THE ISLAND.
"Oh! had we some bright little isle of our own,
In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone."
Though the United Sea Urchins were still very faithful to their cricket
ground under the cliffs, the older and more daring spirits were always
ready to ramble farther afield in quest of new scenes and adventures.
Every day seemed to bring with it some fresh delight, whether it were a
shrimping expedition among the green sea-weedy pools of the rocks on the
far shore, or a cockle gathering on the gleaming banks left by the
ebb-tide, where the breath of the salt wind on their faces or the feel
of the wet, oozing sand under their bare feet was a joy to be garnered
up and held in memory. Sometimes it was a scramble over the moors,
between thickets of golden gorse and stretches of heather so deep and
long that to lie in it was to bury oneself like a bee in a bed of purple
fragrance, or a hard climb would take them to the summit of some
neighbouring hill, where, watching the sun sink from a primrose sky into
a pearly, shimmering sea, they would all grow a little silent and quiet,
even the roughest spirits restrained in spite of themselves by the sight
of that indescribable majesty and calm which marks the parting of the
day. It is hours such as these--glad, exhilarating, glorious hours, when
the world seems as young as ourselves, and merely to live and breathe is
a delight--that lay up in our hearts a store of sunshine to be drawn
upon in after life as from a treasure-house of the mind, and to brighten
dark days to come with the rapture of the remembrance.
It was, perhaps, somewhat against her natural tastes that Belle found
herself included in the many and various excursions of the Sea Urchins.
She was no country lover, and the stir of a promenade in a fashionable
watering-place gave her more pleasure than the dash of waves or the
scent of wild flowers. She did not enjoy splashing her pretty clothes
with sea-water among the rocks, or tearing them in search of
blackberries on the hedgerows; and it was only her love of society, and
a dislike of being left behind, which induced her to follow where the
others led. The rough walks and hard scrambles were often a real trial
to her, though with Isobel to tow her up steep hills, help her across
stiles, disentangle her laces from insistent brambles, jump her over
pools, and take her hand in dangerous spots, she managed to keep up
fairly well. Isobel, to whom these excursions were the topmost summit of
bliss, and who was apt to measure others' standards by her own, never
suspected for a moment that Belle was beginning to grow tired of it, and
received an occasional outburst of petulance or fretful complaint with
such amazement that the latter would, for very shame, desist, and for a
time the friendship continued to remain at high-water mark. That Belle
was selfish and exacting never once crossed Isobel's mind, and though
she could not help frequently detecting in her certain little
meannesses, exaggeration, or even occasional wanderings from the truth,
there always seemed to be some exonerating circumstance which would in a
measure either clear her from blame or give her the benefit of a doubt.
It is often so difficult to find fault with those for whom we care very
dearly: we are ready to make excuses, condone their mistakes, overlook
their shortcomings, anything but allow to ourselves the unfortunate and
yet unmistakable fact that our idol has feet of clay; and so Isobel went
on from day to day blinding her eyes with her adoration for her
namesake, and investing Belle with a halo of virtues and attractions
which certainly did not exist except in her own imagination.
Apart from Belle, I think that among the various members of the Sea
Urchins' Club Isobel found the Chesters the most congenial. They had all
the dash and daring of the Rokebys without the over-boisterous manners
which characterized that rough-and-tumble family, whose friendship at
times was apt to prove a trifle wearing. Little Hilda had taken a great
affection for Isobel, and Charlie, since the adventure in the _Stormy
Petrel_, was disposed to consider her in the light of a chum, and to
cultivate her acquaintance. As knowing Isobel meant including Belle, the
four children therefore might often be found in each other's company,
and it was at Charlie's suggestion that they determined one afternoon to
pay a visit to a certain small island which lay a short distance along
the coast, at the other side of the rocky headland that jutted out at
the far side of the bay.
"I've not been close to," said Charlie, "but you can see it very well
from the top of the Scar. It looks a regular Robinson Crusoe desert
island kind of a place, just given up to sea-gulls and rabbits. I don't
believe a soul ever goes there."
"It would be grand if we were the first to set foot on it," said Isobel.
"It would be our own island, and we'd claim it in the name of the club,
like travellers do in Central Africa when they run up the Union Jack,
and then mark the place pink on the map, to show it's a British
possession."
"And then all the others could be settlers," added Hilda, "and we'd
light a fire and cook fish and have _such_ fun!"
"It would be exactly like the coral island in 'The Young Pioneers,'"
said Belle. "Perhaps I might become the queen, like the mysterious white
lady they found living among the natives, and have a throne made out of
sand and shells, and wear a garland of flowers for a crown."
"Oh, we won't go in for nonsense like that!" declared Charlie, who was
not romantic, and, moreover, enjoyed squashing Belle on occasion. "But
we might build a hut there, and rig up a sort of camp, and then, if the
whole lot of us came, we could have a regular ripping time. It's worth
while going to see, at any rate."
Armed with a mariner's compass, a tin pail full of biscuits, Isobel's
botanical case for specimens, and a stout stick apiece, the four friends
set out on their pioneering expedition with all the enthusiasm of a band
of explorers penetrating into the heart of an unknown continent, or a
Roman legion bent on the conquest of some distant Albion. As the
geography books determine an island to be "a piece of land surrounded by
water," the particular spot in question could only claim to justify its
name at high tide, since at low water it was joined to the mainland, and
by scrambling over the rocks and jumping a few channels which the sea
had left behind, any one could reach it quite easily dry shod. The
children marched sturdily along over the wet sands, with a pause here
and there to dive after a particularly interesting crab, or to float a
jelly-fish left stranded by the tide, in the deeper water. Charlie,
however, would not allow many digressions, and hurried them as fast as
possible towards the object of their journey. The island, on a nearer
view, proved to be a bare, craggy spot, about half a mile in length by a
quarter in breadth, bounded by steep cliffs which supported a rocky
plateau covered with short rough grass and sea pinks, and honeycombed in
every direction with rabbit burrows. It seemed the haunt of innumerable
gulls, guillemots, and puffins, for whole flocks of them flew away,
wheeling overhead in wide circles, and uttering loud, piercing cries in
protest at the invasion of their rocky stronghold.
"We'd better do the thing thoroughly. Suppose we start from this big
rock and walk right round the island," suggested Isobel. "I have a piece
of paper and a pencil in my pocket, and I'll draw a map of it as we go
along, and we'll give names to all the capes and bays and headlands."
"Stunning!" agreed Charlie. "This rock can be 'Point Set-Off,' and we
can take it in turns to christen the other places. I don't believe the
island itself has a name; we shall each have to suggest something, and
then put it to the vote. I'm for 'Craggy Holme' myself, but we won't
decide anything yet until we have been completely over it."
Thrilled with the excitement of the occasion, the pioneers started on
their tour of inspection, noting with approval that the pools at the
foot of the cliff were full of sea anemones, star-fishes, hermit crabs,
periwinkles, whelks, pink sea-weed, and a wealth of desirable treasures;
that the brambles which grew on the slopes above were already covered
with fast ripening blackberries; that there were flukes quite seven
inches long in the narrow channel on the north shore; and that the sands
beyond showed a perfect harvest of cockles and other shells. They had
gone perhaps halfway round the coast, and were on the south side, facing
the open sea, when suddenly, turning a corner, they found themselves in
a spot which made them stand still and look at one another with little
gasps of delight. Surely it was the ideal place for a camp. They were in
a small creek between two great overhanging crags, where brambles and
wood vetch hung down in delightful tangled masses, the fine white sand
under their feet alternated with soft green turf, spangled with tiny
sea-flowers, and there was quite a bank of small delicate shells left by
the high spring tides. Close under the rocks lay the wreck of a
schooner, driven ashore by winter storms, and stranded upon the shingle,
the broken spars and a fragment of the hull lying half buried in the
silvery sand, surrounded by a forest of sea-weed and drift-wood.
"Why, it just beats 'The Swiss Family Robinson' or 'The Boy Explorers'
hollow!" said Charlie, turning to his companions with something of the
look that Christopher Columbus may have worn when he stepped with his
followers on to the shores of the New World. "Here's the very place we
were hoping for! We'd soon get that old trail tilted out of the sand;
she only needs propping against the cliff, and she'd make a regular
Uncle Tom's cabin. With the Wrights and the Rokebys to help, we'd haul
her up in a jiffy. Some of these spars and planks would do for seats and
tables, and we could light fires with the drift-wood. It's a camp
almost ready made for us, I declare."
"And look!" cried Hilda, pointing to a sand-bank which lay at the mouth
of the creek; "the tide seems to have thrown up a great many things down
there." And she hurried to the water's edge, where the drifting current
had lodged a variety of miscellaneous articles--walking-sticks, tin
cans, a child's boat, a straw hat, several baskets, glass bottles, and
even a lady's parasol, all lying tangled among the sea-weed, washed
across the bay no doubt from the beach at Ferndale. "I've fished out a
little horse and cart, and there's something here that looks like the
remains of a gentleman's top hat. We can use the tins for the cabin.
They'll do for flower-pots. O Charlie! aren't you glad we came?"
"It's quite romantic," said Belle, sitting down on a spar, and twisting
some pink bindweed round her hat. "We could have tea here, and get up a
dance on the sands afterwards. I've found such a pretty pencil-case
among the drift-wood. I mean to keep it."
"I don't think any one else has discovered the island," said Isobel. "So
we've quite a right to take possession, haven't we?"
"It's the very thing we want, and we'll annex it at once," said Charlie;
and drawing the empty shell of a sea urchin from his pocket, he slipped
it on to the top of a stick, which he planted firmly in the sand as an
ensign; then climbing on to the summit of a rock close by, he waved his
handkerchief to north, south, east, and west, exclaiming, "We hereby
take solemn possession of this island in the name of the United Sea
Urchins' Recreation Society, and are prepared to hold the same in legal
right against all comers. If any one has just cause or impediment to
offer why the said society should not occupy this territory in peace and
prosperity, let him speak now, or hereafter for ever hold his peace.
Rule, Britannia! God save the King!"
With a burst of cheers the others unanimously declared themselves
witnesses to the deed, and decided that possession being nine-tenths of
the law, the island, for the time at any rate, was undoubtedly their
own, and until any one appeared to dispute their claim they would make
what they pleased of it.
"To-morrow we'll rig out a real pioneer party of settlers, and come with
hammers and nails and axes and all the rest of it," said Charlie. "Then
we can put up a flag and decide on names and everything. We haven't time
to explore the top now, though it looks jolly upon those cliffs; we
must get back before the tide turns. It's a ripping place, but it would
be no joke, all the same, to be surrounded and have to spend the night
here."
The Sea Urchins took to the idea of a camp on a desert island with the
greatest enthusiasm, and next day the elder portion of them started off
with any tools which they could buy, beg, or borrow, anxious to set to
work at once upon the task of constructing a dwelling from the wreck of
the old schooner. By fastening a rope to the hull, they contrived to tug
it out of the sand and tilt it on end against a rock; then with the aid
of the broken planks which were lying near they propped it up securely
and repaired any damaged or broken pieces, so that it made the most
successful hut, a kind of combination of a Viking's hall with a
pirate's cave or an Indian wigwam. The face of the cliff which formed
the wall on one side was full of ledges and crevices which served
admirably for cupboards, a few nails driven into the boards answered for
hat pegs, and it was no difficult matter to put up shelves from odd
pieces of drift-wood.
It was amazing how the work brought out the varying capacities of the
settlers. To every one's surprise, Arthur Wright developed a perfect
genius for carpentry. He had borrowed a few tools from a friendly
joiner in the town, and constructed quite a tidy little table, forming
the legs from broken masts; and he managed to make a door for the
fortress of the best portions of three rotten planks, fastening it on
with hinges cut from an old leather strap, and even putting a latch
which would open with a string pulled from the outside.
While the boys did the harder part of the work, the girls contented
themselves with the more feminine element of artistic decoration. They
thatched the roof elaborately with masses of brown bladder-wrack
sea-weed, tying it securely with pieces of cord; they fixed a row of
twenty-one sea urchins, with the spines on, over the door as a coat of
arms, one to represent each member of the club; and pink and white fan
shells were nailed alternately round the window, with yellow periwinkles
wedged between. A little garden was carefully laid out, a wall being
made of stones and sand, and a path of fine gravel leading up to the
door. Green sea-weed was put down to represent grass, the most wonderful
arrangements in the way of cockles, mussels, and limpets took the place
of flower-beds, and a few sea-pinks and harebells planted in tins
rescued from the sand-bank adorned the window-sill. Inside, a fireplace
had been built with stones at the rocky end, a hole being made in the
roof to let out the smoke, and seats were dug from the sand sufficient
to accommodate the whole party. A tin kettle and a frying-pan, purchased
by subscription, constituted the cooking utensils of the camp, and the
members waxed so eager over the domestic arrangements of their hut that
they spent all their pennies at the cheap stalls in the market on tin
mugs and plates and other articles likely to be of service to the
community. Eric Wright denied himself toffee or caramels for three whole
days--a heroic effort on his part--that he might contribute a certain
gorgeous scarlet tea-tray on which he had set his young affections; the
Rokebys clubbed together to buy muslin for window curtains; Belle
presented a looking-glass as a suitable offering; and Mrs. Barrington,
who was always generous when it was not a question of diet, allowed Ruth
and Edna to purchase a dozen pewter teaspoons, a bright blue enamelled
teapot, and a bread-and-butter plate with a picture of the Promenade at
Ferndale upon it. The sand-bank was rummaged for anything that would
come in handy, and though it did not yield such wonderful treasures as
the wrecked ship generally contains in desert-island stories, they found
several empty bottles, an old lantern, a dripping-tin, a wooden spoon,
and a battered bird-cage, all of which they decided might come in
useful in course of time and were carefully put by in a safe place among
the rocks.
Isobel, who toiled away at the camp with untiring zeal, had drawn and
painted a very nice map of the island on a sheet of cardboard, all the
various places being neatly marked, and had nailed it on the wall
inside. After a good deal of discussion it had been decided to call the
domain "Rocky Holme," the crag on the extreme summit was "Point
Look-Out," the tall cliff to the north, "Sea-Birds' Cape," while the one
on the south was "Welcome Head." The creek where they had established
their headquarters was christened by the appropriate name of "Sandy
Cove," and the hut bore the more romantic title of "Wavelet Hall." They
had fixed a broken mast at the end of the little garden for a flagstaff,
and ran up an ensign specially designed and executed for them by Mrs.
Stewart, consisting of a large sea urchin cut out of white calico, and
stitched upon a ground of turkey-red twill, with the initials
"U.S.U.R.S." below; so that, with their colours floating in the breeze
and the smoke of their fire rising in a thin white column among the
rocks, no band of colonists could have felt that the country was more
really and truly their own.