, which was dated fifteen years back. In the briefest terms it
left a certain sum of money to his daughter, and the estate of Lyngates
to his son, but in the event of the death of either, the survivor was to
inherit the whole property. As it had been drawn up before his son's
marriage, no mention was made in it of Leonard's wife and child. It was
a perfectly valid will, and it was duly proved, Mrs. Hockheimer
succeeding to the entire estate of her late father. She lived only six
months to enjoy it, and was laid to rest with her dead baby in her arms.
She had executed a will bequeathing everything to her husband, so that
Mr. Hockheimer, the naturalized German, assumed absolute command of the
Reynolds property.
Meanwhile, matters had gone hardly with the wife and child of Leonard
Reynolds. It had been impossible for them to farm the ranch, and they
had no private means. By the advice of her friends Mrs. Reynolds had
sold up her few possessions and had come to England with her daughter,
to find out at first hand from the lawyers whether any provision had
been made for her out of the estate. The solicitors were polite and
sympathetic: they acknowledged the keen injustice of the matter, but
assured her that there was no redress, and, according to British law,
Mr. Hockheimer had full rights of possession in the Lyngates property,
while she and her child could not claim so much as a solitary farthing.
They represented the case, however, to Mr. Hockheimer, and he at once
offered Mrs. Reynolds the use of a cottage on his land, together with a
small annual income, and promised to pay for Pamela's education at a day
school in Harlingden. As she had no other means of livelihood, Mrs.
Reynolds had accepted this help, and had settled down at Lyngates
shortly before this story begins. She was a fragile little woman,
gentle and clinging in disposition, and so battered by misfortune that
she was glad to rest anywhere where she could find a home. She received
Mr. Hockheimer's dole quite gratefully. With the loss of her husband
life had for her practically stopped. Through her daughter it held a
second-hand kind of interest. She welcomed the idea of Pamela attending
a good school, and her crushed soul even began to indulge in timid
little day-dreams concerning her child's future. These hopes, pathetic
and tender, were like wild sweet violets springing up over the
desolation of a battle-field.
Pamela viewed the situation from an utterly different standpoint. She
had inherited her grandfather's strength of character along with the
Reynolds features, and also a considerable share of his pride. Her early
life in Canada had made her more independent than most English girls of
her age. She considered that by all rights of justice an equal half of
the Lyngates estate should have been hers, and that her uncle, Mr.
Hockheimer, had managed to steal her inheritance. She hated to accept
from him as charity what she felt ought to have been her own, and she
bitterly resented the patronizing attitude which he adopted towards
herself and her mother. She, too, had her day-dreams, and most of them
centred round a time when she would be old enough to shake off this
thraldom of dependence and strike out a line of her own in the world.
CHAPTER V
Ructions
By the end of a few weeks Avelyn began to feel more settled down in her
new quarters at Silverside. The old pupils might regret the former
regime, but she was tolerably satisfied with the new. She was in the
fifth form, and found the work not too arduous, and liked Miss Kennedy,
her teacher. She had been accustomed to the bustle of a large school,
and, though Laura Talbot might rave against the crowded conditions, to
Avelyn it was amusing to be in a room crammed full of girls. School is a
separate world of its own, and often a curious one. To outsiders and to
its Principal, Silverside might appear as an enterprise that was growing
and prospering exceedingly. Its numbers had suddenly more than doubled,
it had fresh teachers, and was going to build a cloak-room and a
gymnasium; nothing could seemingly have more hope of success. Inwardly,
however, it was a seething whirl of opposing factions. The old and the
new did not readily amalgamate. The boarders were jealous of their
rights, and would not yield an inch of the privileged position they had
always been wont to occupy; while the Hawthorners, accustomed to the
absolute democracy of a day school, could not and would not understand
why boarders should expect to have any privileges at all.
Trouble began on the very second day of term. Adah, in her new capacity
of head girl, had pinned a paper on the notice board announcing a
general meeting of the Dramatic Society for 4.15 in the studio. The old
members turned up at the time named, to find a group of Hawthorners
already in possession of the room. Adah, after waiting a minute, glanced
at the clock and coughed significantly; then, as this produced no
result, she remarked:
"Won't you be rather late if you're not getting home soon?"
"We don't much mind," returned Annie Broadside easily.
"Well, the fact is, we want to use this room," continued Adah. "We're
going to have a meeting."
"I know. That's why we've come."
Adah's eyebrows elevated themselves to an astonishing angle.
"You've come to our meeting?" she exclaimed incredulously.
"Certainly we have. Why not?"
Annie asked the question aggressively.
"Because you're not members of the Dramatic."
"But we want to join."
Adah turned to her friends, who stood looking scornfully at the
intruders.
"Did you hear that?" she remarked. "They actually want to join the
Dramatic!"
"Cheek!" murmured Consie, and the others giggled.
"And why shouldn't we join?" flamed Gladys Wilks.
"Why? Because you're day girls, and the Dramatic's only for boarders.
That's the reason."
"It's no reason at all," answered Maggie Stuart sharply. "The boarders
have no right to monopolize any society. It ought to be free and open to
the whole school."
"But it can't!" snapped Adah. "Surely you can see for yourselves that it
wouldn't work. We have all our rehearsals in the evenings, when day
girls couldn't possibly come."
"You could fix them from four to five instead," suggested Annie.
"We're not going to alter our arrangements for anybody," returned Adah
tartly.
"The boarders have always run the Dramatic," added Consie. "We'd like to
begin our meeting, please, when we can have the studio to ourselves."
"Oh, very well! Keep your wretched society to yourselves if you want!"
yapped Annie; "but I'll tell you this, at any rate, I think it's most
monstrously unfair. You needn't expect us to help you with any of your
schemes, for we just shan't!"
"Don't excite yourselves--we haven't asked you!" sneered Consie
freezingly as the Hawthorners flounced out of the room.
At first the committee was too agitated to discuss business. It was
ablaze with indignation at the impudence of mere day girls aspiring to
join the select circle.
"How could we let them?" fluttered Joyce Edwards. "To begin with, there
wouldn't be enough parts to go round, nor enough costumes. Dear me! we
should have the Juniors expecting to appear on the platform! What next,
I wonder? We Seniors have always done the acting, and let the kids and
day girls make the audience."
"And we'll go on doing so!" declared Adah. "We're the prefects, and
we'll manage the school affairs as we like, without interference from
anybody."
The decision about the Dramatic was the same as regarded most of the
other societies. The boarders kept them jealously to themselves. The day
girls grumbled, even protested indignantly, but they were powerless to
make any change. The four prefects were all boarders, and exercised
their newly-granted authority for their own advantage. Miss Thompson had
no idea of the state of affairs. In appointing as school officers girls
who had been with her for some years, she thought she was safeguarding
the tone of Silverside and preserving its traditions intact. She had
certainly no intention of establishing an oligarchy; yet in effect that
was what had resulted. The members of the Boarders' League felt pledged
to support one another against all outsiders, and every activity of the
school was in the hands of a clique.
Adah, as head girl, was intensely patronizing. She was puffed up with
pride in her new office, and would explain Silverside customs with an
airy superiority which aggravated the Hawthorners continually. Their
injured souls rallied round Annie Broadside. Annie was a born leader.
She keenly resented the state of affairs, and meant to show fight. She
only waited a suitable opportunity, and at length it came.
For the first few weeks of term the boarders had been busy with various
affairs on Saturdays, and had contented themselves with an occasional
game of tennis and croquet. At the beginning of October they suddenly
realized that the hockey season was beginning. So far hockey, and indeed
any organized games, had been only very languidly pursued at Silverside.
The smallness of the school had not given a wide choice of champions,
and for some years the elder girls had been more interested in botany
and butterfly collecting than in sports.
Silverside had had a hockey team, and had occasionally played a match,
though it could not pride itself on its record of goals. The present
prefects had never distinguished themselves remarkably at athletics, but
they were sufficiently enthusiastic to wish the school to win successes.
They called a boarders' meeting to discuss matters.
"We ought to have a splendid games club this term," smiled Adah
complacently. "There should be several sets of hockey going on in the
same afternoon."
"There isn't room in the field for more than one," ventured Laura
Talbot.
"Then we must take a larger field," decreed Consie. "With so many new
subscriptions we can easily afford it."
"Ninety-five girls instead of only thirty-six in a school make a
difference," admitted Irma Ridley.
"The treasurer will have quite a nice little sum in hand," chuckled
Isobel Norris.
"I want the school to begin and make a name for itself," said Adah. "I
don't want to say anything against Jessie Carew and Maggie Stephens,
last year, but really we all know they were slackers."
"Silverside must buck up!" agreed the others.
"You, Laura, and Janet, and Ethelberga have the makings of good players
in you," murmured Adah reflectively, "and of course Consie and myself,
and perhaps Joyce."
"What about the Hawthorners?" asked Isobel.
"We shall have to include them, of course."
"Couldn't get up the teams without them, I'm afraid," sniggered Minnie
Selburn.
Adah stared hard at Minnie, who straightened her face and sat up
stiffly.
"In the matter of hockey, of course, everybody in the school, whether
day girl or boarder, will be invited to join," continued Adah.
"Some of those Hawthorners are jolly good," ventured Mona Bardsley.
"They won ever so many matches last year, I believe," added Alice
Webster.
"Whom did they play?" asked Adah quickly.
"I don't know."
"I do," said Avelyn, speaking for the first time. "It was Workington
Ladies' College, Mirton High School, Redlands County School, and
Harlingden Ladies' Team, and they beat them all, except Harlingden, and
that was a draw."
Adah was rapidly scribbling some entries in her notebook.
"We'll challenge Workington Ladies' College," she announced. "I wanted
us to do it last year, but we decided our team wasn't strong enough.
I'll write to their secretary to-night and make a fixture. It would be a
tremendous triumph for Silverside to beat Workington. They've rather a
reputation."
"The old school's going to forge ahead!" smiled Consie.
"We'll ask Miss Thompson to speak about hiring that larger field," said
Isobel. "We'd better secure it at once, in case the farmer should let it
to anybody else."
Next day Adah pinned up a notice, announcing that hockey would begin on
the following Saturday afternoon, and asking all girls to sign their
names as members of the games club, and to pay their subscriptions to
the treasurer. She watched the day girls come and surge round the notice
board, then she ran upstairs to her form room. She considered that she
was performing her duties admirably as head of the school.
Meantime, downstairs, a ferment was going on that would have surprised
her. The grumblings and dissatisfaction increased till a whisper began
to circulate.
"Annie Broadside says, don't sign or do anything yet, but let the 'Old
Hawthorners' League' meet on the common this afternoon at 4.15. Pass
this on, and all turn up."
The boarders could not understand why, that afternoon, the day girls
scuttled away so promptly at four o'clock, and seemed in such a frantic
hurry to get on their boots and be gone. As a rule they loitered about
in an annoying fashion, and were seldom clear of the premises till
half-past four. The prefects ventured the opinion that Silverside rules
were at last beginning to be properly kept. They would have been
immensely electrified if they could have seen what was really happening.
Not far from the house was a small common, which most of the girls were
bound to pass on their way to and from school. To-day, instead of going
home they trooped here. There was an old tree stump at one side, and
Annie, scrambling to the top of it, and holding on by a branch, made it
serve as an orator's platform from which to address her audience, which
stood below. She first of all looked round critically.
"Are we all here?" she began.
Several voices replied:
"All who could come."
"Some girls had to catch trains."
"And the Potters had music lessons."
"And Trissie Marsh had to go to the dentist's."
"But they sympathize. They'd have come if they could."
"I'm glad to hear that," continued Annie. "I like to know I have your
sympathy. Are we all old Hawthorners?"
"Yes, yes!"
"And no spies among us?"
"Certainly not!"
"Then I can speak freely. I want to say, what I'm sure we all think,
that we're perfectly disgusted with the way those boarders have been
behaving. They speak as if the school existed for them, and them alone.
Some societies we aren't allowed to join at all, and those that we may
belong to are kept well in their own hands, because they appoint
themselves as presidents, and secretaries, and treasurers, and members
of committee. We simply haven't a look in anywhere. Now, I ask you, is
this fair?"
"Not at all!" howled the girls.
"We're exactly in the position of serfs, and it's monstrous. What right
have those boarders to rule over us?"
"None!"
"It's quite time we showed our spirit. I've been wondering for a long
time how we could checkmate them, and now I see my way clear. They're
going to start the hockey season."
"Yes!"
"Who do you think will make all the arrangements and be captains of the
teams? Boarders or day girls?"
"Why, boarders, of course."
"And who are the best players; who are going to win the goals?"
"_We_ are!"
"Of course, we are; everybody knows that! But the boarders would take
all the credit, and talk about _their_ successes. The very idea makes me
ill! Why should we play for _them_?"
"Why, indeed?"
"We're not obliged to. Our Saturdays are our own, and nobody can make us
come and play hockey if we don't want. I vote we just say we won't join
their old games club. Let's start a rival one of our own."
"Yes, yes! Oh, do let us!"
"We'll call it 'The Old Hawthorners' Hockey Club', and we'll hire our
old ground and wear our old colours, and play matches of our own, and
let those conceited Silversiders go to Jericho."
Annie's daring suggestion met with a chorus of applause. The
Hawthorners, made to feel unwelcome in their new school, clung
desperately to their old traditions. They had had an excellent hockey
record in past years, and felt confident that they could raise a team
sufficiently strong to challenge their former rivals to matches.
"Will you elect Gladys as secretary?" asked Annie. "That's all right.
And Maggie as treasurer? Then give in your names, and bring your
subscriptions to-morrow, and I'll go this very night and see about
getting our old field. It belongs to Mr. Gardner, and my father knows
him quite well, so I'm sure we shall manage it. If not, we'll hire
another field."
"Or play on the common," declared the girls as they crowded round Gladys
Wilks, giving in their names.
Adah Gartley had kept her word and written immediately to the secretary
of Workington Ladies' College, who had replied by return of post,
arranging a match for a date in November. She showed the letter with
much satisfaction to the boarders after breakfast.
"By the by, have those day girls paid their subscriptions yet to the
Games Club?" she asked suddenly.
"Not one of them," answered Isobel.
"The blighters! And hockey begins to-morrow. Isn't it just like day
girls? I must talk to them about it at eleven o'clock 'break'."
The day girls were busy consuming packets of lunch when Adah, glass of
milk and piece of bread and butter in hand, strolled amongst them, bent
on her mission.
"Look here, you slackers! D'you know you've never paid your half-crowns
yet? Can't admit anybody to the hockey field who hasn't given in her
subscription--that's one of the traditions of Silverside."
"Is it?" said Annie Broadside casually. "I can't see that it concerns
us."
"You'll see to-morrow when you get to the field. A nice little
disappointment it will be for you to find you're not allowed to play."
Annie took a big bite of oatcake and gulped it.
"Suppose we don't want to play?"
"Not want to play!" Adah's expression was one of sheer incredulity.
"Why should we? You boarders have taken up all the other societies, so
you may have the hockey as well. We don't want to intrude on your
privileges, thanks!"
"But I say," blustered Adah, "you _must_ play! We've got to win matches
and keep up the credit of the school."
"Keep it up yourselves!" put in Gladys sarcastically. "You've rubbed it
into us hard enough that it's only you who understand the school
traditions, and we're nothing but outsiders!"
"But you're keen on hockey! Surely you want to play?" Adah was making a
desperate effort to curb her temper and be conciliatory.
"Certainly we do, but we're going to have a club to ourselves."
"You can't here!"
"We don't mean to try. It's an 'Old Hawthorners' Club', and nothing to
do with Silverside."
"But you mustn't! You shan't go ratting like this!" exploded Adah,
scarlet with indignation.
"Don't get excited!" said Annie politely. "There's nothing to prevent
us. Our Saturdays are our own, and nobody can compel us to come to
school and play hockey if we don't want."
"You miserable blighters!"
"There! Keep a civil tongue, please. I thought the traditions of
Silverside didn't run to slang. Perhaps you'd like to arrange a match
with us: 'The Old Hawthorners' versus 'Silverside Boarders'? Gladys is
our secretary, and will book it."
"I shall do nothing of the sort!" choked Adah, beating as dignified a
retreat as she could.
It was certainly a terrible blow for the prefects. They had counted
entirely on the strength of the day girls in arranging teams. To be
deserted in this fashion meant the ruin of the hockey season. They were
aghast at the bad news.
"I wonder if Miss Thompson can refuse the larger field?" speculated
Joyce.
"We certainly can't afford to hire it with the subscriptions we've got,"
mourned Isobel.
"And it's not the slightest use our trying a match with Workington, for
we should only get a jolly good licking," announced Consie. "We don't
want to court disaster."
"I shall write to the secretary to-night," said Adah bitterly, "and tell
her we've been obliged to make other arrangements. Those day girls are
the absolute limit!"
"Don't you think," ventured Isobel, "that perhaps you've been a little
high-handed? If you'd tried to conciliate them, now----"
"Conciliate!" echoed Adah scornfully. "Really, Isobel, what next? If you
think I'm going to truckle to day girls, you're much mistaken."
"I'm afraid we're making a good many mistakes," murmured Isobel, but too
low for her friend to overhear her.
The three other prefects certainly laid the blame of this occurrence on
Adah, and considered that, if they had conducted the negotiations in her
place, they would have been able to manage the refractory Hawthorners.
Though they always loyally supported their head girl, they were quite
aware that her overbearing manners gave offence. They sometimes suffered
from her themselves. She had so thoroughly established herself as
leader, however, that it was not possible to break away from her rule.
She had been longer than any other girl at Silverside, and thus stood
for the old traditions. Whether these in the end were going to prove the
best for the school was a matter that admitted of some debate.
CHAPTER VI
Reprisals
After learning the story of the Lyngates estate, Avelyn's interest in
Pamela Reynolds was doubled, and she cultivated her acquaintance. The
two girls travelled together from Harlingden on Friday afternoons, and
arranged to meet on Monday mornings to walk in company to the station.
Though Pamela was not yet fourteen she was old for her age; her
adventurous life in Canada had given her a mental outlook different from
that of most English girls. She proved a lively and very pleasant
companion. Mrs. Watson, to whom Avelyn confided her friend's story, paid
a call upon Mrs. Reynolds, and found her a timid, refined lady, of
gentle birth and breeding, greatly saddened with her troubles, and
evidently without much initiative. The cottage, which had been lent to
her by Mr. Hockheimer, was in a very out-of-the-way situation. It was
small, inconvenient, and possessed many drawbacks, but she had made the
sitting-room pretty with books and flowers, and the little home had a
cultured air about it. Mrs. Reynolds did not seem to wish to seek any
society, and gently intimated that she feared she was not strong enough
to walk as far as the village and return calls.
"The poor woman has simply sat down under her troubles," said Mrs.
Watson, describing her experiences at the family supper-table. "It's
easy to see that she has no spirit. If she would take life more pluckily
it would be better for herself and everybody. I'm sorry for that child.
To live in that quiet spot with such a depressed companion, especially
when by all rights they ought to have owned The Hall. It makes my blood
boil! Mr. Hockheimer ought to have done more for them than this."
"Catch Mr. Hockheimer doing much for anybody!" commented Daphne. "People
say he's the stingiest landlord. They grumble dreadfully. I think he
ought to have had Mrs. Reynolds and Pamela to live with him at The
Hall."
"Oh, Pamela would have just hated that!" put in Avelyn. "She simply
can't bear her uncle."
"I don't blame her," sniffed Daphne.
"Oh, Muvvie, couldn't we ask Pamela to tea?" said Avelyn. "It must be so
lonely for her up there, without any brothers and sisters. I believe
she'd love to come."
"Well, we'll give her the chance at any rate," agreed Mrs. Watson. "I
hope her mother won't be stupid and refuse to let her come. I think I'd
better send a formal invitation."
The note was duly written and dispatched. Mrs. Reynolds appeared to need
some days to think the matter over, but finally sent a formal
acceptance.
"Hooray!" triumphed Daphne. "I quite expected she was going to decline
with thanks. Muvvie, how glad I am that you're a nice, sensible person,
and not morbid! You'd have been such a trial to us if you'd always gone
about with an air of depressed resignation."
"I've had my troubles as well as other people," said Mrs. Watson. "It
certainly doesn't make them any better to mourn over them. We've got to
sit up and make the best of things as they are. 'Never say die!' is a
good old motto. I'd try to be chirpy and cheery if I were reduced to a
wooden leg and a glass eye!"
"So you would, Muvvie darling! I believe you'd dance a jig with a
crutch. But about Pamela----"
"We'll give her a good time when she comes, poor child!"
The warm-hearted Watsons were determined to make Pamela thoroughly
welcome, and they succeeded royally. She was painfully shy for the first
ten minutes, and answered all questions in embarrassed monosyllables,
but after a walk round the garden she began to thaw, by the end of tea
she had waxed expansive, and later on she proved downright amusing. By
the time the family, in a body, escorted her home, they felt that they
had sealed a friendship. They talked her over on the way back.
"She's sporty," decided David.
"Decent as far as girls go," qualified Anthony, who at twelve did not
yield readily to feminine attractions.
"I call her charming," said Daphne. "You can see she's plenty in
her--not one of those lackadaisical people like Ella Simpson, who just
put on side. It seems to me a most monstrous thing that her uncle should
have been able to take all the property."
"Collared the lot!" grunted David. "The old Hun!"
"Mrs. Garside told me that everybody said Squire Reynolds must have made
a later will--the butler and coachman remembered signing something. But
it couldn't be found."
"Likely enough old Hockheimer suppressed it. He'd be equal to any dirty
German trick!" suggested Anthony.
"If he has he deserves penal servitude."
"I'd prefer shooting for him," said Anthony grimly.
The Watsons liked Pamela for herself, but it certainly gave her an added
interest to consider her the victim of her uncle's greed and injustice.
They thoroughly detested Mr. Hockheimer. Since the morning when he had
turned them out of the wood they had owed him a grudge, and other
matters had accumulated to swell the account. His land, unfortunately,
adjoined theirs. I have mentioned before that the little property of
Walden was shaped like a triangle, the apex of which jutted into Mr.
Hockheimer's estate. This apex consisted of a piece of rather marshy
rushy ground. The brook divided at its head, and flowing round it in two
separate streams reunited, making the patch of meadow into an island,
connected with the main land by a rough plank bridge. It was of little
service from a farmer's point of view, but it was a most picturesque
spot, and Mrs. Watson intended to turn it into a water garden. She and
Daphne spent hours poring over Barr's catalogues, and deciding what
iris, forget-me-nots, ranunculi, and other marsh-loving plants they
should send for, and whether it would be possible to dam a piece of the
brook to make a pool for water-lilies.
Imagine their annoyance when one day they found their cherished island
in the occupation of Mr. Hockheimer's cows, which had walked down the
stream from their own field. With great difficulty the Watsons drove
them back, and replaced the rather broken tree-trunk, which acted as
barrier, across the brook. When the same incident happened again Mrs.
Watson complained, and requested Mr. Hockheimer to see that his cows
kept to their own field. He replied by stating that they had always been
accustomed to graze on the island, which was really a no-man's
territory, not strictly included in either property, though, if the
matter were to be investigated, it would probably be found to be
included in the Lyngates estate.
Much surprised, and angry at such an assertion, Mrs. Watson looked up
the plans of Walden which went with her title-deeds, and found the
island most certainly represented as her property. She called in the
assistance of the village joiner, and caused a strong barrier to be
fixed across the stream at the head of the island, sufficient to keep
out cows and make a landmark for the boundary of her territory from
that of her acquisitive neighbour. This being done she considered the
matter settled, and proceeded to plant her iris and forget-me-nots. She
anticipated a beautiful show from them in the spring.
Towards the end of October, Daphne, whose health had picked up with
country air, nevertheless had to report herself to the specialist who
had previously examined her, and she and her mother made an expedition
to London. They started on a Thursday, and were to spend Sunday with
friends in town, returning home on the following Monday or Tuesday.
Avelyn, David, and Anthony, together with Ethel, the maid, had the
establishment to themselves for the week-end. With her mother's
permission, Avelyn asked Pamela to spend the Saturday afternoon at
Walden.
The young folks were determined to have a thoroughly happy harum-scarum
time together, and, instead of taking a conventional tea in the
dining-room, they carried their meal into the barn, and held a picnic
feast, sitting on blocks of wood, with the wheelbarrow for a table, and
with Billy, the dog, Meg, the cat, and Tiny, the bantam cock, as
self-invited guests.
"It's rather a stunt being all on our own for once!" opined Anthony,
feeding Billy with crust, regardless of the rationing order.
"Top-hole!" murmured Avelyn, pouring out milk for Meg into her saucer.
"I wish something would happen!" said David, rocking himself airily to
and fro on his billet of wood.
"Something _will_ happen if you're not careful, old sport! You'll topple
over next minute!" warned Avelyn.
"What do you want to happen?" asked Pamela.
"Something exciting--an air raid, or a fire, or a burglary. Something
really to give one spasms!"
Pamela did not reply for a moment. She rested her head on her hand and
thought. When she spoke there was an undercurrent of doubt in her voice.
"I don't know whether I ought to tell you," she hesitated. "I'm not
supposed to know, only I happened to overhear. I don't care, I _shall_
tell! He's only my uncle by marriage, and I detest him!"
"Do you mean Mr. Hockheimer?" asked Avelyn, in a sudden flutter.
"Yes; I wish I didn't!"
"What about him?"
Pamela hesitated again, then whispered:
"He's coming here, just at dusk, with an axe and a saw."
"What for?"
The Watsons had clustered round, with faces full of horrified
expectancy.
"To take down that barrier across the stream. He says the island's his."
If the enemy had landed, the Watsons could not have been more astonished
and indignant. Their opinion of Mr. Hockheimer had been bad before, but
that he should take advantage of their mother's absence to perform such
an abominable and utterly illegal act made their blood boil.
"There are two opinions about the island," declared David grimly. "Mr.
Hockheimer will find he's not going to get things all his own way. What
time did he say he was coming?"
"Just at dusk."
"All right! We'll be ready for him! Thanks ever so much for letting us
know. I say, Tony, come into the yard with me; I want to speak to you.
I've got a brain wave!"
"What's it about, Davie?" asked Avelyn excitedly.
"I'll tell you afterwards, Ave."
Out in the yard the two boys held a hasty confabulation. They felt that
they must act quickly. It was their duty to protect their mother's
property from this Hun robber. The situation appealed to their boyish
instincts. David's eyes gleamed with a wrathful twinkle. Anthony's young
fists were tightly clenched. They laid a careful plan of campaign, then
started off to secure recruits. In ten minutes they returned from the
village with three Boy Scouts, to whom they unfolded their designs. They
hurried off at once to the island, to survey the scene of action. The
barrier which Mrs. Watson had caused to be erected across the brook, was
constructed of two stout poles with withies intertwined; the ends were
secured in the banks, and there was room for the water, even in flood,
to flow underneath. On the Walden side of the stream were some large
stepping-stones, which the joiners had placed for their convenience
when fixing the posts into the overhanging bank. David and Anthony, with
their scout friends, took off boots and stockings, and after a
considerable amount of shoving and splashing, managed to move away the
small stones that supported these boulders, leaving them apparently
safe, but in reality only lightly balanced in the brook. They had barely
finished when twilight began to fall.
"We'll clear out now!" commanded David. "He may come any minute, and I
want him to be hard at work before we appear on the scenes. We'll catch
him red-handed."
"And give him more than he expects!" chuckled Anthony.
Going back to the house, the boys took Avelyn into their confidence.
They felt that it would be mean to leave her out of such a thrilling
adventure.
"If you're game to come, you can," they allowed graciously. "It ought to
be a sporty job!"
"Blossomy!" agreed Avelyn. "I wouldn't miss it for worlds. But what
about Pamela? She'd enjoy it, of course, but her uncle would know she'd
given the show away."
"She must hide behind the bushes, and not let him see her. It'll be
top-hole for Pamela!"
The alders and clumps of furze were thick down by the stream, quite
sufficient to give shelter to the little party of seven that presently
took cover there. They preserved strict military discipline. Not a word
was spoken. All crouched silently watching and waiting. The sun had set,
and the red glow faded from the sky, but there was a young moon, and
objects were clear. David held Billy by the collar. He was a sporting
dog, and trained not to bark; though he panted and his eyes bulged, he
did not betray the whereabouts of his owner by even the suspicion of a
yelp. Early experience with a former master, addicted to poaching, had
taught him his lesson.
Just when the owls had wakened, and were beginning to hoot round the
barns, Mr. Hockheimer came striding down his field. He was annoyed with
Mrs. Watson for having put the barrier across the stream. There had
indeed been one in the days of the former tenant, but it had
conveniently tumbled into the water, leaving a pathway for his cows to
graze on the island. He believed that by a little bluff and persistence
he could persuade Mrs. Watson that the island was part of his own
property. German-like, he had small opinion of women, and considered
that a widow's substance would be an easy prey. He had decided to see to
the matter himself, instead of bringing his bailiff or his keeper with
him. Since the war began, his men had been apt to make themselves very
disagreeable over trifles, and it was not worth having a fuss about so
small a business.
He stood on the top of the crag and surveyed the barrier. How to get to
it was the first question. It was fixed just where the stream ran in a
narrow gully between two high banks. He mentally strafed the village
joiner for having placed it in such an inaccessible spot. From his own
land it was practically impossible to reach it. The only thing to be
done was to go into Mrs. Watson's field. He had no scruples about
trespassing, and taking his axe he hacked down some branches, and
cleared himself a way through the hedge. It was comparatively easy now
to reach the barrier. There were stepping-stones obligingly left by the
workmen, which would be of great assistance to him. Saw and axe in hand
he advanced upon them, quite unwitting that seven pairs of eyes (eight
with Billy's) were watching his movements from the shadow of the bushes.
The first two stones were secure enough, and gave him confidence; the
third tottered a little, and he stepped hastily from it on to the
fourth, only to find that it capsized altogether and landed him suddenly
on his back in the water. The stream was not deep enough to drown, but
was quite sufficient to immerse him. He splashed and floundered about,
and rose wrathful and spluttering, to find five boy figures standing in
the field and grinning at his discomfiture.
"Dear me, Mr. Hockheimer," said David, with feigned commiseration, "I'm
afraid you're wet!"
Mr. Hockheimer's remarks, being in German, were probably better not
translated. He waded ashore and began to wring the water from his
clothes.
"May I ask what you were doing?" continued David blandly.
"A job that I mean to finish, you young rascal!" girned Mr. Hockheimer
gruffly.
"Excuse me, but that fence is my mother's property, and if anybody
interferes with it we're out here to protect it."
"And I'm here to remove it!" roared the German. "Take yourselves off,
you young chimpanzees!"
"You forget it's our own field," continued David with icy politeness.
"It's we who must ask you to take yourself off. Oh, very well!" as the
German made a threatening movement towards him, "Billy, will you give
Mr. Hockheimer a hint to go?"
Billy had been straining at his collar to suffocation point. Now,
released and encouraged by his master, he flew, barking furiously, at
the intruder, and seized him by the leg of his wet trouser.
Mr. Hockheimer yelled, freed himself by a kick, and, turning to see the
angry dog ready to spring at him again, saved himself by suddenly
climbing up an old willow stump that overhung the brook. He swarmed up
with an agility surprising in a man of his stout build. Wet and draggled
from his dip in the stream, he cut a sorry figure clinging among the
branches, while Billy, mad with rage, jumped and yelped down below.
"Call off that brute!" shouted the German hoarsely.
"There's no hurry," answered David. "I want to talk to you a little, Mr.
Hockheimer. It's a good opportunity while you're resting."
"Call him off and let me go, you little villain!"
"If you _will_ trespass in our field you must expect the dog to get
excited. It says in the Commination Service, 'Cursed is he that
removeth his neighbour's landmark'. (Perhaps you don't go to Church on
Ash Wednesdays?) Now, you were distinctly trying to remove my mother's
landmark, and if I let you go I may be compounding a felony. I've got
some witnesses here, at any rate. What a gap you made in the fence! We
shall have to make that up. Tony, old chap, keep guard for a while."
"Right you are!" answered Anthony sturdily.
Percy Houghton had brought his father's hedging-gloves and a billhook,
so, leaving Anthony as sentry by the tree, David, with the aid of the
boys, repaired the hedge. He whistled cheerily the while.
Mr. Hockheimer was feeling far from cheerful. He was wet, cold, and in a
most undignified position. Every time he ventured to let his leg down so
much as an inch the dog showed all his teeth in an ugly snarl. The
prospect of spending a much longer time perched in the tree was not
pleasing. He judged it wiser to arrange terms.
"Come, come, you've had your little joke," he expostulated in a milder
tone. "Call your dog away, and I will go home."
"Will you give me your solemn undertaking not to trespass on our
property again, or attempt to remove our landmarks?" demanded David
grandly.
His victim grunted something which might be interpreted as assent.
"Then we'll let you off this time. Tony, hold Billy! Shall I help you
down, Mr. Hockheimer? You're rather stiff, I expect."
"I can manage myself," growled the German sulkily, as he descended with
a thud.
"We've made up the fence, so we shall have to let you out through our
yard," observed David. "By the by, you dropped a saw and an axe into the
brook. I'll fish them out to-morrow by daylight and throw them over into
your field. I call that Christian charity. I might have commandeered
them or let them stop in the stream and rust away. Dear me, you're
_very_ wet! I hope you won't catch cold!"
Mr. Hockheimer made no reply, but stumped after the boys up the field
and through the stable-yard. David held the gate open for him most
courteously, and he passed through into the road. Then he turned and
shook his fist.
"You shall pay for this some day!" he muttered. "I don't forget!"
"Neither do I," returned David. "Good-night, Mr. Hockheimer!"
As the boys came back round the side of the barn they met Avelyn and
Pamela, who had run up from the field. The two girls had kept hidden
among the bushes, but had seen and heard most of what was going on.
"You don't think he saw me?" asked Pamela. "I believe he'd kill me if he
knew I'd told."
"I don't believe he could possibly see you, not even from up in the
tree. It was getting so dark," David assured her.
"He has an awful temper!" shivered Pamela.
"Oh, Dave, you did bait him!" said Avelyn with a chuckle. "I didn't know
you could be so sarcastic. I nearly died trying not to laugh out loud.
How did you think of it all?"
"It came on the spur of the moment," admitted David modestly. "I've
rather an idea I'd like to be a barrister when I grow up, if the war's
over."
"I'd like to be a detective and snap the handcuffs on criminals,"
declared Tony, giving Billy his last honey-drop as a reward of virtue.
CHAPTER VII
Miss Hopkins
Though Avelyn, as a weekly boarder, was not quite in the innermost heart
of the Silverside clique, she was nevertheless considered one of the
elect. Her room-mates rubbed it into her that she _was_ a boarder, and
as such must be very thankful for her privileges. On the whole, they
treated her rather well. They included her as much as they could in what
fun was going on, helped her to plait her hair, showed her their private
treasures, and shared their occasional boxes of chocolate impartially
round the dormitory. Avelyn felt that she was living two lives: one
began at nine o'clock on Monday morning, and lasted till four on Friday,
and the other occupied the intervening time. Each circled independently
in its own orbit. The school life was quite fascinating and absorbing,
especially now she was getting used to it. It was jolly to sit on the
beds in the dormitory and compare experiences with the other girls. They
generally had something interesting to talk about, especially Irma
Ridley. Irma had an inventive mind, and a keen appetite for romance. She
read every novel she could get hold of, though only a very few, and
those of a strictly classical character, were allowed in the Silverside
library. She had a good memory, was an excellent raconteuse, and would
sit in the gloaming and tell thrilling tales to anybody who was prepared
to listen. To her room-mates she supplied the place of a monthly
magazine of fiction. It was Irma who first started the rumour about Miss
Hopkins. The girls were dressing for supper when she made her amazing
statement.
"Do you know," she remarked, pausing with her hairbrush in her hand, "I
verily believe that Hopscotch either already is, or is just about to
be--engaged!"
If Cupid himself had darted in through the window, bow and arrows in
hand, the occupants of the Cowslip Room could not have been more
electrified.
"What!"
"Hopscotch?"
"You're ragging!"
"It's the limit!"
Miss Hopkins, the mathematics mistress, had never struck the school as a
likely subject for romance. She was middle-aged, nippy, determined,
brusque, and a disciplinarian. There was a slight burr in her speech,
acquired north of the Tweed, and she had a habit of saying, "Come, come,
girrls!" She had never yet been seen without her pince-nez, and it was a
tradition that she slept in them. In the minds of her pupils she was
indissolubly intertwined with decimals, equations, and problems of
geometry. They connected her with triangles, not hearts, though of
course there was no telling where the little blind god might suddenly
elect to shoot.
"I'm not ragging!" declared Irma earnestly. "I tell you I really mean
it. What's more, I've seen him!"
"When?"
"Where?"
Irma enjoyed an audience. She sat down on Janet's bed with the pleasant
consciousness that she had gripped her listeners.
"I went into the study this afternoon to fetch Miss Kennedy's
fountain-pen, and I found Hopscotch there--alone with a gentleman. I'm
afraid I surprised them."
"Did they look embarrassed?"
"Well, they both stopped talking, and stared at me while I hunted about
for the pen. _I_ felt embarrassed!"
"What's he like?"
"Middle-aged, with a moustache that's growing grey--not bad-looking on
the whole."
"It would be very suitable," decided the others.
They were trying to readjust their mental attitude towards Miss Hopkins,
and transfer her from the mathematical plane to the sentimental. To do
so required a wrench, but it was decidedly thrilling. They all suddenly
began to remember symptoms of incipient romance on the part of the
mistress.
"She wears a locket on her watch-chain. It's probably got his photo
inside," decided Ethelberga.
"And she always snatches up her letters in a frantic hurry," added Janet
sagely.
"Has she known him long?" asked Avelyn.
Irma nodded doubtfully.
"I should think it's probably quite an old affair. They may have been
boy and girl together."
"Perhaps they've been separated for years and years, and have only just
cleared up their misunderstandings," suggested Laura.
"Was he holding her hand?" asked Janet.
"N--no, I can't say he was holding her hand; but then, you see, I'd
knocked at the door first, and she'd said 'Come in!'"
"That would give them time," agreed Janet.
A silence followed, and the girls looked pensively at one another. The
atmosphere seemed charged with romance. The ringing of the first bell
for supper brought them back with a disagreeable thud to reality. They
had not yet changed their dresses, and a wild scramble ensued. Whether a
mistress in the bonds of Cupid would overlook such details as
unpunctuality was an experiment too risky to be tried. They passed on
their information in the course of the evening, and by 11.30 next
morning even the day girls had digested the news.
Miss Hopkins could not understand the changed attitude which the school
suddenly adopted towards her. There was an undercurrent of something
inexplicable. The girls gazed at her in form with a kind of tender
interest. If she toyed with the locket on her watch-chain, they visibly
thrilled. Once, when she dropped a letter from her pocket, Irma, who
picked it up, actually blushed as she handed it back. When the twelve
gates of Jerusalem were mentioned in the Scripture lesson, Laura Talbot
asked whether a jasper stone was ever used as an engagement ring in
Hebrew times. Being a practical, sensible sort of person, Miss Hopkins
decided that the war--that national bond of union--was bringing her into
closer touch with her pupils. The girls, meanwhile, were discussing a
possible wedding present, and wondering who would be her successor as
mathematical mistress.
Several of them were already beginning to work little good-bye souvenirs
for her. They hustled them out of the way in a hurry if she chanced to
come into the room. For at least a fortnight nothing happened, and
speculations were rife.
"Why doesn't she wear an engagement ring?" asked Mona Bardsley.
"Doesn't want to publish it yet, I suppose," opined Minnie Selburn.
"Do you think she'll be leaving at Christmas?"
"One can never tell."
"Has Tommiekins said anything?"
"Not a word."
One Thursday afternoon an event happened. Irma, looking out at the
fifth-form window, watched a masculine form walk up the drive and ring
the front-door bell. She instantly identified him with the stranger whom
she had seen in the study with Miss Hopkins.
"I knew him again in a moment," she assured the others. "I never forget
faces, and his was unmistakable."
The flutter among the boarders was immense. It was known that Miss
Hopkins was in the study interviewing the gentleman. Little Daisy
Garratt had been in the first-form room reworking a returned sum, when
the maid had entered and announced: "Mr. Judson is in the study, please,
m'm," and Miss Hopkins had risen immediately from her desk, and told
Daisy she might go, an opportunity of which that round-eyed junior had
instantly availed herself.
So his name was Judson! It was not highly romantic, indeed it suggested
gold paint; but after all, what's in a name? Everybody decided at once
that he had brought the engagement ring, and that Miss Hopkins, blushing
and conscious, would wear it upon the third finger of her left hand at
tea-time. They began to search about for suitable speeches of
congratulation. Several daring spirits, heedless of conduct marks, hung
about the hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mr. Judson as he said
good-bye. There was competition for front places at the windows that
overlooked the steps. Twenty interested pairs of eyes watched his
coat-tails disappear down the drive. There was much speculation as to
why he had not stayed longer, and what he was carrying inside his little
black bag. When Miss Hopkins came in to tea an electric wave of
excitement surged round the room, then broke in disappointment. Her left
hand was ringless. She seated herself in the most matter-of-fact
manner, and began to eat bread and butter and talk about the last air
raid in London.
Before preparation it had all leaked out. Mr. Judson was traveller for a
large firm of scholastic publishers, and on both occasions he had called
to interview Miss Hopkins about some new arithmetic books. She had
decided that they were suitable, and had ordered copies for the fifth
and sixth forms. That was the whole of the business. In the minds of the
boarders Cupid flew out of the window with a bang. He left blank
desolation behind.
"Were there only arithmetic books inside that little black bag?" asked
Mona disgustedly.
"It's too sickening when I'd nearly finished my pin-cushion cover!"
broke out Minnie Selburn.
"Mine was to be a nightdress case!" lamented Alice Webster.
The inmates of the Cowslip Room, as originators of the whole romance,
felt particularly flat. In disconsolate spirits they went to bed. It was
not nice to be told by Adah Gartley that they were silly geese, whose
heads were filled with a pack of sentimental rubbish. Their injured
feelings seethed, rallied, and finally bubbled up.
"There's something disagreeable about Adah!" remarked Janet tartly.
"It isn't only Adah, it's Joyce and Consie," corrected Laura.
"They deserve something for their nastiness!" ventured Ethelberga.
"Something strong!" agreed Avelyn.
Irma, half undressed, paused in the act of pulling off her stockings,
and made the important suggestion:
"I say, let's play a trick on the prefects!"
"What a blossomy idea!"
"They richly deserve it!"
"It would be just top-hole!"
"What could we do?"
"Ah, that's just the question, my good child!" said Laura, putting a
thoughtful finger to her forehead. "There's an art in ragging. It ought
to be done delicately. We don't want clumsy tricks, such as apple-pie
beds. As for booby traps, they're vulgar and dangerous; I wouldn't soil
my fingers with making one. It must be something that will annoy them,
but not harm them or anybody else. I haven't got a brain wave yet, but
perhaps ideas may come."
"Suppose we go and reconnoitre," proposed Avelyn.
"A very jinky notion. We might get an idea on the spot."
The four prefects slept in the Violet Room at the end of the passage.
They were allowed to sit up later than the rest of the school, and at
this moment were downstairs finishing some preparation. It was an easy
matter, therefore, to visit their quarters. Laura, Irma, Janet,
Ethelberga, and Avelyn made a dash down the passage, turned up the gas,
and began an inspection. The Violet Room was quite the prettiest of the
dormitories; it was also the largest, and had a round table and four
easy chairs with comfortable cushions. The table was spread with a
white cloth, on which were set forth four cups and saucers, a tin of
cocoa, a small basin of sugar, and a plate of biscuits. The prefects
were working overtime for an examination, and were allowed this special
indulgence to refresh their tired brains before they went to bed. They
boiled a tin kettle on a gas ring, and brought it upstairs with them.
They considered their nightly cocoa party one of their greatest
privileges.
"Looks jolly comfortable!" sniffed Avelyn, regarding the preparations
with envy.
"It's well to be a prefect!" agreed Janet.
"Shall we eat the biscuits?" suggested Irma.
"Certainly not!" replied Ethelberga.
Laura had taken up the cocoa tin, and was plunged in thought.
"I've got it!" she announced suddenly. "I don't mean the tin, but an
idea. Wait half a second for me!"
She dashed back to the Cowslip Room, and was away several minutes. When
she returned, her face beamed triumph.
"They won't enjoy their cocoa to-night!" she chuckled. "I've mixed two
teaspoonfuls of Gregory's powder with it! It will be a nice little
surprise for them, won't it?"
"Sophonisba! I should rather think so! I say, let's turn down the gas
and scoot. We shall have Miss Kennedy coming along in a minute."
The prefects came upstairs at ten o'clock, carrying their kettle. They
retired into their dormitory and shut the door. Two scouts from the
Cowslip Room, arrayed in dressing-gowns and bedroom slippers, presently
tiptoed down the passage, and listened outside. The door was thick, and
denied them the full benefit of the conversation, but they caught such
words as "cheek", "disgusting", and "abominable", so retreated
satisfied. They expected a storm next morning, but, rather to their
surprise, the prefects took no notice of the matter. Adah had decided
that it would be undignified to make a fuss.
"It will fall flat if we say nothing!" she urged.
"We'll just jolly well lock up our cocoa tin in future, though!"
announced Consie indignantly.
CHAPTER VIII
Spring-heeled Jack
If David Watson had not been notoriously careless and forgetful, the
events which will be narrated in this chapter might never have happened.
He was a bright boy, and well on in his form, but he had occasional
lapses of memory. In one of these he left his Latin dictionary in the
train. Now, if you are on the classical side of a large school, it is
not only a difficult but an impossible matter to get along without a
Latin dictionary of your own. To attempt to prepare your work by
borrowing your neighbour's book is like essaying to live on charity.
David realized this point immediately, and, instead of proceeding home
as usual by the 4.45 train, he turned into the town instead. There was a
second-hand book-stall in the market, which he thought might be worth a
visit. It had been recommended to him by one of the other boys, who
guaranteed the cheapness of its goods. Anthony, who stuck to David like
a Jonathan, went to help him to look.
"I've just eighteen pence in my pocket," admitted David. "But I may get
one at that. It needn't be a particularly spanky one. Miller got a
ripping atlas last week for one and two. He showed it to me. It only had
Norway and Sweden lost out, and a few of the maps blotted."
"I can lend you threepence," said Tony, "and you could leave your watch
or your penknife or something, I suppose."
The market was a large covered hall, containing rows of stalls of all
kinds. The boys heroically resisted the attractions of oranges,
chestnuts, and sweets, and made for the second-hand books. A pile of
these, all jumbled together, were marked:
BARGAINS. EDUCATIONAL, 1_s._ each.
David and Anthony began to turn them over and look at them. They were
certainly an assorted lot. There were ancient geographies and grammars
dating back fifty or sixty years, catechisms of Scripture or history,
guides to knowledge, botanical questions, and even an odd volume or two
of sermons. A few of them were older still, and had long "S's" and calf
bindings. Regarded as educational ammunition, they were as antiquated as
flint-lock pistols. The boys rummaged among them for some time in vain,
but, at last, almost from the bottom of the pile, they disinterred a
fairly respectable Latin dictionary. It had lost its back cover and its
title page, but otherwise it seemed intact and clean. David took it to
the old man who presided over the stall, and tendered him a shilling. He
accepted it with reluctance.
"Didn't know I'd let this slip in among the bargains," he grumbled.
"It's worth two and six if it's worth a penny. It came with a lot of
other books from a good house. Well, I suppose, as it was among the
shillings, you'll have to have it. You may thank your luck I made a
mistake."
"A bargain's a bargain," said David, as he put the volume into his
satchel.
Trains to Netherton were not very frequent, and the boys had to wait
some time at the station. They sat down on one of the seats, and David
opened his satchel and took out the Latin dictionary. He agreed with the
old book-stall man that he had got it cheap, and felt decidedly
satisfied with his purchase. As he turned over the leaves, a letter fell
out on to the platform. Anthony picked it up. It was a square envelope
sealed with red wax, and addressed: "To my son, Leonard."
"Hallo," said Tony, "we've got hold of some chap's letter here!"
"Great Judkins! So we have!"
"Whom did the book belong to?"
David turned to the cover, and there, in rather faded ink, he found
written:
"George Reynolds, Parkhurst Academy, January, 1858."
He gave a long-drawn whistle.
"Here's a bit of stunt," he said. "Shouldn't mind guessing it belonged
to old Squire Reynolds."
"Pamela's grandfather?"
"You bet!"
"Was his name 'George'?"
"So Ave said. And Pam's father's name was Leonard."
"Then the letter was for him?"
"I suppose it was--only he's dead."
"What'll you do with it, then?"
"Give it to Pamela."
"What do you think's inside it?"
"Don't I wish I knew!"
"Suppose it's a will?"
"Exactly my brain wave. Wouldn't it be priceless if it left everything
to Pamela?"
"And turned old Hockheimer out of The Hall? Rather!"
"One never knows. I'll put it in my pocket, and give it to Pam to-morrow
morning."
The Watson boys sometimes overtook Pamela on the road to the station,
and every day they travelled by the same train to Harlingden. They made
a point of meeting her next morning, and David handed her the envelope,
explaining how it came into his possession.
"I suppose you couldn't open it and see what's inside?" suggested
Anthony.
Pamela looked doubtfully at the seal.
"I think I ought to give it to Mother," she said. "I expect she'll show
it to me."
"Don't let that precious uncle of yours get hold of it, that's all!"
warned David.
"No, indeed! I'll be careful."
"You'll tell us what it's about, won't you?" begged Tony the curious.
"If Mother will let me."
"Some day, perhaps, you'll be mistress of Lyngates Hall."
"No such luck!" declared Pamela bitterly.
Though she might disclaim any expectation of good fortune, the
remembrance of the letter nevertheless haunted Pamela all day long. She
kept feeling in her pocket to see that it was safe. In spite of herself,
bright fairy dreams floated through her mind, and mixed themselves up
with her lessons. Miss Peters had to tell her twice to pay attention.
She missed the explanation of a problem while she imagined herself
living at The Hall and riding a white pony, and got utterly wrong in
geology through planning how her mother should go up to London and buy
new clothes.
Dream castles are the most delightful of possessions. We build them
according to our own pattern, and live in them as our fancy pleases us.
Those more sober dwellings that fate sends us are never half so
beautiful, though we generally have to put up with them. The day seemed
longer than usual to Pamela. She hurried off at four o'clock, though her
train did not start till 4.45, and she only had to wait at the station.
She did not happen to see the Watson boys, for they ran up so late that
they had to jump into the guard's van, and at Netherton they went into
the booking office to enquire about a lost parcel.
Pamela walked home at a good pace, though the road was all uphill. Moss
Cottage, the little place which had been lent by Mr. Hockheimer to Mrs.
Reynolds, was not a particularly attractive residence. It was rather
dark and damp, and much shaded by trees. It had no beautiful view, such
as there was at Walden. Its front windows faced the road, and the light
was obstructed by a large "monkey-puzzle". Poor Mrs. Reynolds had made
everything look as nice as she could, and was busying herself in trying
to get the neglected garden back into a state of cultivation. She was
burning weeds when her daughter arrived. Pamela opened the door and
entered the sitting-room, where the table was ready spread for tea. She
took the precious letter from her pocket, and smiling with pleasant
anticipation, put it upon her mother's plate. She would tell her all
about it at tea-time, over the bread and jam. Smelling the burning
weeds, she ran into the garden. Mrs. Reynolds paused in her occupation
of forking fresh fuel on to the bonfire.
"Is that you, child? Then I'll go in and make the tea. How the evenings
are closing in! It will soon be dark when you get home. I wish you could
be a weekly boarder at school like Avelyn Watson."
"I don't! I'd far rather come back to you every evening, Mummie."
"I can't let you walk back from the station alone in the dark. I shall
soon have to begin to come and meet you in the afternoons."
"Oh, Mummie, it's too far for you! I don't in the least mind walking
alone. Shall I go and shut up the fowls now, or have you done it?"
"Not yet; so you may run and shut them up while I make the tea."
"You'll find a big surprise on the table, Mummie darling. Don't touch it
till I come, will you? I'll tell you all about it at tea."
"Very well," smiled Mrs. Reynolds, who was used to Pamela's little
surprises.
She was in the act of pouring on the boiling water when there was a rap
at the door, and her brother-in-law entered. Mr. Hockheimer generally
admitted himself in this fashion, without waiting for the door to be
answered--a lack of courtesy which invariably annoyed Mrs. Reynolds.
"I was passing, so I came for that parcel I left the other day," he
explained. "You put it by in the cupboard, didn't you? Yes, there it is.
I'll take it with me. By the by, have you any paraffin to spare? I
happen to want a little."
"I have some in the shed outside."
"Can you give me some in a bottle?"
"Yes, I'll go and fetch it."
Mrs. Reynolds placed the teapot to keep hot on the hob and left the
room. Mr. Hockheimer came over to the fire, and stood warming his back
and humming snatches from an opera. Presently his eye caught the letter
on the table. He picked it up, looked narrowly at the handwriting,
turned it over and examined the seal. Then he thought for a moment with
narrowed eyes. Finally he slipped the envelope into his breast pocket,
and, catching up his parcel, made his way outside to the shed.
"Is that bottle of paraffin ready?" he shouted. "I'm in a hurry, and
can't stay."
"It's here. I was just looking for a piece of paper to wrap it in,"
replied Mrs. Reynolds. "Won't you stop for tea?"
"Haven't the time to-day. Never mind any paper, I don't want to wait.
The bottle will do well enough in my pocket. I must be off now.
Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" returned his sister-in-law, rather relieved at the shortness
of his visit. She washed her hands after pouring out the paraffin, and
came into the sitting-room, Pamela, who had been tidying herself
upstairs, entering at the same moment.
"I'm glad we've got rid of Uncle!" smiled the latter. "I heard his
voice, and kept out of the way."
"Naughty child!"
"Well, Mummie, I can't help it. You know I don't like him. I don't care
if we are dependent on him; what I feel is, that we oughtn't to be.
There, I won't upset you by talking of him. I've something else I want
to tell you. Why, where's the letter?"
"What letter?"
"The letter that I put on your plate. Mummie, what have you done with
it?"
There was an agony of apprehension in Pamela's voice.
"I haven't seen it, dear," replied Mrs. Reynolds. "Why, yes, I remember
now I did notice a letter lying on the plate when I was making the tea.
I was just going to look at it when your uncle came in. It's certainly
not there now."
Two red spots mounted to Pamela's cheeks, and her eyes blazed sparks.
"This is just about the limit!" she exploded. "There's not the least
shadow of a doubt! Uncle Fritz has stolen that letter!"
While these events were taking place at Moss Cottage, David and Anthony
Watson were walking home from the station. They had lingered at the
booking office, and had loitered on the platform to talk to some
friends, and, when they finally made a start, they determined to take a
path through the woods instead of keeping to the high road. There were
two motives for this decision. In the first place, the woods belonged to
the Lyngates estate, and, though the public had an old-established right
of way, Mr. Hockheimer objected greatly to the foot-path being used, and
had several times vainly tried to close it. The boys felt that they
would cheerfully go out of their way to annoy Mr. Hockheimer. They
almost hoped they might meet him, and, in imagination, stood firmly on
the path, discussing the legal aspect of the matter, and quoting the
ancient county map as their authority.
There was, however, another reason which led them from the high road.
During the last few days a curious and persistent rumour had circulated
in the neighbourhood as to a "something" that had appeared in the woods.
Whether supernatural or physical nobody knew, but several people
vouched for having seen it. Their stories, allowing a natural margin for
exaggeration, tallied wonderfully. The apparition wore dark clothes and
a black mask, and, instead of walking, careered along in a series of
mighty leaps and bounds. Owing to this extraordinary mode of
progression, it had been nicknamed "Spring-heeled Jack", and its
appearance had excited considerable terror. It was reported to be abroad
at dusk, and to haunt the more lonely portions of the woods.
David and Anthony, having a thorough boyish love of adventure, thirsted
to get a sight of this mysterious personage. They climbed the hill over
the quarry, therefore, and struck up through the woods, keeping at first
to the foot-path, but they encountered nobody, not even Mr. Hockheimer.
When you are out for excitement, it is disappointing to have a perfectly
tame and uneventful walk. In the thickest part of the wood they paused
with one consent.
"It's all bunkum about the trespassing! Let's go and explore!" tempted
David.
"Right you are!" agreed Anthony, succumbing as readily as Eve yielded to
the serpent.
It was a most interesting wood, with tall trees and smooth glades. It
undulated, and held crags here and there, so that you could never quite
see where you were going. The ground was strewn with acorns and beech
mast and horse-chestnuts, quite worth picking up. The boys wandered for
some little time, enjoying themselves immensely. They had no idea in
what direction they were going till they found themselves on the crest
of the hill. Behind them was the wood, but in front was a range of open
country looking towards the sea. They were standing on a platform of
rock, which shelved sharply down to a patch of gorse and heather.
"Jolly view here----" began Anthony, but stopped with his sentence
unfinished, for David suddenly gripped his arm and forced him on his
knees behind a bush. Somebody was walking at the foot of the rock, and
one brief glimpse had been sufficient to identify the plump figure and
blond moustache of their arch-enemy, Mr. Hockheimer. It would never do
for him to catch them so far from the foot-path. He might wish to settle
up scores with them. They remembered the gleam in his eye when he had
shaken his fist and said he would not forget. If they waited quietly he
would probably go, and then they would hurry back to the path.
But instead of going he waited, humming a tune. He was musical and fond
of operatic airs. There were other sounds, too, which the boys could not
understand. They grew curious and wanted to know what he was doing. They
dared not speak, but, agreeing by signs, they both crawled very
cautiously to the edge of the rock, and, concealed by some branches,
peeped over.
Mr. Hockheimer was exactly below them. He was kneeling on the grass, and
had evidently just untied a parcel. A large bicycle lamp lay on the
paper. In his hand he held a bottle, with the contents of which he
proceeded to fill the lamp. He felt in his pocket for matches, lighted
it, and placed it on a ledge of the rock. The dusk was falling fast, and
its glow shone brightly. From its position on the crest of the hill it
would be visible over miles of country, probably right out to sea. Mr.
Hockheimer hummed in a satisfied voice, as if he were pleased with
himself. He presently lighted a cigar; the fragrant smoke rose upwards
to the boys' nostrils. They could see him with extreme plainness, and
indeed could follow his every movement. He fumbled again in his pocket
and drew out an envelope, holding it in the glow of the lamp so as to
inspect it. David and Anthony gasped, for they recognized in a moment
the letter which they had given to Pamela only that morning. How had she
been so foolish as to allow her uncle to get hold of it? they asked
themselves. They were full of wrath at her stupidity. Mr. Hockheimer
turned over the envelope several times; he looked at the handwriting and
surveyed the seal, then he deliberately tore it open. He drew out a
piece of note-paper and began to read it. The boys, peering through the
brambles above, watched him narrowly, though they could not see the
document well enough to decipher it. Its contents seemed to disturb Mr.
Hockheimer. He said several untranslatable things in the German tongue.
Then he brought out his smart little silver box, hesitated, and struck a
match. The boys were in an agony of mind. He simply must not be allowed
to burn the paper. Sooner than that they would drop from the crag and
try to rescue it.
The wind had risen and blew out the match. For a moment they breathed
again, but it was only a temporary respite, for he immediately struck
another. He shaded it carefully this time, and, taking the paper,
applied the corner to the flame.
At that same moment a terrific and unearthly yell sounded in the wood
above. Mr. Hockheimer started and turned, dropping blazing letter and
match to the ground. There was a rustle among the bushes, and with an
enormous bound a dark figure sprang sheer from the rocks on to the
platform of grass, made a grab at the paper, seized it, put out the
fire, and leaped away with it into the gathering dusk of the undergrowth
below.
It happened with such extraordinary rapidity and suddenness that it was
all over in a flash, and the boys only caught a glimpse of a black mask,
and two long legs that hopped with the agility of a spider-monkey.
Considerably scared, they crept back from their position of vantage,
and, rushing through the darkening wood, managed to regain the pathway.
It was not till they had finally crossed the stile and got into the high
road that they began to compare notes.
"Well! We've seen it!" ejaculated David meaningly.
"What is it?" whispered Anthony in awestruck tones. "Teddy Jones says
it's Old Nick himself. It was terrible when it yelled!"
"Those legs were human," maintained David. "I can't guess who it is, or
how he manages to jump like that, but I bet he's not a spook."
Anthony, who inclined to the supernatural theory of the apparition,
shook his head doubtfully.
"Spook or not, he's no friend to old Hockheimer," added David.
"He's taken the letter--what was left of it."
"Only a bit was burnt."
"I wonder what was in it?"
"Something that Hun wanted safely out of the way."
"It must be Squire Reynolds's will!"
"Well, Spring-heeled Jack's got it, at any rate, and whether he'll ever
turn it up again is the question. If we could find out who he is we
might get on the track of it."
"We'll try, for Pamela's sake--though she's a bally idiot to let her
uncle take that letter!"
"It strikes me we've got on the track of something else to-night,"
continued David. "Did you notice that lamp?"
"Yes, I did."
"And where he stuck it?"
"Rather!"
"The light would shine right out to sea."
"And aeroplanes could see it too, from there."
"I've always suspected old Hockheimer. He ought to have been interned
long ago. I can't think why they let him be at large. The Government's
very lax with these Germans. If I were in Parliament I'd clear out the
whole set of them."
Anthony drew a long breath.
"We must watch him. Don't say too much to Pamela, in case the silly
goose blabs. Shall we tell her what we've seen to-night?"
"On the whole I think we'd better not. She hates him, and yet perhaps
she might not altogether want to get him into trouble. We'll go
cautiously, and hunt about, and see what more we can find out."
For a few days the boys purposely avoided Pamela, and she, on her part,
did not seek speech with them. She was intensely chagrined at the loss
of the letter, and did not like to acknowledge the humiliating fact to
them. She searched everywhere in the cottage, in case the wind might
have blown it from the table on to the floor, but it was not
forthcoming. Her mother vetoed the suggestion that Mr. Hockheimer had
taken it.
"Surely, dear, he would never be so dishonourable! You must have put it
somewhere yourself."
"But, Mummie, I know I didn't. And you said yourself that you saw it on
the table."
"It's very mysterious," sighed Mrs. Reynolds. "We might ask your uncle
next time he comes if he took it by mistake."
"He'd only deny it."
"Pamela, you misjudge him."
"I hate him, Mummie; he bullies us both."
"We're entirely dependent on him, remember. He gives us the whole of our
little income, and pays your school bills. We mustn't quarrel with our
bread and butter. What should we do if he were to turn us out?"
"I don't know. I sometimes think I'd rather be a crossing-sweeper than
take his money. Oh, life's horrid, and I hate it all! I wish we'd stayed
in Canada, and never come to England. Wait till I'm a little older,
Mummie, and I'll get a post as teacher, and work for you. I wish I were
twenty-one!"
"That's many years off, child, and in the meantime you've to get your
education. You must be civil to your uncle, Pamela."
"I will, on the outside, but I can't help my feelings inside. They're
boiling!" demurred Pamela, rather defiantly, scrubbing the corners of
her eyes with her handkerchief, and settling down to her lesson books.
CHAPTER IX
Concerns Day Girls
The Silverside boarders had what might perhaps be termed rather
"genteel" hockey practices on Saturday afternoons. They played
half-heartedly. They were not extremely keen, and they gleefully put off
play in favour of a walk or of the cinema. Isobel even broached the
suggestion that hockey was a rough game, but that was when she was
suffering from the effects of an ugly whack across the shins, and her
opinion was naturally biased. Consie's tastes were all for quiet, and
she would have spent her holidays over a book if she had not been
forcibly dragged out. Joyce would have preferred a dancing class on
Saturday afternoons.
In the meanwhile the day-girls' hockey club prospered exceedingly. They
had secured their old field, and had made fixtures with several other
clubs. Their elation over their successes did not tend to promote the
unity of Silverside. The school seemed more divided than ever.
In November came the Sale of Work. It was an annual affair held in aid
of a Children's Home, and the Silverside girls worked the whole year
beforehand for it. They considered it a great event. People in
Harlingden were kind in coming to buy, and generally quite a nice little
sum was cleared. As the time drew near, Adah began to make preparations.
"Will anyone who has contributions kindly bring them to me by the end of
the week?" she announced one day at "break".
"Why should we bring them to _you_?" asked Annie Broadside, with a glint
of battle in her blue eyes.
Adah's manner at once stiffened into the peculiar mixture of firmness
and patronage which she deemed it desirable to adopt towards day girls.
"Why? What a question to ask! So that they can be put on the stall, of
course."
"Thanks! But we'd rather arrange them for ourselves."
"You can't do that. The boarders always arrange the bazaar."
"But why, when _we_ make the things, should _you_ take them all and
arrange them? They're not _your_ work!"
Annie certainly had a most aggravating habit of asking questions. Adah
coloured with annoyance.
"I'm a prefect, you see!" she shuffled.
"There were no prefects last year, and you quote what you've always done
as your authority."
"Well, really, the few things the day girls have brought have never
mattered much before. I'll keep a space for you, if you're so
particular, and you can arrange them as you like, as long as you don't
spoil the general look of the stall," conceded Adah, with a show of
magnanimity.
"Thanks _so_ much, your Majesty! It's really most kind of you to keep a
little room for our poor contribution!" curtsied Annie, with mock
gratitude.
When the prefect's back was turned, she fizzed over to a sympathetic and
outraged circle. Adah's disdainful condescension was more than could be
brooked.
"The boarders have always had _the_ stall, and the day girls have humbly
helped!" said Gladys witheringly.
"How delightful for us!"
"They're to be the patricians, and we the plebeians!"
"They expect us to dust their very boots!"
"Look here," said Annie, "things are really getting beyond the limit. I
vote we get up a deputation, and go to Miss Thompson about this."
"What a brain wave!"
Miss Thompson listened, attentive and rather astonished, while the
deputation, very shy and red-faced, blurted out their request. She
tapped her desk thoughtfully with her fountain-pen, as if some new and
disturbing idea had suddenly risen on her horizon.
"Certainly there will be ample room for two stalls, and if the day girls
want to have one to themselves, I can see no objection. Arrange it just
as you like, and bring your own decorations. Yes, you may have a variety
entertainment in one of the schoolrooms, and charge admission, if you
wish. It will make extra money."
"You'll excuse our coming and asking?" apologized Gladys.
"I'm always ready to hear you, and to make any concessions that are for
the good of the school," replied Miss Thompson, gazing at the delegates
as if they provided her with considerable food for thought.
The deputation departed, feeling that they had scored their first real
triumph.
"Look here!" preached Annie to the Hawthorners, "we've just got to brace
up. The boarders may put what they like on their stall, but our stall is
going to be bigger and handsomer, and have far prettier things, and take
ever so much more money than theirs. Every single girl of you has got to
do her bit. There must be no slackers over this business."
The motive--if not strictly in accordance with the best
morality--appealed to the day girls. They responded gallantly, and set
all their home-folks working for the bazaar, as well as doing what they
could in their own spare time. They kept their activities strictly
secret from the ears of the boarders, but in private they compared notes
and rejoiced.
"The new Lady Mayoress is to open the sale," announced Gladys one day.
"Mrs. Parker? Why, surely she's aunt to little Violet Parker, isn't
she?"
"Of course she is."
"I'm going to get hold of Violet and be decent to her," nodded Annie
sagely. "She's a sweet kid. I see possibilities through Violet. By the
by, can you find me a copy of the Harlingden city arms?"
"It's a lion holding a broken chain. I saw it on a letter of Father's
the other day. I can easily get it for you."
"Thanks! I've got a blossomy idea."
The day of the bazaar was to be a whole holiday. The large schoolroom
was reserved for the sale, and the stalls were put up first thing in the
morning. The day girls had elected a committee of management, and six of
their number came to arrange their part of the fancy fair. They brought
flags, draperies, flowers, and pots of plants, and set to work to
decorate their stall. In the course of about half an hour it began to
look a most artistic production. The boarders, busy setting out their
wares at the other end of the room, cast surreptitious glances at it. It
was a humiliating fact for them, but they were forced to acknowledge
that it far surpassed their own efforts. They had never thought of a
canopy of white and gold, with a border of autumn leaves, or of
borrowing maidenhair ferns and forced Roman hyacinths.
But the decorations were only the beginning of the day girls' triumph.
Their committee soon began to unpack boxes and spread out goods, most
beautiful work of every description, which left their rivals gasping.
The day girls, living at home, had really had a much better opportunity
of asking their friends to help, and had made a very special effort.
Gertrude Howells's cousin had contributed various dainty articles in
poker work; Lucy Smith's elder sister, who was learning jewellery work
at the School of Art, sent some most artistic little silver brooches and
chains made by her own hands. Iris Harden's aunt gave Venetian beads and
foreign curiosities; Monica Golding's family had plaited raffia baskets
in barbaric, but most effective combinations of colour. Maggie Stuart
caused a sensation by producing little boxes of delicious toffee--yes,
real home-made toothsome toffee, in spite of the sugar rationing!
The boarders went on with their own preparations, and pretended not to
take much notice, but really the spirit was knocked out of them. They
had never expected the day girls to rise to such heights. They dressed
rather quietly for the festivities that afternoon.
The sale was to open early, and at half-past two Miss Thompson, in her
best voile dress, and with her most affable company manner, was
welcoming the Lady Mayoress, a smiling, florid, rather flurried
personage in velvet and rich furs, who had another function at half-past
three, and wanted to get away as soon as was politely possible.
"So kind of you to ask me," she fluttered. "I'm really interested in
schools--and education, you know. I'm afraid I'm not much of a speaker,
but--oh, yes, I'll just say a few words to open the sale. Kind? Not at
all. It's a great pleasure to me to come, I assure you."
The poor Lady Mayoress was new to her work, and palpably shy. Perhaps
she thought a crowd of schoolgirls an embarrassing audience. She hummed
and hawed and stammered a little in her speech, and glanced several
times at a piece of paper concealed behind her muff, but she
nevertheless managed to say something appropriate about the object of
the bazaar, and to wish it success.
"I am very pleased to declare the Sale of Work open," she concluded with
a sort of gasp, as if thankful that her duty was done, and smiled
nervously at Miss Thompson, whose convex eyeglasses had been fixed upon
her with appreciation during the speech.
"Perhaps you would like to look at the work now," murmured the
Principal.
"Oh, certainly! I'd _love_ to see it. What pretty things!"
And the Lady Mayoress, though she was standing within two feet of Adah
Gartley and Consie Arkwright, actually turned her back on the boarders
and made for the day girls' stall! Her eyes were fixed upon the central
object displayed there, a satin cushion with the city arms embroidered
upon it. She examined it with admiration.
"So beautifully done! And the colours are so effective! It will just
match my drawing-room. I shall be delighted to have it. How clever your
girls are, Miss Thompson! I suppose these are the prefects," smiling
graciously at Annie Broadside and Gladys Wilks. "My little niece tells
me about the school. She's so happy here."
"These are not our prefects," demurred Miss Thompson. "They are at the
boarders' stall. Perhaps you would like to look at some of their work,
too."
"Oh, with pleasure! Though I can't stay more than a minute. It's so
tiresome; I have another engagement, and mustn't be late. But I've time
for just a look, at any rate. Yes, the things are charming; they do the
girls credit, I'm sure! May I have this tray cloth and this tea cosy?
I'm so sorry to rush away, but I really must say good-bye."
The Lady Mayoress departed, feeling no doubt that she had successfully
accomplished a civic and social duty, and quite unaware of the storm she
had left behind. The boarders were staring at their prefects in shocked
sympathy. The whole business seemed almost incredible. That they, the
old-established original Silversiders, who had always in former years
run the sale of work, should be overlooked and passed over in favour of
mere upstart day girls, was little short of an insult to the school.
"She never even said 'How d'you do?' to Adah, and she shook hands with
Annie!" gasped Ethelberga to Janet.
"And she spent three times as much at their stall as at ours!"
"It's a shame!"
The boarders felt that the afternoon had opened badly, and subsequent
events did not tend to soothe their outraged feelings. Nearly all the
day girls had invited relations or friends, who naturally went first to
their stall to buy, with the result that the pretty things soon began to
be cleared, and the money-box to grow heavy. Miss Thompson, anxious to
preserve a due balance in affairs, did her best by taking her own
special visitors to buy from the disconsolate prefects, and the
mistresses also nobly purchased many totally undesirable articles, for
which they would find no possible use. If it had not been for this help,
the boarders' stall would have had a poor innings. As it was, they
barely scored one-third of the whole proceeds of the sale.
The Principal, in a pretty little speech next morning at nine o'clock,
spoke of the very gratifying results of the happy spirit of unity in a
school where all worked together for a good object, and the pleasure of
being able to send such a large cheque to the Children's Home. Adah,
with her eyes fixed on the bows of her shoes, listened grimly. It was
all nice enough, she thought, for head mistresses to make soothing
speeches, but boarders and day girls knew perfectly well that the
welding of rival factions at Silverside would not be accomplished yet a
while.
Quite apart from the warring of opposite parties, there seemed to be an
element of unrest in the school. Formerly the boarders had been quite
content to spend the leisure of their evenings at sewing, games, or over
some of their numerous guilds. Now, incited by the accounts of the day
girls, they were always asking to be taken in to Harlingden to concerts
or picture palaces. Miss Thompson considered that such expeditions upset
their preparation, and only allowed a very occasional outing. It was
irritating to the boarders to hear the day girls discussing various
entertainments, and to be openly pitied because they could not attend
them. The Cowslip Room in particular grumbled privately.
"We never go to anything!"
"Life's just a round of lessons!"
"There's the most gorgeous thing on at the cinema this week."
"I'd give my ears to see it!"
"It's not our turn this week."
"Strafe the wretched old turns!"
Miss Thompson, in her efforts to avoid too much dissipation, had
established a new rule, by which the dormitories in regular sequence
were allowed leave. Every Wednesday afternoon certain little parties of
boarders trotted off to the town under escort of a governess, doing
shopping and often visiting a _matinee_. No girl might go without
showing an exeat signed by the Principal. The chaperon-mistress was
expected to examine and file these permits before marshalling her flock.
On this particular Wednesday, Laura, Janet, Irma, and Ethelberga had set
their hearts on seeing "The Temple Bells" at the cinema. The fact that
they had duly had their turn a fortnight before, and had witnessed a
wildly exciting performance of "Love and War in the East", only made
them keener for more thrills. When Avelyn, a little tired of the
general atmosphere of lamentation, suggested palliating circumstances,
their wrath blazed out in her direction.
"It's all very well for _you_ to talk!"
"You can go on Friday evening or Saturday, if you like."
"You're half a day girl, after all!"
"You don't really sympathize with _us_!"
"All right! Don't get baity! As a matter of fact, I never come in to
Harlingden on Saturdays, so you've no need to envy me!"
"Envy you! Envy a _weekly_ boarder!" sneered Laura, with a whole world
of condescension in her voice. "My dear child, I think you really don't
understand what you're talking about! After all, you've only been at
Silverside two months!"
It is not a particularly pleasant matter to find the public opinion of
your dormitory dead against you. You are apt to get awkward knocks in
consequence. Avelyn put up with some very withering remarks that Tuesday
evening, and consequently felt sore.
"They're absolute blighters to-day," she thought. "I wish I could play a
rag on them! It would just serve them jolly well right!"
CHAPTER X
Mischief
Avelyn, I regret to say, was no ideal heroine of fiction, but a
particularly human girl, with a strong spice of mischief in her
composition. She considered that she owed her room-mates a grudge, and
she cast about for a suitable opportunity of paying the debt. As it
happened, fortune favoured her. Miss Kennedy sent her to the study to
fetch a book that was required. She knocked at the door, and as nobody
answered she turned the handle and went in. The room was empty. She
found Volume III of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and as she turned
from the bookcase she cast an eye on Miss Thompson's desk. It was spread
with papers, and in front, just beside the inkpot, was a whole pile of
exeat forms. They were little printed sheets bearing the words:
SILVERSIDE
_I hereby certify that..............................is allowed
leave of absence for the afternoon._
_Signed............................._
_Date..............................._
When a girl visited the town, she was given one of these forms, duly
filled in by the Principal, without whose signature it was not valid.
The system, perhaps, savoured of red tape, but it saved the mistresses
the trouble of enquiring from head-quarters who were to compose their
parties. Avelyn looked critically and covetously at the exeats. Each
represented so much fun to one girl. A sudden idea struck her. She
laughed aloud at the thought of it, and yielding to the impulse, counted
out four of the forms, and popped them into her pocket. Then she fled
back to the waiting Miss Kennedy with Volume III of the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_.
Wednesday afternoons at Silverside were chiefly devoted to optional
subjects. The violin master came to give lessons, and several girls
whose spines were suspected of symptoms of crookedness, did special
physical exercises under the eye of a gymnastic teacher. The elocution
pupils met in the Sixth Form room, and learned to recite Shakespeare,
while those who were taking oil-painting wended their way to the studio.
Those unfortunates whose parents did not rise to "extras" were herded
together in the dining-room, regardless of forms, and did plain sewing
or printing. A band of privileged boarders, under guardianship of a
mistress, started at 2.30 for the dissipations of the city. Now at 2.15
Avelyn was due for her music lesson. She put her pieces and studies into
her case, washed her hands carefully, retied her hair ribbon, scented
her pocket-handkerchief, and sauntered down the corridor. She paused for
a moment at the door of the Fifth Form room, then entered. Laura Talbot
was sitting disconsolately on one of the desks, girding at life to a
sympathetic audience. Avelyn thrust the four exeat forms into her hand,
and remarked:
"For the Cowslip Room! And I've got to go to my music lesson! Isn't it
hard luck! Ta-ta! I'm late as it is, and Mr. Harrison gets baity if he's
kept waiting."
Laura stared at the forms for a moment, utterly staggered, then
incomprehension changed to joy, and she jumped from the desk.
"Irma! Janet! Ethelberga! We've got exeats! Oh, jubilate! Scurry quick
and get ready! We've only just time to change our things. Oh, I say! To
think of seeing 'The Temple Bells' after all!"
An agitated ten minutes followed, in which the four girls almost tumbled
over one another in the hurry of making their toilets. Laura put on her
best hat and birthday furs, Ethelberga sported a bracelet, Irma, after
foraging at the back of her top drawer, was distinctly seen to abstract
a powder puff and apply it to the tip of her nose, Janet tried to coax
her fingers into new gloves a quarter of a size too small, there was an
unlocking of cashboxes and a taking out of money. At the eleventh hour
they sped down the stairs into the hall. The little party of elect were
drawn up ready to go, and only waiting for Miss Peters. That lady had
been impeded in her dressing, and consequently came hurrying up, very
much flustered.
She was a gentle, fair-haired, middle-aged, depressed little person,
who had been pitchforked into teaching against her will. Her weak point
was discipline, and the girls knew it, and took base advantage. Now,
instead of forming an orderly crocodile, they clustered round her,
clamouring all sorts of requests for things they wanted to do in town.
"If there's time! Dear me, I don't know! I can't promise anything! It
will all depend!" replied the harassed mistress.
She collected the exeats and counted them automatically. In her flurry
she never noticed that four of them were not filled in with names or
signed. Laura had handed them to her without herself noticing the
omission. There was nobody to rectify the mistake, so the four
room-mates, in most exuberant spirits, started in the crocodile for
Harlingden. They accomplished a few purchases in the town, but poor Miss
Peters found it so difficult to keep her flock together, that she was
forced to abandon the shops, and suggested the cinema. She considered
her role of duenna anything but an enviable position, and would
willingly, that afternoon, have exchanged jobs with a charwoman. She
breathed more freely when she had piloted her lively young charges up
the stairs at the picture palace, and ensconced them in a giggling
double row in the balcony. For a blissful hour and a half they would be
out of mischief, with eyes fixed only on the marvellous scenes from
India.
Meantime, while Laura, Irma, Janet, and Ethelberga were staring
fascinated at the bewildering East, following the heroine through a
series of dazzling adventures, things at Silverside were taking a
prosaic and totally different turn. It happened that Irma and Janet,
whose French recitations that morning had been a dismal failure, were
due in the Fourth Form room that afternoon to say their returned poetry
lesson to Mademoiselle. She waited a quarter of an hour for them, then,
as they did not turn up, she instituted enquiries. Several reliable
witnesses informed her that they had been seen (and envied) departing
with the crocodile for Harlingden. Mademoiselle's temper was naturally
peppery, and under such provocation as this she burst forth in great
indignation:
"What! Go out to pleasure when I tell them to come and say lessons to
me! It is what you call the limit! Of what use to try to teach, if they
are to do only what they like? I go straight to tell Miss Thompson!"
Mademoiselle was brimming over with wrath, and poured out her complaints
vehemently in the study. The Principal's lips tightened as she listened.
"I did not give exeats to Janet and Irma. This shall be enquired into,
Mademoiselle," she replied.
Miss Thompson meant what she said. When the crocodile returned from
Harlingden, she was waiting in the hall, and ordered Laura, Irma, Janet,
and Ethelberga to report themselves in her study. The scene which
followed was short and stormy. The girls, whose minds had scarcely yet
become detached from Indian jungles and Hindoo palaces, were suddenly
accused of having played truant. They denied _in toto_, pleading that
they had exeats.
"Where did you get these exeats?" demanded Miss Thompson sternly.
"They were handed to us in the schoolroom."
"By whom?"
With one consent the girls hesitated. They did not wish to throw the
blame upon Avelyn.
"You refuse to tell me?" said the Principal. "Very well, you may go to
the First Form room, where your tea will be sent to you. I shall sift
the matter thoroughly after preparation. It is disgraceful that such a
thing should happen at Silverside."
When preparation was over that evening, the boarders were ordered to
assemble in the big schoolroom. They went in much astonishment,
wondering for what reason they were thus summoned. A whisper got about
that four girls were in trouble, but on what exact count nobody seemed
to know.
They had scarcely taken their places when Miss Thompson entered. She
looked worried and serious. A decorous silence pervaded the room.
Everyone was alert with expectation and intense interest. There was a
sensation as when thunder is in the air. After an impressive pause, the
Principal, standing so that her eyes scanned all the faces fronting her,
stated the case briefly.
"A thing has occurred to-day which has never happened here before. Four
girls went into Harlingden without leave. They tell me that they were
handed exeats by a schoolfellow, and believed that they had my
permission for the holiday. I have examined the exeats that were given
in to Miss Peters, and find that four of them are unsigned. I can only
conclude that somebody must have taken these exeats from my study. I
intend to find out who that person is. Can anybody give any information
on the subject?"
There was absolute stillness in the room. Every girl looked at her
neighbour. Avelyn sat as if petrified. Until that moment it had never
struck her that her practical joke might have any serious issue. She had
not expected her room-mates to believe that the exeats were genuine. She
thought that when they looked at them they would notice at once that
they were unsigned, and therefore not valid. It was incredible that Miss
Peters should also have accepted them. What was intended for a piece of
silly fun had assumed the aspect of a very grave fault.
"I will ask Miss Peters to tell us what she knows," said Miss Thompson,
turning to the mistress.
Miss Peters, much worried and embarrassed, could only state that she had
counted the exeats, which tallied with the number of girls she had taken
in to town. In her hurry she had not examined every paper, and could not
say whether they were signed or not. It was an unpleasant situation for
the poor governess. She was conscious that she had been slack in the
performance of her duties, and that it was owing to her negligence that
the affair had been possible. Though the Principal did not openly blame
her, she felt that she stood reproved before the school. Laura, Janet,
Irma, and Ethelberga sat overwhelmed and injured, but stubbornly
determined not to betray their room-mate. They felt that they would
rather take the blame themselves than sneak.
"I give you all one last chance," said Miss Thompson. "Can any girl
throw a light on this unfortunate affair?"
The head mistress spoke clearly and slowly. Her glance passed along row
after row of young faces, as if she would read their very souls. A
minute of ghastly quiet followed, a horrible minute that seemed as long
as a year. Then Avelyn rose. She was very pale, and stood erect with her
head thrown a little back.
"I think I can clear it up, Miss Thompson," she answered, in a voice
that was steady, but full of suppressed emotion. "It was I who gave out
those exeats."
"_You_, Avelyn Watson! And on what authority? From where did you get
them?"
"From your study table."
"_From my study table!_" repeated Miss Thompson, her manner growing
still more grave. "What were you doing in my study?"
Avelyn was thoroughly ashamed of herself, but she did not hesitate.
"I was sent to fetch a book. I saw the exeats lying on the table, and I
took four of them to give to the girls. I meant it as a joke. I did not
think they would believe they were real ones."
A murmur of amazement, almost a laugh, circulated through the room. Miss
Thompson checked it sternly.
"Do you understand, Avelyn Watson, what a liberty you have taken? You
were sent into my study for a certain purpose, and you took advantage of
the privilege of entering my room to peruse the papers on my desk, and
to steal--yes, I use the word deliberately--to _steal_ some of them. I
don't know how you view such conduct, but at Silverside we consider it
utterly unworthy of a lady. You owe me an instant apology."
Avelyn writhed under her mistress's scathing words. "I'm very sorry,
Miss Thompson. I never thought of it as anything but a joke. I apologize
most sincerely. I didn't mean to get anybody into trouble."
The Principal looked searchingly at Avelyn.
"You have been guilty of a very grave breach of discipline," she
replied. "I accept your apology because you have spoken up and
confessed, but I cannot let such an episode go unpunished. Until you
return home on Friday afternoon you are not to speak to a single girl in
the school. You will attend classes as usual, but you will take your
meals in the studio, and will sit alone there during recreation hours.
You are also prohibited from writing any letters, or taking any books
from the library. You may spend your time upon your lessons. Go to the
studio now, and your supper will be brought to you. I put every girl on
her honour not to speak or write to Avelyn Watson until next Monday."
Avelyn walked out of the room quite steadily, but with downcast eyes.
She had the feeling of one who has fallen suddenly into a pit. It was a
horrible experience to be there arraigned, tried, and found guilty
before all her companions. Miss Thompson's sarcastic comments hurt her
more than the punishment. She spent the rest of the evening alone in the
studio, and was left there half an hour beyond her usual bedtime. When
she went at last to her own dormitory the other girls were in bed, and
feigned to be asleep. Miss Kennedy came in first thing in the morning,
and told her that she must dress in the bath-room. All day long her
"Coventry" was preserved. The girls, indeed, cast surreptitious glances
of sympathy at her, but they were on their honour not to speak or write,
and they did not break their word. It was a hard penance to sit by
herself, without even a story-book to amuse her. She felt specially
lonely after four o'clock, when she knew her friends would be laughing
and chatting together round the fire, and perhaps roasting chestnuts.
The studio was not a particularly cheerful room for solitary
confinement. As the dusk closed in, the casts loomed like white ghosts
from the corners, and she could almost fancy that the eyes of the
plaster Venus deliberately winked at her. She had no matches, and nobody
came in to light the gas. She had not even the satisfaction of a fire to
poke, for the studio was heated with hot-water pipes. She did not
expect her tea to be brought to her before 5.30.
"If I weren't going home to-morrow I don't know what I should do," she
thought. "Thank goodness I'm only a weekly boarder! I do think they
might have come and lit the gas."
The room was getting more and more dim, and Avelyn's spirits fell in
exact ratio. She was beginning to feel an almost superstitious horror of
the plaster Venus. Suppose it were to come to life, like Pygmalion's
statue of Galatea? The bare fancy gave her shivers, and a sudden sound
made her turn with a start. It was nothing less than an unmistakable tap
on the outside of the window. Avelyn's nerves were strung at highest
pitch. She almost screamed aloud. Peering in through the darkness was a
face. She forced herself to approach and look, and with a revulsion of
feeling recognized the enquiring countenance of her brother David, with
his freckled nose pressed flat against the glass. He tapped again, and
she opened the window.
"Dave! You mascot! How did you get here?"
"Climbed up the spout!" chuckled David. "It was quite easy. Move out of
the way! I'm coming in."
He dropped inside the room, then turning to the window again, gave a
soft whistle.
"Tony's down below," he explained, "and he'll swarm up too, now I've
given him the signal. I'll just lend him a hand over that last piece of
coping. Here he is! Come on, old chap! We've struck the right shanty
after all. Told you you might trust your grandfather!"
Anthony made his appearance with equal caution. His round face was
wreathed in delighted smiles.
"It was a little difficult to fix exactly _which_ window," he
volunteered.
"But how did you know I was here?" asked Avelyn ecstatically.
"We met Pamela at the station, and she told us all about it. So, instead
of going home by the 4.45, we thought we'd come up and see how you were
getting on."
"We made Pam describe which room you were in," added David. "I say, it's
a bit of beastly bad luck for you! Pretty stiff, I call it, to be shut
up here!"
"It's too ghastly for words!"
"Cheer oh! We've brought you something. Look!" David felt in his pocket,
and produced a paper bag full of toffee and a copy of _Tit Bits_. "It'll
do to read. We'd have got you more, only we didn't happen to have much
money with us."
"It was lucky we met Pam before we got into the train," commented
Anthony. "We were earlier than usual at the station to-day. As a rule we
tear up at the last moment."
"It was ripping of you to come!"
"Well, we couldn't desert you, old sport, at such a pinch."
"I don't believe anyone could have such decent brothers." Avelyn gazed
at him through the gathering darkness with admiration.
At that moment a tread of footsteps and a rattle of crockery sounded in
the passage.
"Goody! It's my tea coming!" she gasped.
There was not time for the boys to make their exit through the window.
While the door handle was turning they fled to what cover they could
find. David took shelter behind the pedestal of Apollo, and Anthony
crouched in a corner among some drawing boards. Fortunately it was Miss
Dickens who entered, and Miss Dickens was short-sighted.
"Take this tray from me, Avelyn," she commanded. "Dear me, you're all in
the dark here! Has nobody been to light the gas yet?"
"No, Miss Dickens."
"I must fetch some matches, then. Be careful not to upset that tray as
you put it down."
The second her back was turned the boys flew to the window, and,
dropping out one after the other, made their way safely down the spout
into the garden below, whence they waved parting salutations, and
retreated with all speed. Avelyn had just time to hide the toffee and
the _Tit Bits_ before Miss Dickens returned with the matches and lit the
gas. She assumed an air of appropriate subjection and melancholy before
her mistress, which at the moment she certainly did not experience.
Until four o'clock on Friday her punishment continued. Not a single word
was exchanged between herself and her schoolfellows. She had never felt
so glad to go home. The week-end made a break, and when she returned to
school on Monday she found herself apparently forgiven at head-quarters,
and no more a black sheep, but an ordinary member of society. Her
room-mates' attitude was a mixture of admiration and gratitude.
"You're the limit, Ave!" said Irma.
"I'd never have thought of it myself," admitted Janet.
"It was such a topping idea!" chuckled Laura.
"And we all got just the very time of our lives at 'The Temple Bells',
thanks to you!" added Ethelberga.
"But I never intended it for anything but a joke!" protested Avelyn.
CHAPTER XI
Moss Cottage
Though Avelyn was happy enough as a boarder at Silverside, the real
focus and centre of her life lay at Walden. The little house, with its
romantic surroundings, had touched a very deep chord in her nature. Home
had been dear in Harlingden because it was home, but now it was a magic
spot, a palace of fairy dreams, a place where new and hitherto
undreamed-of interests and ideals had suddenly leaped into being. The
glamour of it seemed to begin when she stepped out of the train at
Netherton on Friday afternoons and started on her walk to Lyngates.
Different neighbourhoods seem to have different scents. This one smelled
of lichens and green ferns, and moist, warm, rain-splashed earth, a
half-pungent odour that she got used to directly, but which struck her
afresh each time as she returned to it. Every inch of the road had grown
dear to her, and she would welcome each clump of ferns or gurgling reach
of stream as if she were greeting old friends. After five days in the
prosaic, matter-of-fact, workaday, self-contained little world of
school, her week-ends seemed to belong to a different planet.
Avelyn was a girl who loved sometimes to be quite alone. She had a
favourite seat on the orchard wall among the ivy, where she would curl
herself up with her back against an apple tree and watch the landscape
below. So changeful and wonderful were the effects of storm and sunshine
over this valley, that it never looked for one half-hour the same.
Sometimes there would be sunrise tints of rose and violet, sometimes a
soft yellow haze, sometimes storm-clouds would roll from end to end, or
perhaps a magnificent rainbow would span the gorge like an ethereal
bridge, or, grander still, the lightning would flash its wicked forks
over the hills from summit to base, gleaming against a background of
inky darkness.
The very air at Walden seemed softer than at Harlingden. It was a mild
autumn; leaves lingered long on the trees and made the woods gorgeous,
and traveller's-joy hung in exuberant masses over the hedgerows, like a
soft silver cloud trying to veil the growing bareness beneath.
One Saturday early in December Avelyn started off to see Pamela. It was
some distance to Moss Cottage, and, instead of walking by the high road,
she meant to take a path that led up the gorge and across the hill. It
was a glorious morning; a grey wind-swept sky showed, here and there,
bright patches of blue between the masses of heavy clouds that were
rolling down from the hill-tops like smoke from a cauldron, and fitful
gleams of sunshine, bursting out in wonderful brilliance, made
marvellous effects of light and shadow. The river, winding slowly
through the marsh lands, was now vivid blue, now inky purple, as it
reflected the clouds or the sunshine; a mass of larch-clad hill-side
showed dark in contrast to the red of the ploughed field on its summit,
which was catching the light descending in rays from one bright patch
above. In a few moments all had changed: the larches were tipped with
gold, the marsh lands were purest emerald, and the hills veiled in filmy
mists floating like threads of gossamer down the slopes. Avelyn turned
from this wide prospect and plunged up the glen, with her face towards
the hill whence the mist was rolling. Ages ago a glacier must have
slidden down there, and left its mark on the huge boulders which lay
scattered everywhere around. Over this rough bed a stream, swollen by
days of incessant rain, thundered along, its brown, peat-stained waters
churned to the whitest spray as it forced its way in leaping cataracts
over the rocks. Stepping-stones, which could be easily crossed in July,
were deep under feet of foam, and the lower boughs of the trees were
washed and swayed by the flood. It was so sheltered that the gale, which
had stripped the leaves on the hill-side above, had spared enough here
to tint the gorge with gold and brown. Some of the oaks were still
green; a birch displayed the purest Naples yellow; low-growing mountain
ashes and alders had kept their summer clothing intact, and the thick
undergrowth of briar and bramble was verdant as ever. Even more
beautiful, perhaps, were the bare boughs of the hazel copse, the
exquisite tender shades of which were such a subtle blending of purples
and greys as to defy the most cunning brush that artist ever wielded,
and, contrasted with an occasional pine, or holly, or ivy tree, made a
dream of delicate colour.
The boulders were almost completely covered with vivid green mosses, in
sheets so thick and deep and compact that a slight pull would raise a
yard at a time. Here and there among them were tiny bright red
toadstools, or some of the larger purple or orange varieties that had
lingered on since October. On a hazel twig Avelyn found the curious
birds'-nest fungus, with its tiny eggs packed neatly inside. The day was
so mild that a squirrel was taking a whiff of fresh air, waving his
feathery tail from a fir tree overhead, but at the sight of a human
being he disappeared suddenly into a hollow in a big tree, where no
doubt he had established cosy winter quarters. There were few
birds--perhaps they did not like the dampness or the roar of the
water--but Avelyn caught sight of a dipper darting down the stream, a
flight of long-tailed tits twittering noisily for a moment or two on a
tree-top, and a heron sailing majestically towards the mountains. On the
brambles the unpicked blackberries still hung ripe, though so absolutely
sodden and tasteless that they were not worth the eating; there was even
a spray of blossom left here and there. A branch of scarlet hips shone
brightly in the sunlight; the birds, sated with yew berries, had spared
it thus far, and it rivalled the holly on the bush close by, while
trails of bryony berries repeated the colour with varieties of lemon
and orange. There were a few wild flowers, even in December--a belated
foxglove, a clump of ragwort, a blue harebell, or a stray specimen of
buttercup, campion, herb robert, yarrow, thistle, and actually a
strawberry blossom. The tall equisetum lingered on the boggy bank, and
ferns were everywhere green; great clumps of the common polypody clung
to the tree-trunks and flourished on boughs high overhead, and under the
rocks grew the delicate fronds of the English maidenhair, or the rarer
beech fern.
Avelyn had at last reached the waterfall. The great white cascade leaped
over a ledge of rock, and dashed with such thundering force into the
pool below that all the air around was filled with floating mist on
which the sun formed a dancing rainbow. As each neighbourhood has its
own distinctive scent, so each stream has its own peculiar sound, as if
it would give us some message that it has no words to convey. The little
gurgling brook tries to tell us cheery things; the slow-flowing river
has a sadder story; the trout stream babbles kindly hopes. To Avelyn the
leaping, rushing cascade, with its whirl of living, dashing foam, seemed
to be calling out in a voice that rose and fell with the roar of the
waters: "Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company
of Heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name".
She stood a long time gazing at the foam and the mist and the rainbow,
then she turned and plunged up among the trees to the head of the glen.
Looking back she felt as if she had held Nature, or something bigger
than Nature, tight by the hand.
From the top of the gorge was an easy walk across fields to Moss
Cottage. In spite of the bright morning the little house looked gloomy
among the trees. It always struck Avelyn with an air of extreme
melancholy. She was almost morbidly sensitive to impressions. She
decided that she would not go to the front door, because she would then
be certain to see Pamela's mother, and somehow she felt rather
frightened of poor, quiet, retiring Mrs. Reynolds. She knew that her
friend would probably be at work in the garden, so she tacked into the
wood and climbed the palings at the back. Only half of the ground behind
the cottage had as yet been brought into cultivation, and the part where
Avelyn descended was still a wilderness. There were large rocks and
tangled masses of brambles, and faded clumps of ragwort and teasel, and
yellow bracken stumps. Not far away, however, was a newly-dug border,
with a spade lying on the ground, and Pamela's hat. Pamela herself was
not to be seen, but surely she must be somewhere near. Avelyn prowled
about in search of her. She did not want to go up to the cottage, and
decided that if her friend were indoors she would wait until she came
out again. Possibly she might be in the hen-house. That was certainly an
alternative. She had heard Pamela mention hens. In the distance some
roofs were visible which looked like outbuildings. She went to
investigate. Right in the far corner of the garden, almost indeed in the
wood itself, and thickly embedded in trees, she came upon a ramshackle,
tumble-down, two-storied kind of stable. A giant oak, shrouded with ivy,
stretched out long protecting arms and almost hid it from view; the roof
was built against the very bole of the tree, whose branches sheltered
the windows. Was Pamela here? Avelyn gave a long coo-e-e and called her
name. The next moment a startled face looked out from the upper window.
"Hallo, Pam!" shouted Avelyn gleefully, "I've unearthed you at last, old
sport!"
"Wait a sec. I'll come down," returned her friend in a cautious voice.
Pamela appeared from out the stable door, with a rainbow face in which
storm and sunshine seemed to be struggling.
"I never expected to see you, Ave! Have you dropped from the skies?"
"No, climbed over the palings. I thought I'd be sure to find you
somewhere about in the garden. I saw your hat, and went to look for
you."
"Yes. I was gardening."
"Is this your hen-house?"
"No, it's not the hen-house, it's--just a kind of stable."
"It reminds me of the Swiss Family Robinson, or Robin Hood's shanty in
the depths of Sherwood Forest. You could climb up that tree if you got
on to the roof."
As Avelyn's eyes glanced up the bole of the huge oak Pamela's followed
with a look of strained anxiety. She laid her hand on her friend's arm
and drew her inside the stable. She seemed ill at ease.
"What's the matter, Pam?"
"Oh, nothing!"
"You're not yourself at all."
"Yes, indeed I am."
"I don't believe you're pleased to see me!"
"Ave! I've been dreaming of you all the morning."
"Then what is it?"
Pamela was silent.
"Something's worrying you. I can see that plainly enough."
"Yes. I own I'm worried."
"Won't you tell me?"
"I can't."
"Is it a secret?"
"It is just at present. I want to think it over."
While she spoke Pamela kept glancing anxiously out at the door. She
suddenly turned with frightened eyes.
"Ave! Uncle Fritz is coming! You must hide, quick! He mustn't catch you
here for all the world! Run behind this stall. Don't move till he's
gone."
[Illustration: AVELYN, CROUCHED UNDER THE MANGER, COULD HEAR THE
BULLYING TONE IN HIS VOICE]
She hustled Avelyn into the darkest corner of the stable, then herself
sat down on the foot of the ladder that led to the floor above. A sound
of footsteps brushing the grass was heard from outside, and in another
moment Mr. Hockheimer entered.
"What are you doing down here?" he asked sharply. "I told you to stop
upstairs."
"I've only just come down."
"Any message?"
"No, none at all."
"One might come just when you are fooling about here," he frowned. "Why
don't you do as I tell you?"
Avelyn, crouched under the manger, could not see his face, but she could
hear the bullying tone in his voice.
"Do you think I feed you and educate you for you to do just as you
like?" continued Mr. Hockheimer angrily. "What would become of you if it
weren't for me, I should like to know? Another time when I set you to do
anything you'll do it, or I'll know the reason why. Here, get up and let
me pass!"
He pulled her roughly off the ladder and walked up himself. His
footsteps creaked on the boarded floor above, then all was silence.
Pamela crept softly up the ladder, peeped into the room above, and
descended as quietly as she came; then, crossing to the stall where
Avelyn was hidden, put her finger on her lips for silence and beckoned
her friend towards the door. She led her hurriedly along the garden.
Neither spoke a word till they reached the palings.
"I'm awfully sorry I came, Pam!" apologized Avelyn.
"Never mind, you couldn't help it. How should you know Uncle Fritz would
be here?"
"I certainly shouldn't have come if I had known."
"Who would? Ave, have you ever seen a little wild linnet get into a
bird-catcher's net?"
"No."
"I have. It runs and struggles and beats its wings, and the more it
tries to escape the worse it gets caught in the meshes. Ave, at present
I feel like that linnet."
"Can't I help you, Pam?"
"Not yet. I want to think. When I really feel you can help me, I shall
come and ask you. You wouldn't fail me?"
"I'd help you for all I'm worth, if it's against your uncle."
Pamela's eyes filled with tears.
"I'm so utterly alone," she faltered. "Mother doesn't understand. Since
Father died she has never cared for anything. She's content to live here
on Uncle's bounty. She's so absolutely trusting and unsuspicious, just
like a child. I never can get her to see things as I do. Although I'm
hardly fourteen, I often feel that I know more of the world than she
does. Just at present Mother is going about with her eyes closed."
"And you?"
"I'm keeping my eyes particularly wide open, and my mouth tight shut,"
replied Pamela, as she kissed her friend good-bye and helped her to
climb the palings.
Avelyn went home very thoughtfully. She found the boys digging in the
kitchen garden, and confided to them her morning's experience. They
decided that something mysterious must be going on at Moss Cottage.
"It looks fishy!" said David, slowly scraping the earth off his boots
with the edge of his spade.
"What has that old Hun got up his sleeve?" enquired Anthony, shaking his
head.
"I don't know. After what we saw in the wood I'd believe anything of
him."
"Shall we tell the Vicar, or somebody?" suggested Avelyn.
"No! no!" protested David emphatically. "Whatever you do, Ave, for
goodness' sake don't blab! We've no proper evidence yet, and if stories
begin to get about the village he'll know he's suspected, and he'll be
careful. Just you leave this to me. It's my first 'case', and I want to
worry it out. Remember, I'm going to be a barrister some day, when the
war is over, if I don't go out to France first and get killed. Old
Hockheimer's deep, but he doesn't know we're watching him. Two British
boys ought to be a match for a German!"
"I'd shoot him first and watch him afterwards if I had my way," declared
Tony bloodthirstily.
It was on that very same afternoon that a fresh planet swam into the
Watson horizon, or, in other words, that they made a new acquaintance.
The Vicar was distinctly responsible for it. He was standing at the top
of the churchyard steps, talking to a somebody, the toe of whose boot
alone was visible round the corner, and when he saw Anthony passing in
the road below he beckoned to him. Tony mounted the steps, and found
that the boot belonged to a young officer in khaki, who stood with his
hands behind his back contemplating the tombstones.
"Hallo, sonnie!" said the Vicar affably. "Doing anything special this
afternoon? This is Captain Harper, who's in charge of the camp near the
river. He wants to go and see the Roman fort on the top of Weldon Hill,
and he doesn't know the way. Have you time to take him?"
Anthony's grey eyes scanned the Captain's dark ones for one searching
moment, but in that moment he loved him, and would have offered to act
guide to the top of Mount Everest if required.
"I'd like to go," he volunteered. "You don't min
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