THE MANOR CAVE
A few days after the school treat, Maxfield Hamilton was sauntering
slowly across the Manor grounds. The January sky above shone blue as in
a New England June, gay crocuses starred the short green grass,
snowdrops and bluebells were already budded. From heights unknown
floated the song of a skylark; in the holly hedge sat an English robin.
Max heard the skylark but did not notice the robin as he stopped at the
gates to look down to the sea, stretching to shining horizons under the
afternoon sun. His face was thoughtful and rather sober.
The robin gave a little cheep and Max turned to discover the bird
almost at his elbow, a tiny scrap of olive feathers and bright red
breast, considering him with soft wise eyes, head on one side.
"Hello, old chap," Max remarked. "What do _you_ think of this world?"
From the tone, the robin might have inferred that the speaker's opinion
was anything but favorable. Considering him for a second, he concluded
him inoffensive and began to peck at the glowing holly berries.
Max wandered slowly through the gates and across the Manorhold to the
shore, distant at this point about a quarter of a mile. Two or three
stone cottages with picturesque straw-thatched roofs lay near the
cliffs, property of the Manor and usually occupied by employees.
With the thoughtful expression still on his face, Max passed the
cottages to stop on the edge of the cliffs already showing yellow with
gorse. Should the tide serve, he had it in mind to revisit a haunt of
his boyhood. A moment's scrutiny showed him right in thinking that the
tide was on the ebb and he started rapidly down a rough, rather
slippery path. As he rounded an outlying rock he came full on Roger
Thayne.
Sprawled flat on the sloping cliff, Roger was watching so intently the
doings of a spider that he did not look up until a shadow fell squarely
across the web.
"That you, Roger?" said Max. "Alone? Where are Win and the girls?"
"I don't know," replied Roger, flushing uncomfortably. "That is, I
don't know where the girls are."
"Win's not ill, I hope?"
"No, he isn't." Roger rolled over to look at his visitor. The young
face wore a pleasant smile and the gray eyes were friendly, but somehow
Roger had a suspicion that Mr. Max wasn't the sort to approve outright
truancy.
"Win's all right," he added evasively. "He's studying or something."
A queer little expression crossed Max's lips. "Then since you have a
holiday,--well-deserved, no doubt,--come on exploring with me."
Roger was on his feet in a second, the arrow of reproof glancing off
unnoted. "Where are you going?" he demanded.
"Oh, just down here a few rods. We may have to hold up for the tide. It
won't be low water for some time yet."
The faint path presently ended in piles of red granite, still wet from
the sea, in places slippery with vraic, as the Jerseymen call the
seaweed used as fertilizer for their land.
"We shall have to stop a bit," said Max, after a short steep descent.
As he spoke he sat down and began to crush a bit of vraic between his
fingers.
"This seaweed is one of the biggest assets the farmers have," he said
to Roger. "You'll enjoy being here in February when the great vraic
harvest comes. The farmers go down to the shore with carts and a sort
of sickle. At low tide the southern shore is black with people cutting
the seaweed from the rocks. The carts are used to carry it up beyond
tide-mark. Men, women and young people all turn out and it's one of the
sights of the island. The harvest lasts for several weeks and for the
first few days there is a continual picnic with dancing and all sorts
of jollifications."
"But I've often seen men gathering seaweed on the beach," said Roger.
"It isn't February yet."
"They are gathering the loose weed that is washed ashore. Any one may
take that between the hours of sunrise and sunset, but he must stop at
sound of the sunset gun. The cutting from the rocks is regulated by a
hallowed custom. In June there's a second harvest when only the poor
people may cut the vraic for a few weeks. After they have had their
turn anybody may cut it till the last of August."
As he concluded, Max threw away the seaweed and picked up one of the
abundant black flint pebbles. For some moments he amused himself by
striking sparks from it with the back of a knife blade.
"I haven't lost the knack," he remarked. "By the way, have you found
any flint knives? They turn up occasionally, though more often inland
than in a place like this. They are relics of the days when the Druids
were in Jersey. You've seen the burial mounds, haven't you,--the
Dolmens?"
"I have," said Roger briefly. "In Bill Fish's company. Liked the stones
all right enough, but Bill can't talk, you know. He expounds."
Max grinned. "Bad Writ, that," he agreed. "Come along. We can get
through now."
[Illustration: THEY CAME UPON THE LOVELIEST OF LITTLE BEACHES]
Climbing carefully around a slippery projecting rock, its base yet
submerged, they came upon the loveliest of lovely little beaches, in
shape almost a semi-circle, the water forming the bisector and the
frowning red cliffs the arc. Near the centre of the half-circle stood
two tall pinnacles of red granite. Behind them yawned an entrance about
five feet high and under this Max bent his tall head. Roger followed
and uttered a whistle of pleasure and amazement.
They stood in a large cave, floored by fine bright yellow sea sand,
broken irregularly by out-croppings of rose-pink rock, sand and rock
alike wet and glistening. Away to the back of the cave, Roger saw that
the floor rose higher. The roof was iridescent with green and yellow
lichens; pebbles of jasper, cornelian and agate strewed the sand.
In the twelve years of his existence, Roger had never seen anything
like this and surprise rendered him inarticulate.
"Some cave!" he commented at length. "Look, Mr. Max, what are these?"
"Oh, haven't you met any sea-anemones? The pools are full of them.
Jolly little beggars."
Roger was naturally less enthusiastic over the charming water-gardens
than the girls when they chanced upon them, but he was considerably
interested in the numerous and varicolored snails, their shells bright
green or delicate pink, truly entrancing to pick up and examine. By the
time Roger finished a somewhat minute inspection his companion was out
of sight.
"Hello!" he shouted in some concern.
"Right-oh!" came a quiet reply.
Bather abashed by the startling echoes he had evoked, Roger climbed
over fallen rocks to the back of the cave. There the floor rose
sharply, affording a level apparently beyond reach of the tide, for
some tiny land plants had found a lodging, ferns waved from the
crannied vault and there was no sign of any marine growth.
"This used to be a favorite resort of mine," said Max, who was sitting
on the high ledge, some five feet wide. Beyond, the cave ended in a
mass of stone and rubble.
Roger's eyes grew wide. "What a dandy place!" he exclaimed.
"Not much compared with the Plémont caves," replied his companion.
"You'll probably go there before leaving the island. There are five or
six of them and one has a waterfall dividing it into two distinct
caves. Plémont is the spot where the cable comes in from England,
crawls out of the ocean like a great dripping hoary old sea-serpent to
trail through a cleft to the station on the cliff above. This is a
rat-hole beside those caves."
"I'll take steps to go there," said Roger earnestly. "Say, does the
water ever come up here?"
"I don't think so. Even at the spring tides, it would probably not
reach within two feet of this ledge. Only a rip-snorter of a tempest
could endanger goods stored here, or even anybody who chose this cave
to hide in."
"Some hiding-place," admitted Roger.
"So I've found it. When I was about your age, I came down here because
I was annoyed with the world in general and stopped between two tides."
"Really?" gasped Roger. "Did you get wet?"
"Not a bit. I'll admit that things seemed spooky when I'd waited so
long that I couldn't get out. I took solid comfort in the ferns and in
a sea pink that had put out a scared little blossom right where we are
sitting. I was shut in the better part of six hours and time proved a
bit slow. I remember coming to the conclusion that perhaps the people
I'd left behind weren't so utterly unreasonable after all. I fancy it's
a rather sure sign that when you can't rub along with anybody, the
trouble isn't altogether with them."
Roger looked at him suspiciously but Max's gaze was bent on the cave
entrance, arching over a wonderful view of blue sea.
"Do you like to live in Paris?" he asked hastily.
"I'd rather stop in Rome where my father is," Max replied, suppressing
a smile over the sudden change of subject. "But Dad runs up
occasionally. I feel as though I'd be more use in Rome because there I
know everybody who is anybody, you see, and it would be a help to the
Embassy. Dad thinks I may be able to work a transfer after a year or
so. If the Ambassador to Italy remarks to the State Department at
Washington that Maxfield Hamilton seems a likely young chap with both
eyes open and that he wouldn't mind having him on his staff, why Max
may receive a document telling him to pack his little box and attach
his person to the Embassy at Rome."
Roger laughed. "Then you don't like Paris?"
"Oh, yes," said Max thoughtfully. "I've had a jolly time socially. I
can't imagine anybody in my circumstances not enjoying himself. But
it's not where I most want to be. It's up to me to make good so
emphatically that they'll hand me on to Rome with a word in my favor."
"I expect they will," said Roger.
"Not if I don't buckle down," said Max half to himself. "Something
happened last October that gave me a jolt and it has been hard to stick
to work. I came over here for the holidays determined to get myself in
hand again. I think I've succeeded, old chap, so I'd better go back and
dig in. A man mustn't whine, you know, if it looks jolly final that he
isn't going to have everything he wants. I've wasted time enough. I
must go back to Paris now and keep my mind on my job."
"I bunked Bill Fish this afternoon," admitted Roger suddenly.
"No doubt he was a frightful bore," commented Max without showing the
least surprise. "Probably I'd have done the same in your place. The
only disadvantage about shying at disagreeable things like tutors is
that one hardly ever gets rid of them after all. I'm becoming convinced
that the only way to get round a difficulty is to hit it in the head
and walk over its flattened corpse."
Roger grinned. "Shall I bat Bill Fish?" he asked.
"Bill Fish might be worse. Don't blame you for feeling him a freak, but
the schools in Jersey are footy affairs. If you want a fair sample of a
school you'd have to try England proper. We've messed about here long
enough. Let's take a swim."
"Does the cave end here?" asked Roger, looking at the pile of broken
stone beyond the shelf.
"I suppose so. It's the only one on the Manor lands so Connie and I
liked to come. Uncle Dick wouldn't permit it unless a grown person was
with us to watch the tide. How about a dip? No one can see us."
Max left the ridge to saunter toward the entrance, stopping to
investigate more than one pool of anemones. "By the way," he added, "I
wouldn't tell the girls of this cave. They'll be keen on searching for
it afternoons when they are free and you aren't, and may get into a
mess with the tides. Really it's not quite safe."
[Illustration: PLÉMONT IS THE SPOT WHERE THE CABLE COMES IN FROM
ENGLAND]
"All right," agreed Roger, sliding from the shelf. As he did so, a
sudden current of warm air struck him, quite unlike the rather damp,
salty atmosphere of the cave. His curiosity was sufficiently aroused to
cause him to stop and look back, but Max had already begun to undress
and there seemed no possible place for a sweet land breeze to find
entrance.