[Cover Illustration]
[Illustration: Robin flung the gate open.]
(_See page_ 275)
=ROBIN=
=BY=
=MARY GRANT BRUCE=
=Author of _Hugh Stanford’s Luck_, _A Little Bush Maid_,=
=_Mates of Billabong_, _Norah of Billabong_, _’Possum_, etc.=
=AUSTRALIA:=
=CORNSTALK PUBLISHING COMPANY=
=89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY=
=1926=
Wholly set up and printed in Australia by
The Eagle Press, Ltd., Allen Street, Waterloo
for
Angus & Robertson, Ltd.
89 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.
1926
Registered by the Postmaster-General for transmission
through the post as a book
Obtainable in Great Britain at the _British Australian_ Bookstore,
51 High Holborn, London, W.C.1, the Bookstall in the Central Hall
of Australia House, Strand, W.C., and from all other Booksellers;
and (_wholesale only_) from the Australian Book Company, 16
Farringdon Avenue, London, E.C.4
_First Edition, June 1926_ _4.000 copies_
_Second Edition, August 1926_ _3.000 copies_
CONTENTS
CALTON HALL
NEXT DAY
MERRI CREEK
PLANS AND PROBLEMS
TWO MONTHS LATER
ROBIN FINDS STRANDED WAYFARERS
A BUSINESS ARRANGEMENT
MAKING FRIENDS
THE MERRI CREEK FALLS
THE HUT IN THE SCRUB
CONCERNING THE END OF A PIG
STRANGERS
BLACK SUNDAY
THE LAST
ILLUSTRATIONS
ROBIN FLUNG THE GATE OPEN
“IS ANYONE HURT?”
“KEEP BACK!”
CHAPTER I
CALTON HALL
“GONE!” said the cook, tragically.
“They _can’t_ be,” said the parlourmaid, with that blank disbelief that
is so helpful in times of stress. “Did you look in the cake-tin?”
“Did I look in the cake-tin?” demanded the cook, in tones of fury. “They
was never in the cake-tin, and they aren’t now. Wotever may be the
custom in your home, Elizer, it’s not my ’abit to pile up fresh
cream-puffs in a cake-tin when they’re all filled with cream and just
ready for a party. ’Ow’d they look, I arsk you, all messed up, and the
cream stickin’ ’ere and there on ’em in blobs? I left ’em spread out
singly on them two big blue dishes, same as I could serve ’em in two
jiffs. And they’re gone.”
“There’s the dishes, right enough,” said the parlourmaid, still bent on
being helpful. She inspected faint traces of cream on their blue
expanse, with the air of a Sherlock Holmes. “They been there once,
anyone can see. Oh, have another think, Cook, dear—you must have put
them on the cake-plates!” She dashed hopefully at a large safe, peered
into its recesses, and lost heart visibly on meeting only the cold stare
of a big sirloin and a string of pallid sausages.
“Anyone as ’ud think I’d put cream-puffs in the meat-safe—!” said the
cook, wearily. “’Ave sense, Elizer, if it’s any way possible. I tell
you, I left ’em on the blue dishes; there’s the cake-plates all ready
for ’em, clean d’oyleys an’ all. An’ not a cream-puff left! Well, you
can search _me_. I give up.”
“But where can they have gone to?” wailed Eliza, dismally.
“I dunno. But there’s young limbs in this school as is equal to
anything. It ain’t the first time things ’ave disappeared from my
pantry. Scones I’ve missed, time and again; and there was sausage-rolls
last week, and ’alf a jam-sandwidge another time. Lots of little
oddments, as you might say. But this is ’olesale, an’ no mistake!”
Eliza was understood to murmur something feebly about the cat.
“Cat!” said the cook. “There’s cats enough and to spare, goodness knows,
but cats don’t browse on scones and cream-puffs. It’s two-legged cats,
or my name’s not Mary Ann Spinks—you mark my words, Elizer! Not that
I’d mention names, nor even red ’air; but I have me suspicions!”
“Red hair!” ejaculated Eliza. “You aren’t thinking of Lucy Armitage? Her
that’s a prefect?”
“I am not,” said the cook. “Prefeck or no prefeck, that one ’ud never
’ave spirit enough to come a-raidin’ anyone’s pantry. Not that I ’old
with raidin’, Elizer, ’specially when it’s me own pantry. But I was
young meself once, an’ I remember there was an apple-tree me an’ me
brothers used to visit. Not our own apple-tree. I ’ave me memories. The
apples weren’t any too good, ’specially as we always collared ’em green.
It wasn’t ’ardly the apples we cared for, but the fun of it. Ah, well,
one’s only young once, an’ the school food ain’t any too good either, as
I well know.” The cook sighed, and apparently gave herself up to her
memories.
“But raiding’s just stealing!” said Eliza, whose youth held no such
recollections of buccaneering. She regarded the fat cook with a cold and
disapproving eye.
“Not when you’re young it ain’t,” defended the cook.
“Well, I don’t see any difference,” Eliza stated. “Don’t the collect say
to keep one’s hands from picking and stealing?”
“Ah, the collecks!” said the cook. “Them as wrote the collecks weren’t
young, either. ’Tisn’t all of us lives up to ’em all the time—until we
grow up, of course, that’s to say.”
Eliza was thinking deeply.
“Red hair!” she murmured. “Young Robin Hurst has red hair, and so has
Annette Riley. Is it either of them you’re thinking of, Cook?”
“I’m not thinkin’ of anyone in particular,” averred the cook,
definitely. “Not my business to think. Wot you an’ I ’ave got to bend
our minds to is Miss Stone, an’ wot she’s goin’ to say when she finds
there’s no cream-puffs for her party.”
“My Hevins, yes!” agreed Eliza. “And she’s that particular about having
them always!”
“Don’t I know it!” the cook uttered. “’Cause why, they’re my specialty,
an’ always ’ave been, wherever I’ve cooked. ‘Cream-puffs, of course,
Cook,’ says she, yesterday, as sweet as sugar; ‘it isn’t a Calton Hall
party without your puffs, you know!’ An’, though I says it, Elizer, they
was never better.”
“Fair melted in me mouth, the ones you gave me, Cook,” said Eliza,
soulfully.
“They would so. I must say, I’d like to see ’ow they manage ’em in the
drorin-room, all in their Sunday best,” pondered the cook. “I can’t eat
a cream-puff meself without needin’ a wash afterwards. But I s’pose they
’ave their dodges. Well, they won’t get any this afternoon to worry
about, an’ that’s that. An’ it’s near four o’clock now, Elizer, an’
we’ve got to think of a substichoot.”
“My goodness!” Eliza uttered. “What are you goin’ to give ’em, Cook?”
“Fancy Mixed!” said the cook, grimly, advancing with slow dignity
towards a tin that graced the upper shelf.
“Biscuits!” breathed Eliza, faintly. “She’ll take a fit, Miss Stone
will. I never saw biscuits at one of her parties, all the time I’ve been
here.”
“No, an’ you never won’t again, if I know it. I reckon I’ll keep the key
of me pantry firm an’ tight in me pocket after this. It’s lowerin’ to me
pride to send in fancy-mixed, but there it is—I ain’t a jugular, to
conjure up a fresh set of puffs in ten minutes. Oh, well, they won’t
starve: me scones take some beatin’, an’ there’s the other cakes. But
them puffs lend tone to a party, Elizer, as you well know: an’ this
particular party’s goin’ to be lackin’ in tone. Just you make the
biscuits look as respectable as you can, while I make the tea: the
bell’ll go any minute.” And Eliza, sighing deeply, prepared to face the
tragedy of the drawing-room.
Meanwhile, under a great pine-tree that stood in the corner of the
Calton Hall playground, three girls sat in a state of palpitating
expectancy. School was dismissed for the day, and the “crocodile” walk,
loathed by the boarders, which usually followed hard upon the heels of
the last lesson, was not to take place—a joyful omission which always
signalized the afternoons when Miss Stone gave a party, since the junior
governesses, who escorted the “crocodile,” were required in the
drawing-room to assist in pouring out tea. Sounds of mirth came from the
tennis-courts, where a hastily-arranged tournament was in full swing.
Across the playground the space sacred to juniors echoed with the shrill
cries attending a game of rounders: other enthusiasts made merry over
basketball. But the three under the pine-tree, although ready for
tennis, were evidently a prey to emotions deeper than could be excited,
at the moment, by any ordinary game.
“I know she’s been caught!” Annette Riley breathed, anxiously. “She
ought to have been here ages ago.”
“Oh, give her time,” said Joyce Harrison, endeavouring to be comforting.
“She might have been delayed in ever so many ways. Ten to one she’s
found that the whole thing is no go, and she’s given it up, and is
getting into her tennis things.”
“Not Robin,” said Betty O’Hara, quietly.
“Well, Robin can’t do everything she wants to, no matter how plucky she
is,” Joyce responded. “And I really do hope she isn’t going to pull this
off. She’s been in such an awful lot of rows already this term—Miss
Stone’s getting madder and madder about her. I wish that silly ass of a
Ruby hadn’t dared her to go raiding the sacred pantry.”
“So do I,” said Annette. “Everyone knows it isn’t safe to dare Robin to
do anything. If you told her she wasn’t game to climb feet foremost up
the electric-light pole, she’d be doing it in five minutes!”
“Ruby Bennett takes advantage of that,” Betty said hotly. “Half the
scrapes that Robin has been in this term have had Ruby’s nasty little
jeers at the bottom of them. And Robin’s such a dear old blind bat that
she never sees it.”
“Well, Robin seems to like rows,” said Joyce. “But there will be an
awful one if she’s caught this time.” She dropped her voice
dramatically. “When Mother was down last week Miss Stone talked to her
in her very stoniest manner about my being friends with Robin——said
all sorts of horrid things about her wildness, and that she had a bad
influence in the school. Poor old Mother was quite worried about it,
until I made her see that Robin is just the straightest ever—she does
mad things, but she wouldn’t tell a lie if she were burned alive!”
“I should just say she wouldn’t!” uttered Betty. “Robin a bad influence,
indeed! I never heard such rubbish. Why, there isn’t a junior that
wouldn’t lick her boots! Prigs like Lucy Armitage, of course——”
“Oh, old Lucy isn’t bad,” said Annette. “She’s rather overweighted by
being a prefect, that’s all. She’s worried about Robin too, because Miss
Stone told her she meant to make an example of her, next time she broke
a rule. And Robin’s simply incapable of not breaking rules!”
“But she never does an underhand thing, as half of Miss Stone’s pets
do,” said Betty. “Everyone knows that girls whose parents have money are
all right in this school: Miss Stone keeps her telescope to her blind
eye where they are concerned. If Robin’s mean old uncle were a bit more
generous to her, she wouldn’t be Miss Stone’s black sheep. He must be a
horrid old pig! Robin and her mother have a perfectly vile time at home.
It’s no wonder the poor darling kicks over the traces when she gets away
from him.” She fanned herself with her racquet. “I wish she’d come—it
will be time for out set very soon.”
“Wonder if Miss Stone has caught her and locked her up,” conjectured
Joyce, gloomily.
“Not much she hasn’t!” said a cheerful voice—and the three girls sprang
up with exclamations of delight as a fourth whirled suddenly into their
midst, laughing.
“Robin!—you didn’t manage it?”
“You weren’t caught?”
“Tell us what happened!”
“Easiest thing ever,” said Robin Hurst cheerfully, sitting down on the
thick carpet of pine-needles. “I waited until the front-door bell was
going every two minutes and Eliza was marking time between rings in the
hall, and then I slipped into the servery. Cookie was up to her eyes in
hot scones: just as she was brooding over the cooking of a great
oven-trayful I dodged into the pantry—and oh, girls, you should have
seen the cream-puffs!”
“Cream-puffs—wow!” said Annette.
“They were just waiting for me—two big blue dishes full. It seemed a
sin to leave any, so I didn’t. That little suit-case of yours just held
them all, Annette, darling—it’ll be a bit creamy, but I’ll clean it for
you.”
“And nobody saw you?”
“Not a soul. It didn’t take two minutes. I shot up the back stairs just
as Eliza came out—she was too full of importance to glance upwards, and
tennis-shoes are nice quiet things. We’ll have a gorgeous supper
to-night—and I’ll show Ruby Bennett I’m not as scared as she tried to
make out.”
She laughed defiantly, tossing her hat from her mane of bright red hair.
Even though shingled, Robin Hurst’s hair was a defiant mop, resisting
all her efforts to make it resemble the sleek demureness of her
schoolfellows’ heads. Its very colour was defiant: no such head of flame
had ever before enlivened the sober rooms of Calton Hall. It blazed
round a narrow delicate face, with clear pale skin that made its owner
furious by its trick of blushing at the slightest provocation. Until
humourously-inclined schoolgirls had found that the pastime was
dangerous, it had been considered rather good fun to make Robin
blush—to see the quick wave of colour surge to the very roots of her
hair, and even down her neck. That was two years ago, when she had been
a new girl, shy and uncertain of herself. Now that she was nearly
sixteen, no one took liberties—it was too much like jesting with
gunpowder.
For the rest, she was tall and very slender—almost boyish in her clean
length of limb; with brown eyes that were rarely without a twinkle, and
a mouth altogether too wide for good looks, with a little upward quirk
at the corners. Lessons were abhorrent to her; history and poetry she
loved, but in every other subject she held a firm position at the bottom
of her class, and was wholly unrepentant about it. The teachers liked
her, while they despaired of her. Miss Stone, the principal, regarded
her with cold disapproval, as a girl who was never likely to reflect the
slightest credit on the school. From the first she had shown a disregard
of law and order that landed her perpetually in trouble. Whatever might
be her deficiencies in class, she was possessed of an amazing ability
for getting into scrapes—and for laughing her way out of them. She took
her penalties cheerfully, and was ready to plan fresh mischief the next
day.
An impatient hail came from the tennis-courts, and the four girls
gathered themselves up and ran to answer it. Over a hard-fought set
Robin apparently forgot altogether that any weight of crime lay upon her
shoulders—possibly because she did not regard the raiding of a pantry
as in the least criminal. She prepared for tea with serene cheerfulness,
that deepened a little as she met Ruby Bennett’s enquiring eye.
“Well, how did the raid go?” asked Ruby, lightly. One was never quite
sure of one’s ground with Robin: it was necessary to feel one’s way.
“What raid?” queried Robin, with an air of sublime innocence. They were
filing into the dining-room, and conversation was frowned upon by the
authorities during the procession.
Triumph flashed into the other girl’s face.
“I thought you wouldn’t be game!” she said, smiling unpleasantly. She
went to her place, radiating satisfaction. Miss Stone was not present;
it was usual for her to remain in seclusion on the evening following a
party. The teachers, especially the junior ones, looked rather troubled,
as if the festivity had not brought pleasure in its train. They were
preoccupied, and when conversation at the long tables rose above its
permitted hum they failed to quell it with their customary promptness.
There were plates of biscuits on their table—Fancy Mixed—but they
seemed to regard them without appetite.
These things did not trouble the pupils, who were unusually hungry—hard
exercise in the playground having more effect upon the appetite than the
slow and sinuous meanderings of a walk in crocodile formation. They ate
all before them, and did not grumble unduly at the jam, which was that
peculiar blend that arrives in very large tins, and is said to be
nutritious—as, indeed, it may well be, having as a basis the wholesome
turnip and vegetable marrow. Calton Hall was one of those
semi-fashionable private schools that loom attractively in
advertisements and preserve a certain amount of outside show, while
assisting profits by a steady system of cheese-paring in matters under
the surface: its boarders owed much of their healthy appearance to the
fact that the digestion of youth is tough and long-enduring. Tea being
over, they dispersed for the half-hour of liberty before preparation:
during which time Robin and her friends were at some pains to avoid Ruby
Bennett. That damsel was clearly bent on triumphing openly. Since,
however, she could not find Robin, she philosophically postponed her
jibes until bedtime, when her victim would be at her mercy in the
dormitory.
Ruby was not the only occupant of Number Four who went up to bed with a
keen sense of anticipation. Every girl knew that she had dared Robin
Hurst to raid Miss Stone’s pantry: eight out of the twelve had gathered,
more or less indirectly, that Robin had not taken up the challenge—and
it was always interesting to see Robin baited, especially by Ruby
Bennett, who had a very unpleasant knowledge of the best places to plant
her winged darts. Robin’s peppery temper lent peculiar excitement to the
frequent encounters between them.
It was, therefore, extremely disappointing to find that Robin took all
Ruby’s jeers meekly on this eventful evening. She said very little, and
what she did say was vague: she alluded apologetically to the manifold
risks of raiding before a party, and led them to infer that her spirit
had quailed at the task. Ruby rose to the occasion with vigour, though
she might have been warned by her adversary’s suspicious humility: now
was her chance to be avenged for many encounters when Robin had
triumphed. She let all her smouldering jealousy of the more popular girl
find vent in her sneers, until Number Four marvelled at Robin’s
self-restraint.
That lasted until the lights were out and the teacher on duty had made
her round. Then came stealthy movements and choked laughter; and the
flash of Annette’s electric torch revealed Robin perched on the end of
Betty’s bed, an elfish figure in pale-blue pyjamas.
“Friends—Romans—countrymen!” she declaimed. “Are you awake?”
Ten convulsive moments demonstrated that the dormitory was indeed astir.
There was a sense of development in the air. Betty O’Hara giggled
hopelessly. Ruby lay still.
“Miss Stone regrets—I feel sure she regrets—the poor and insufficient
food set before you at the evening meal. She realizes that more is owing
to you; that you cannot be expected to sleep without a little extra
nourishment.”
“Robin, you lunatic—what have you been up to?” ejaculated someone.
“I am not a lunatic,” said Robin, with dignity. “I am the commissariat
department of this dormitory, just as Ruby is its top-notch orator—when
she gets a chance. It is my joyful privilege to beg you all to sit
up—which I perceive ten of you are already doing—and to invite you to
join in Miss Stone’s party festivities. Willingly and gladly have her
guests denied themselves that you may now feast on Cook’s extra-special
cream-puffs!”
Smothered yelps of joy broke out from the beds, and leaping figures
hastened to form a ring round the red-haired speaker. Many hands patted
her on the back, until she begged for mercy.
“Keep off, you stupids! And for goodness’ sake, be quiet, or you’ll have
Miss Bryant in! Got the suit-case, Betty?”
“Robin, darling, how did you do it?”
“Quite easy, when you know how,” said Robin, airily. She opened the
suit-case, and the torch revealed a mass of cream-cakes, more or less
amalgamated by this time. But no one was critical.
“Help yourselves, everybody.” No second bidding was necessary. Ten hands
plunged into the booty, and choked sounds of satisfaction arose. From
Ruby’s bed came neither voice nor movement.
“Cream-puff, Ruby?” invited Robin.
“No, thanks,” said Ruby, sulkily.
“Too bad!” said the commissariat department. She selected a fairly
undamaged puff, and took it over to Ruby’s bed, holding it within an
inch of her nose. The nose twitched longingly, but pride was stronger
than hunger.
“I don’t want it, I tell you. Take it away!”
“Oh, I really couldn’t,” said Robin, lightly. “They’re ever so good,
aren’t they, girls? I couldn’t bear you to go without any, when I really
did risk my life and liberty to get them for you.” She laid the delicacy
gently on Ruby’s pillow, disregarding a furious command to take it away,
and capered back to the circle of girls, who were choking with laughter,
between mouthfuls.
“All gone!” said Joyce, mournfully. “Oh, but they were lovely, Robin!”
“Robin Hurst!” said Betty, suddenly. “You never had one yourself!”
“Didn’t I?” answered Robin, innocently. “Well, that was an oversight on
my part. Never mind, I really don’t much like squashed cream-puff. Next
time I have the chance of—er—abstracting any, young ladies, I shall
endeavour to pack them more neatly.”
“Oh, that’s a shame, Robin—when you ran all the risk. What beasts we
are! And I had three!”
“I had all the fun—except what Ruby had,” laughed Robin. “It was worth
it. And Ruby did enjoy herself so. Own up you’re beaten, Ruby, and eat
that puff!”
“Cave!” said someone, in a sharp whisper.
There was a faint sound in the passage. Robin shot the empty suit-case
under the bed, and in a moment every girl’s head was meekly on her
pillow, as the door opened and Miss Stone’s portly figure appeared. She
switched on the dormitory light. Behind her, Miss Bryant’s face showed,
worried and anxious.
“Girls, what are you doing?”
There was profound silence.
“I heard your voices—you need not pretend to be asleep.” The
principal’s angry glance swept the long room. “Joyce Harrison—what have
you been doing?”
“Talking, Miss Stone.”
“And what else?”
No answer. Mild surprise was visible on Joyce’s innocent face. Talking
in bed was against the rules—to admit to one breach of regulations
seemed to her sufficient.
“You need not try to hide your guilt from me,” boomed Miss Stone, in
tones of concentrated wrath. “I am very certain of what has been going
on.” She moved from one bed to another, peering with short-sighted eyes.
“What is that on your pillow, Ruby?”
She made a hasty step forward, and her foot caught on a trailing
blanket. Stumbling, she put out her hand, to save herself. It came down
squarely on Ruby’s neglected cream-puff. Triumph mingled with disgust as
she regained her balance, cream dripping from the hand she held aloft.
“I thought as much! A towel, if you please, Miss Bryant—quickly! You
wicked, deceitful girls! Which of you stole these cakes from my pantry
this afternoon?”
The profound silence that greeted this question was broken by a
smothered burst of irrepressible laughter from two beds at the end of
the room. The scene had been too much for Robin and Betty. They ducked
their heads beneath the clothes, whence gurgles proceeded.
It was all that was necessary to fan Miss Stone’s anger to white heat.
Words failed her for a moment, while she rubbed furiously at her sticky
hand.
“You will find it by no means a joke, young ladies,” she said, bitterly,
her voice shaking. “Ruby Bennett, what do you know of this theft?”
“I didn’t do it,” said Ruby, sulkily.
“The cake was on your pillow—do you think I am going to believe that
you know nothing of it? Answer me!”
“I never touched your cakes—and I never ate any,” Ruby gulped. Fear of
Miss Stone’s wrath mingled with fear of her schoolfellows, should she
tell all she longed to tell.
“Did you put the cake on your pillow?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
“I—I—”
Robin Hurst sat up in bed, her hair a vivid flame round her pale face.
“Oh, Ruby doesn’t know anything about it, Miss Stone,” she said, her
voice faintly bored. “I did it all. None of the others had anything to
do with it.”
Joyce, Betty, and Annette bobbed up with Jack-in-the-box effect.
“We were in it too, Miss Stone!”
“That’s not true!” flashed Robin. “I took them by myself.”
Miss Stone surveyed them bitterly.
“I had guessed you were at the bottom of it, Robin Hurst,” she said. “No
other girl in the school would lower herself by the actions in which you
find pleasure. I warned you last week—this time I shall certainly make
an example of you. Do not go into school in the morning; you may come to
my study at half-past-nine!” She swept majestically from the room,
leaving silence and consternation behind her.