The Old Windlass
By this time the reader will probably have gathered that Master Ronald
Trevellyan, though possessed of a very charming and winsome personality,
had a decidedly strong will of his own. On the whole he was fairly good,
but the lack of companions of his own age, and the fact that he was the
one darling of the household, made it almost an impossibility to prevent
him from becoming in some slight degree spoilt. Mrs. Trevellyan did her
best to enforce obedience, but though her word was law, Ronnie was not
always so ready to accept the authority of others, and occasionally
exhibited a burst of independence. This was particularly noticeable with
his governess. Miss Herbert was inclined to be easy-going and was not
sufficiently firm with him, and the young scamp, finding he could get
his own way, took advantage of her failing and sometimes defied her with
impunity. The little fellow's simple lessons were over in the morning,
and in the afternoon he either played in the garden or was taken for a
walk. To him it was a great occasion if he chanced to meet the pupils
from the Dower House. He counted them all as friends, and though he had
his particular favourites among them, he was quite ready to be the
general pet of the school. On the day but one after the bonfire, when on
his way to the beach escorted by Miss Herbert, he encountered the twenty
girls walking with Miss Harding towards the headland.
"Hallo, Ronnie boy! Where are you off to? We're all going to drill on
the green and do ambulance practice. Won't Miss Herbert let you come and
watch us?"
"Not to-day, thanks, I'm busy. I've got to go fishing," returned the
"King of the Castle", proudly displaying a small shrimping net.
"Auntie's going to have what I catch fried for breakfast to-morrow."
"Hope she won't starve!"
"Hadn't you better run after a rabbit and catch it for her?"
"Or shoot a cock sparrow?"
"Come with us to drill and we'll make you a colonel of the regiment."
"Or we'll practise ambulance work, and bind up your leg and carry you
home on a coat."
"You've no idea what fun it would be."
But Ronnie stuck to his guns. He had come out with the intention of
fishing, and not even the attractions of drill and ambulance could tempt
him from trying his new shrimping net.
"We shall expect a pilchard apiece," declared his friends, as they gave
up trying to cajole him and went on their way.
"You won't get any; they're all for Auntie!" he shouted. "Yes, they
are, even if I catch shoals, and shoals, and shoals!"
The girls laughed, talked about him for a moment or two, and then
dismissed him from their minds. They were full of their practice for the
afternoon. It was only this term that drill and ambulance had been taken
up at the school, so they were still in the first heat of their
enthusiasm. On this occasion, too, Miss Barlow, a lady staying in the
neighbourhood, who had been largely connected with the Girl Guide
movement in Australia, had promised to come and inspect them and give
them some of the results of her Colonial experience. A strip of green
sward not far from the scene of the beacon fire made an excellent parade
ground, and here they drew up in line to await the arrival of their
honorary colonel, who was following with Miss Birks. Miss Barlow proved
to be, like an old-fashioned children's book, "a combination of
amusement and instruction". She had extremely jolly, pleasant manners
and a fund of lively remarks, making everybody laugh heartily as she
went her round of inspection.
"I'm glad you know the difference between left and right," she said.
"I'm told that country recruits for the army find such a difficulty in
distinguishing between the two that their sergeant is sometimes obliged
to make them tie a band of hay round one leg and a band of straw round
the other. Then instead of calling out 'left--right--left--right' he
says 'hay--straw--hay--straw' until they have grown accustomed to
march."
"Do you find Colonial girls much quicker than English?" asked Jessie
Macpherson.
"They are more resourceful, and very bright in suggesting fresh ideas,
but they are not so willing to submit to discipline. They are more ready
to copy a corps of roughriders than a Roman cohort. No doubt it is owing
to the way they are brought up. Very few of them spend their early life
in the charge of nurses and governesses. From babyhood they are taught
to take care of themselves, to be prepared for emergencies, and to throw
up whatever they may have in hand and go to the assistance of a
neighbour who needs them. It is a training that makes them helpful and
energetic, but perhaps a little too independent to accord entirely with
the standards we keep at home. Our girls are more sheltered and guarded,
and it is only natural that they should have a different style from
those who must hold their own. I wish I could have introduced you to
some of my bright young Australian friends. I think you would find the
same charm about them that I do."
Miss Barlow had many hints to give them on the subject of camp cookery.
She showed the girls the quickest and most practical way to build a
fire, and the right situation to choose for it as regards shelter.
"I wish we could have stayed here for a whole day and prepared our own
dinner," she said. "It is wonderful how much can be done with a
three-legged iron pot and some gorse to burn under it. We would have
made a most delicious stew. I should have liked to teach you to build a
camp oven, but we should need a spade for that. One has to dig a hole
nearly a yard deep and wide, line it with stones, light a fire in it,
then pop one's iron pot on to the mass of hot ashes, and cover the whole
with a roof of sticks and sods. I have often baked bread this way out in
the bush. Then you ought to know how to wrap up your food in cases of
green leaves and wet clay, to be cooked in the ashes round an ordinary
camp fire; and how to mix flour and water cakes when there is no yeast
to be had for bread."
"If only we could come and camp out with you here for a week!" sighed
the girls. "It would be ripping fun!"
"Yes, if the weather were fine; but our English weather is apt to play
unkind tricks. My brother is a doctor, and medical officer to a Boys'
Brigade. At Whitsuntide he went with them to camp. It was delightful for
the first three days, then in the night a perfect blizzard arose and the
rain fell in torrents. The wind got under his tent and tore up some of
the pegs, then half the canvas came flapping down, a wet mass, over his
bed. A tightly-stretched tent will keep out the weather, but if it gets
loose and rests against anything inside, the rain will soak through, and
you can imagine the miserable condition. In preparing breakfast, &c.,
all the boys got wretchedly wet, and to try to prevent their taking cold
my brother dosed them all with camphor. As there were eighty in camp,
you can understand it took a long time to measure out the orthodox ten
drops on to each separate lump of sugar. I am afraid the last patient
had full opportunity of catching the cold before he took the cure."
"I expect the ancient Britons did camp cookery when they lived here,"
suggested Irene Jordan.
"No doubt they did. There are traces that a most early and primitive
people, far older than the Celts whom Julius Caesar wrote about, must
have lived on this headland. We are sitting on the very remains of their
little circular huts. Look! you can trace the outlines of the ancient
stone walls. Here a small community must have lived, and hunted and
fished, and fetched limpets and periwinkles from the beach to eat as
dessert. Probably the reindeer or the Irish elk still came to feed on
the mossy grass, and there would be a grand pursuit with bows and
flint-tipped arrows. It must have been a great event to kill an elk. The
whole primitive village would feast for days afterwards, toasting the
flesh on little spits of wood. Then the women would prepare the skin and
stitch it with bone needles into warm garments, and the horns would be
used as picks or other implements, so that nothing was wasted. Their
camp cookery would have to be even more simple than ours, for they had
not yet discovered the use of metals, so could not have a three-legged
cauldron. They boiled their water in a very curious manner, by dropping
red-hot stones into it. It must have taken a long time and given rather
a funny flavour to the joints, but no doubt they tasted delicious to
Neolithic appetites."
"I'd like to restore a few of the huts, and come and live in them for a
few days, and pretend we were primitive folk," said Deirdre.
"Mrs. Trevellyan has often talked of excavating them," remarked Miss
Birks. "I hope she will do so. It is quite possible that some very
interesting relics of the Stone Age might be turned up. It would
probably fix the period when they were inhabited."
"How long ago would that be?" asked one of the girls.
"Most likely about two thousand years or more."
The conversation at this point was interrupted, for in the distance
appeared Miss Herbert, running, beckoning and calling to them all at
once. In considerable alarm they went to meet her.
"Where's Ronnie?" she gasped. "I've lost him! Oh, has anybody seen him?
Is he here with you?"
"He's certainly not here," said Miss Birks. "We've not seen him since we
met you an hour or more ago. When did you miss him, and where?"
"On the beach," sobbed Miss Herbert hysterically. "He was playing with
his little shrimping net. I sat down to read my book, and I kept looking
to see that he was all right, and then suddenly he had disappeared. I
thought he must have trotted back round the point, so I followed, but I
couldn't find him. I hoped he'd come up here to you. It's very naughty
of him to run away."
"We must find him at once," said Miss Birks gravely. "Girls, you had
better go in parties of three, each in a different direction. Miss
Barlow and I will go with Miss Herbert. We won't give up the search
until he is found."
"Did he go round the other corner of the cove?" asked Gerda.
"He couldn't. The waves were dashing quite high against the rocks. I'm
sure he would never venture," declared the distracted governess.
"He's such a plucky little chap, he would venture anything."
"Oh, surely not! He couldn't! He couldn't have gone there! He may have
run home!"
"Better not waste any more time, but go and see what's become of him,"
suggested Miss Birks rather dryly. She had always thought Miss Herbert
too easy-going where Ronnie was concerned.
The bands of searchers set off in eight different directions, shouting,
hallooing, cuckooing, and making every kind of call likely to attract
the child's attention. Some took the beach and some the cliffs, while
others ran to the Castle to see if he had returned to the garden. There
had never been such a hue and cry on the headland. That Ronnie should be
lost was an unparalleled disaster, and considering the many accidents
which might possibly have happened to him, each of his friends searched
with a deadly fear in her heart. Gerda, her once rosy face white as
chalk, had flown along the cliffs with Deirdre and Dulcie, shouting his
name again and again.
"He may have gone round the west corner, though Miss Herbert says he
couldn't," she panted. "Let us get on to the cliff above, where we can
look down. Oh, Ronnie! Ronnie! Cuckoo! Where are you? Cooee!"
As Gerda gave the last long-drawn-out call she stopped suddenly and
motioned the others to silence. From the shore below there came a faint
but quite unmistakable response. Creeping to the verge of the
overhanging precipice Gerda peeped down. There, at a distance of forty
feet beneath, stood Ronnie, a pathetic little figure, turning up a small
frightened face and quavering a shrill "Cooee!" His position was one of
imminent danger. The point round which he had scrambled half an hour
before was now covered with great dashing waves that hurled their spray
high into the air, and the narrow strip of shingle upon which he stood
was rapidly growing smaller and smaller as the tide advanced. On either
hand escape was impossible; behind him roared the sea, and in front
towered the steep unscalable face of the cliff.
"Gerda! Gerda!" he wailed piteously.
Gerda turned to her companions almost like an animal at bay. Her lips
were white as her cheeks, her eyes blazed. "We must save him!" she
choked.
"The life-boat! Let us fetch the life-boat!" cried Deirdre. "You stay
here and I'll run to Pontperran. Some of the others will go with me;
Annie Pridwell is a fast runner. Cooee! Cooee! Ronnie is found!"
Deirdre was very swift of foot and darted off like a hare, shouting her
message to the nearest band of searchers. In an incredibly short space
of time the news had spread, and all were hurrying towards the cliff.
The ill tidings reached Mrs. Trevellyan at the Castle, and, sick with
anxiety, she hastened to the spot, first sending one of her men to urge
speed in launching the life-boat. The tide was sweeping in fast, and
nearer and nearer crept the cruel, hungry waves, as if thirsting to
snatch the little figure huddled at the foot of the cliff. Ronnie was
too worn out and too frightened to call now; he lay watching the
advancing water with terror-stricken blue eyes, still grasping the
shrimping net that had led him to this disaster.
Could the life-boat possibly arrive in time? That was the question which
each spectator asked dumbly, not daring to voice it in words. Nearer and
ever nearer swept the waves. Where there had been yards of shingle there
were only feet; soon it was a matter of inches. There was not a sign of
any boat to be seen. A sea-crow below flapped its wings like an omen of
death.
"Tom and Smith have gone to fetch ropes," breathed Miss Birks, and her
voice broke the strain of almost intolerable silence.
"There's not time to wait for them."
"Can we do nothing?"
"Oh, is there no way to save him?"
Then Gerda stood up, with a sudden light shining in her clear eyes.
"Yes, yes!" she cried. "There's the old windlass! I'm going down to him
by that!"
Years ago there had been a small find of china clay on the headland. It
had been lowered in buckets over the side of the cliff to be taken away
by boat, and the remains of the apparatus, a derelict, rickety affair,
stood within a few yards of the place where the watchers were gathered.
A rusty bucket was still attached to the frayed, weather-worn rope
twisted round the roller. To descend by so frail a support was indeed a
risk so great that only the most desperate necessity could justify it. A
general murmur of horror arose from those assembled.
"It's the one chance--I'm going to try it," repeated Gerda. "You can
lower me gently by the handle. I'm going to save him--or die with him."
She began rapidly to unwind the windlass so as to allow the bucket to
reach the edge of the cliff. Realizing that she was in grim earnest, the
others offered no further objection, and came eagerly to her assistance.
She had seized the rope and was about to step into the bucket when a
strong hand put her aside. The stranger in the brown jersey had silently
joined himself to the group.
"This is my place," he said firmly. "I am going down the cliff. Hold
hard, there! Pay out the rope gently and don't let me go with a run or
I'm done for. Easy! Easy! Give me more rope when I call."
So quickly did he substitute himself for Gerda that he was over the edge
of the cliff almost before anyone had realized what was taking place.
The onlookers held their breath as they watched the perilous descent.
The bucket swayed from side to side and bumped against the rock, but
holding on to the rope with one hand the man managed with the other to
keep himself from injury. Down--down--down he swung, till, clear of the
cliff, he dangled, as it seemed, in mid-air.
"Now, rope! More rope!" he called. "Quicker!"
The windlass creaked on the rusty axle, there was a rush, a drop, then
a shout of triumph. The next moment he had snatched Ronnie in his arms.
Ringing cheers reached him from above, but the battle was only half won
after all. There was still no sign of the life-boat; a wave swept
already over his feet. The only road to safety lay up the cliffside.
Would the old weather-worn rope stand the double strain? There was no
time for questioning. Telling Ronnie to hold on tightly round his neck
he once more entered the bucket and gave the signal for the ascent. To
the anxious hearts of the watchers the next few minutes seemed an
eternity. Those at the windlass turned the handle slowly and steadily in
response to the shouts from below. If there had been danger before, the
peril now was trebled. With a child clinging round his neck it was far
more difficult for the stranger to keep clear of the rock. The old
worn-out machine creaked and groaned like one in mortal agony. Life or
death hung on the strength of a rusted piece of chain and a half-rotten
hempen rope. Up! Up! Up! Would the suspense never end? Only a few yards
now and the watchers were waiting to help. Once more the rickety axle
creaked and shivered, then the stranger's head and shoulders appeared
over the edge of the cliff, and eager hands grasped him and pulled him
gently forward on to firm ground. He had lost his hat in the descent,
and now the sunlight fell full on his clear-cut features and his fair,
closely-cropped hair.
"You--L'Estrange! You! You!" shrieked Mrs. Trevellyan wildly.
But for answer he placed Ronnie in her arms, and pushing his way through
the excited group ran off over the warren and was out of sight before
the lookers-on had recovered from their amazement. By the time the
life-boat had made its way round the coast from Pontperran harbour great
breakers were crashing against the face of the rock with a dull booming
and showers of foam, as if angry to have been cheated of their prey.
"No one could live for a moment in this cruel sea!" exclaimed Deirdre,
shuddering with horror as she thought how the fierce water would have
dashed and tossed and crushed the little helpless figure left to the
mercy of the waves.
"Ronnie will be doubly dear to us now," said Miss Birks, marshalling her
girls together and turning to leave the cliff.