WILD MAIDENHAIR.
"On our other side is the straight-up rock,
And a path is kept 'twixt the gorge and it
By boulder stones, where lichens mock
The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit
Their teeth to the polished block."
Somewhat hot and tired with their exertions, the children dispersed in
small groups to lounge about or amuse themselves in any way they
happened to feel inclined. As there was still plenty of time before
the coaches returned at seven o'clock, Belle and Isobel, together with
four of the Rokebys, decided to stroll up the Scar, from the top of
which they expected to obtain a very good view of the distant
moorland, together with a wide stretch of sea. A narrow path led
steeply by a series of steps through the wood, a delightful, cool,
shady place, with soft moss spreading like a green carpet underfoot,
and closely-interlacing boughs shutting out the sunlight overhead.
Trails of late honeysuckle still hung in sweet-scented festoons from
the undergrowth, and an occasional squirrel might be seen whisking his
bushy tail round the bole of an oak tree in a quest for early acorns.
There was an interesting little pool, too, where a number of young
frogs were practising swimming; and the children thought they saw an
otter, but they could not be quite sure, for it scurried off so
quickly up the bank that they had not the chance to get more than a
glimpse of it. The hazel bushes were covered with nuts, a few of which
already contained kernels, and clumps of ferns grew luxuriantly under
the shadow of the trees.
Pleasant as it was in the wood, it was even more enjoyable when they
reached the top of the hill, and seating themselves upon a thick patch
of heather, looked down the other side of the Scar over the rich
undulating silvan slope, where among great round boulders they caught
the glint of a stream, and heard in the distance the rushing noise of a
waterfall. At the foot of the incline, in a narrow valley between the
Scar and the cliffs which bounded the sea, rose the gray-brown stone
roof of a quaint old Elizabethan house. The richly-carved timbers, the
wide mullioned windows, and the ornamental gables were singularly fine,
and told of the time when those who built put an artistic pride into
their work, and thought no detail too unimportant to be well carried
out. The south side was covered with a glorious purple clematis, which
hung in rich masses round the pillars of a veranda below, and even from
the distance the flaming scarlet of the Scotch nasturtium clothing the
porch arrested the eyes by its brilliant contrast with the delicate
tea-roses that framed the windows.
"What a splendid place!" cried Belle, glancing beyond the twisted
chimneys to where the smooth green lawns and gay beds of a garden peeped
from between the trees of the shrubbery. "Just look at the beautiful
conservatories and greenhouses, and such stables! There's a tennis lawn
on the other side of the flagstaff, and a carriage drive leading down
towards the road. It's the nicest house I've seen anywhere about
Silversands. I wonder to whom it belongs, and what it's called."
"It's the Chase, and belongs to Colonel Smith, I believe," said Cecil.
"There's a huge 'S' on the gates, at any rate, and one day when we were
passing I saw an old buffer going in with a gun, and Arthur Wright said
he was sure it was Colonel Smith, who has all the shooting on the
common. Lucky chap! If it were mine, wouldn't I have a glorious time!
I'd keep ever so many ferrets and dogs in those stables, and go
rabbiting every day in the year."
"I'd have a very fast pony that could fly like the wind," said Winnie,
"and I'd gallop all over the moors and the shore with my hair streaming
out behind in ringlets like the picture of Diana Vernon on the landing
at home."
"You'd very soon fall off," remarked Bertie unsympathetically, "seeing
you can't even stick on to a donkey on the sands. The little brown one
threw you twice this morning."
"That was because the saddle kept slipping," said Winnie indignantly.
"And that particular donkey has a trick of lying down suddenly, too,
when it's tired. It wants to get rid of you--I know it does--because it
rolls if you don't tumble off. It did the same with Charlie Chester the
other day, and shot him straight over its head; then it got up and flew
back to the Parade before he could catch it. The pony would be quite a
different thing, I can tell you, and I'd soon learn to ride it. What
would you do, Belle, if you owned the Chase?"
"I'd give the most wonderful parties," said Belle, "and invite all kinds
of distinguished people--dukes and duchesses, you know, and members of
Parliament, and admirals, and generals, and perhaps even the Prince and
Princess of Wales; and I'd send to Paris for my hats, and have my
clothes made by the Court dressmaker."
"I'd give a cricket match on that lawn," said Isobel, "and ask all the
Sea Urchins to tea. We'd have loads of lovely fruit from those gardens
and greenhouses, and when we were tired of cricket we could get up
sports, and let off fireworks in the evening just when it was growing
dark. That's what I'd like to do if I lived there."
"Pity you don't," exclaimed Bertie; "we'd all come. But what's the use
of talking when you know you'll never have the chance. I say, suppose we
go down the wood on this side and try to find the waterfall? It must be
rather a decent-sized one to make such a thundering noise."
The others jumped up very readily at the suggestion, and leaving the
path, they slid through the steep wood, and climbing a high wall, found
themselves at the rocky bed of a stream, which rushed swiftly along
under the overhanging trees, forming little foaming cascades as it went.
At one point the water, dashing between two steep crags, descended in a
sheer fall of about thirty feet, emptying itself at the bottom into a
wide and deep pool overhung by several fine mountain ashes, the scarlet
berries of which made a bright spot of colour against the silvery green
of the foliage behind. The Rokebys instantly rushed at these, and began
tearing off quite large branches, breaking the boughs in a ruthless
fashion that went to Isobel's heart, for she always had been taught to
pick things carefully and judiciously, so as not to spoil the beauty of
tree or plant.
"It's grand stuff," said Cecil, descending to the ground with a crash,
and switching at the ferns by the water's edge with his stick as he
spoke. "I've got a perfect armful. Hullo! what's that all down the side
of this overhanging rock? It's actually maidenhair fern growing wild in
the open air! I'm going to have some. We'll plant it in pots, and take
it home."
It was indeed the true maidenhair, flourishing on the damp crag under
the spray of the waterfall as luxuriantly as though it had been in a
conservatory, its delicate fronds showing in large clumps wherever it
could obtain a hold on the rocky surface. I grieve to say that the
Rokebys simply threw themselves upon it, pulling it up by the roots, and
destroying as much as they gathered by trampling it in their frantic
haste.
"O Cecil!" cried Isobel, in an agony, "you're spoiling the ferns. They
looked so lovely growing there by the waterfall. Please don't take them
all. Haven't you got enough now?"
"But he hasn't given _me_ any yet," protested Belle. "And I must have
some."
"One doesn't often get the chance to find maidenhair," declared Cecil,
"so I shall make the most of it, you bet.--Here, Belle, you may have
this piece. Catch! If I climb a little higher I can reach that splendid
clump under the tree. I'll take that to the mater."
"I think, on the whole, you will not, my boy," said a dry voice from the
bank behind; and looking round, the children, to their horror and
astonishment, saw the tall figure of an elderly gentleman who had stolen
upon the scene unawares. He spoke quite calmly, but there was a twitch
about his mouth and a gleam in his gray eye which suggested the quiet
before a thunderstorm, and he stood watching the group in much the same
way as a detective might have done who had made a sudden successful
capture of youthful burglars red-handed in the act of committing a
felony.
"May I ask," he observed, with withering politeness, "by whose
invitation you have entered my grounds, and by whose permission you have
been destroying my trees and uprooting my ferns? I was under the
impression that this was my private property, but you evidently consider
you are entitled not only to annex my possessions, but to exercise a
cheap generosity by presenting them to others. I shall be obliged if you
will kindly offer me some explanation."
Cecil was so absolutely transfixed with amazement that for a moment he
remained with his mouth wide open, staring at the newcomer as though the
latter had dropped from the skies. The Rokebys were not well-trained
children; they did not possess either the moral courage or the good
manners which Charlie Chester, madcap though he might be, would
undoubtedly have displayed in the same situation, and instead of meeting
the matter bravely and making the best apology he could, Cecil flung
down the ferns, and without a word of excuse took to his heels and ran
back up the wood at the top of his speed, closely followed by Winnie,
Bertie, and Arnold.
Belle for an instant wavered, but recognizing the old gentleman as the
same whose acquaintance she had cultivated on the beach with such
unsatisfactory results, she decided that discretion was the better part
of valour, and turning away, vanished through the trees like a little
white shadow.
Isobel, the only one of the six who stood her ground, was left to bear
the whole brunt of the matter alone. She looked at the broken branches
of mountain ash and the damaged ferns which the Rokebys had dropped in
the panic of their flight, and which surrounded her like so much guilty
evidence of the deed, then screwing up her courage, she faced the
outraged owner in a kind of desperation.
"I'm _very_ sorry," she began, twisting and untwisting her thin little
hands, and colouring up to the roots of her hair with the effort she was
making. "We oughtn't to have come. But, indeed, we didn't know it was
your ground; we thought it was only just part of the Scar. And I don't
believe the others would have taken the ferns if they'd thought for a
moment, because they would have known maidenhair doesn't grow wild out
of doors like bracken or hart's-tongue."
"But it _was_ wild," said the colonel--"that's the unfortunate part of
it. It wouldn't have distressed me if I could have replaced it from the
conservatory. This happens to be one of the few spots in the British
Isles where _Adiantum Capillus-Veneris_ is found in an undoubtedly
native situation."
"Oh, then that's worse than ever!" cried Isobel, with consternation. "I
know how very, very rare it is, because mother and I once found a
little piece in a cave in Cornwall."
"Did you? Are you sure it was an absolutely genuine specimen and not
naturalized?" asked Colonel Stewart, with keen interest.
"No; it was quite wild, for it was in a very out-of-the-way place by the
seashore."
"I hope you didn't take it?"
"Oh no! we didn't even pick a frond; and mother made me promise never to
tell any one where it grew, she was so afraid some one might root it
up."
"A sensible woman!" exclaimed the colonel. "Pity there aren't more like
her! Why people should want to grub up every rare and beautiful thing
they find in the country to plant in their miserable town gardens, I
can't imagine. It's downright murder. The poor things die directly in
the smoke. Look at these splendid roots that have been growing here
since I was a boy! I would rather they had destroyed every flower in my
garden than have worked such wanton havoc in the spot I value most in
all my grounds."
"It's most unfortunate we came this particular walk," said Isobel,
almost crying with regret. "You see, the Rokebys aren't used to the
country, so they don't seem to think about spoiling things. I believe I
could manage to plant these roots again; they're not very bad, and if I
tucked them well into the crevices of the rock I really fancy they'd
grow."
She picked up some of the ferns as she spoke, and began carefully to
replace them in the little ledges on the side of the rock, moistening
the roots first in the stream, and scraping up some soil with a thin
piece of shale which she made serve the purpose of a trowel.
"They haven't taken quite all," she said. "That beautiful clump up there
hasn't even been touched, and it may spread. I wish I could put back the
mountain ash. I simply can't tell you how sorry I am we ever came."
The colonel smiled.
"I don't blame _you_," he said. "It was those young heathens who ran
away. Their methods of studying botany were certainly of a rather
rough-and-ready description. I should have thought better of them if
they had stayed to apologize. Your friend with the light curls, whom,
by-the-bye, I have met before, seemed also unwilling to enter into any
explanations. In fact, to put it plainly, she left you in the lurch."
"I think she was frightened," said Isobel, wondering what possible
excuse she could frame for Belle's conduct. "You came so--so very
suddenly. There! I've put all the ferns back. They're rather broken, I'm
afraid; but there are plenty of new fronds ready to come up, so I hope
you'll find that, after all, we haven't quite spoilt everything."
"Think I'm not so much hurt as I imagined?" said the colonel, with a
twinkle in his eye.
"Oh, I didn't mean that!" replied Isobel quickly. "I know we've done a
great deal of harm. Please don't think I wanted to make out we hadn't."
"All right; you've done your best to repair the damage, so that's an end
of the matter."
"I ought to be going now," continued Isobel. "The Rokebys and Belle will
be wondering what has become of me, and the coaches were to start at
seven o'clock. It must be after six now."
"Exactly half-past six," said Colonel Stewart, consulting his watch. "If
you follow that footpath it will take you through a side gate and
straight up the hillside; I expect you will find the others waiting for
you on the top of the Scar. Good-bye. Give my compliments to your
friends, and tell them to learn to enjoy the country without spoiling it
for other people; and the next time they get into a tight place to show
a little pluck, and not to run off like a set of cowardly young curs."