The Rush-bearing
Among Miss Todd's modern principles of education was the sensible theory
that if you can once get a girl interested in a subject she will learn
without any labour, and that self-acquired knowledge is far more readily
retained than facts which are crammed down one's throat. More especially
she applied this to history. Instead of making it a dry catalogue of
dates of kings and battles, she tried to show the gradual evolution of
the British nation from the barbarism of the Stone Age to present-day
civilization. She dwelt much on folk-lore, ancient customs and
traditions, and especially encouraged the study of all local legends and
observances. In this she found an ally in the new vicar who had lately
come to the church at Pendlemere, and whose daughters, Meg and Elsie,
attended the school as day-girls. Mr. Fleming was an enthusiastic
antiquarian, and revelled in the history of the neighbourhood. He went
round his parish collecting information from the oldest inhabitants with
regard to vanished and vanishing customs, and took notes for a book
which he hoped to write upon the folk-lore of the northern counties. In
the heat of his ardour he suggested the revival of several quaint old
festivals which had once held time-honoured places in the calendar of
the year. First and foremost came the Rush-bearing. In ancient days it
had been the custom of the parishioners to cut bundles of rushes, and,
walking in procession to the church, to strew the floor thickly with
them as a covering for the winter. They would be left till the spring,
and cleared away in time for Easter. This old ceremony had long fallen
into disuse, and was only remembered by village patriarchs as one of the
yearly events of their far-away childhood.
Though it might not be desirable once more to strew the floor with
rushes, Mr. Fleming suggested that it would be a pretty idea if the
girls at Pendlemere School were to cut some bundles of them, tie them
with ribbons, and carry them into the church on the date of the old
festival, as a memorial of the past observance. Anything so interesting
as going out to cut rushes appealed to the girls, and they readily
adopted the suggestion. Miss Todd decided to turn the afternoon into a
kind of natural history and antiquarian excursion.
"The rushes by the lake are not very easy to get," she explained, "but
there are beauties growing on Fox Fell. We'll have a ramble there on
Saturday, take our lunch, and bring back our bundles. Then we can plait
our ribbons at our leisure on Monday, in time for the festival on
Tuesday. Who wants to go? Anybody who likes may stay at home."
A rustle passed round the room, for nobody was anxious to be left out of
the fun. Rambles were considered special treats at Pendlemere, and
smiles decorated twenty faces at the prospect. At Geraldine's suggestion
they did their Saturday prep. in Friday's recreation time.
"And get all your practising finished too," she urged. "If we can tell
Miss Todd that our work's quite squared up, she'll let us stay out
longer; but you know her. If there's a single girl who hasn't learnt her
literature, or made up her music list, the whole crew of us will have to
come trotting back. I'd be sorry for that girl!" Geraldine looked round
the room grimly. "I should give her a very unpleasant time myself, and I
expect the rest of you would, too. She'd richly deserve all she got."
Warned by the head girl's awful threat, tasks were completed in good
time, and promptly by half-past ten the school, in a uniform of brown
jerseys, brown tam-o'-shanters with orange tassels, strong boots,
lunch-wallets slung over their shoulders, and sticks in their hands,
were prepared, like a group of pilgrims, to make their start. Spot, the
fox terrier, escorted them, barking his loudest. Meg and Elsie Fleming
joined them in the village; so with Miss Todd and Miss Beverley they
formed a party of twenty-four. They set their faces towards the fells,
and stepped out briskly. They were not bound to walk in a crocodile,
but, though some progressed in groups, most of the girls gravitated into
pairs. Diana and Wendy linked arms as naturally as two pieces of mercury
merge together in a box. Their spirits, usually high, were to-day at
bubbling-over point: they laughed at everything, whether it was a joke
or not.
"It's my first real mountain walk in England," announced Diana.
"Oh! I'm glad you allow they _are_ mountains," said Sadie, coming up
from behind. "You've been bragging so hard about America, that I thought
perhaps you'd consider them hillocks."
"They _are_ hillocks compared with the Rockies," flashed Diana. "I'm not
going to give way an inch about America, so there!"
"All right, Uncle Sam, brag away. Everything over there is ten times
bigger and better than here--the apples are the size of pumpkins, and
the brooks are so wide you can't see across them, and it takes you years
to ride round a single farm! We know! You needn't tell us again."
"I wasn't going to!" retorted Diana. "What's the use, when you can make
it all up for yourself?"
"Oh! my invention's nothing to yours. I expect you're telling Wendy some
startlers. I'm going to walk with Vi, she's more interesting than you
two."
"What's the matter with Sadie?" asked Diana, as their schoolmate ran on
to catch up Violet.
"Jealous!" said Wendy, shaking her head sagely. "She has these attacks
sometimes, and I know the symptoms. She doesn't like to see you and me
walking together. Last term she and I and Magsie and Tattie were in
Dormitory 4. Magsie and Tattie did the 'twin cherries on one stalk'
business all the time, so in self-defence Sadie and I had to chum,
though we squabbled six times a day. I'm not going to be monopolized
now, so she needn't think it. Let her chum with Vi if she likes, I'm
sure I don't care. Hallo! Which stile do we go over here, I wonder?"
The two girls had lagged behind, so that the rest of the party, walking
at the brisk pace set by Miss Todd, had passed on in front. Wendy
mounted each stile in turn, and surveyed the prospect of fields and high
hedges. There was not a solitary tam-o'-shanter to be seen from either
of them. In much doubt she hesitated.
"It'll probably be to the left, because I know we have to go through
that wood over there before we get out on to the fells," she
conjectured.
"I can't help you," said Diana. "Is it any use tossing for it?"
They ventured to the left, and, after walking over three fields, found
themselves in a narrow lane which terminated in a pond. It was such an
evident cul-de-sac that there was nothing for it but to turn back. When
they again reached the stiles they found Geraldine sitting upon the
right-hand one. Her expression was thundery, and her greeting the
reverse of cordial.
"Where _have_ you been, you two stupids? Why can't you keep up with the
rest of us instead of side-tracking like this? Here you're keeping the
whole party waiting, and I've had to turn back to hunt you up."
"Sorry to be on the earth!" apologized Wendy; "but we missed our way."
"Then it's your own fault, for we left the gipsy trail for you as plain
as plain could be. Some people have no eyes!"
"What gipsy trail?"
Geraldine pointed laconically to the grass.
There, just by the right-hand stile, lay two crossed sticks. They were
placed in a most obvious position. It was a marvel how they had escaped
notice.
"You may well stare!" commented Geraldine with sarcasm.
"I believe I did see them," said Diana, "but I didn't know what they
meant."
"Didn't know! Why, Sadie told you! I sent her on purpose. Miss Todd said
we were to leave the gipsy trail at every doubtful place."
"Sadie never told us. She never said a single word."
"You probably didn't listen. Well, I can't argue it out now, the others
are waiting, and Miss Todd's furious. Come along as fast as you can."
Diana and Wendy considered that the summary scolding which they received
from Miss Todd, who was in too big a hurry to listen to any excuses, was
entirely Sadie's fault, and a point to be settled up with her later. At
present she scuttled on ahead, conveniently out of their way.
"Just let her wait!" vowed Wendy darkly.
It was necessary to step along briskly if they meant to accomplish the
walk which Miss Todd had in her mind's eye, and anybody who has ever
acted leader to a party of twenty-four knows the difficulty of making
everyone keep the pace.
"I believe Toddlekins would like to rope us all together as if we were
Swiss mountaineers," giggled Magsie, "or a gang of prisoners clanking
chains. It's rather weak if one can't even stop to pick a flower."
They had passed through the wood by now, and were on the open fells. The
view was gorgeous. The October sun flooded the landscape and showed up
the wealth of autumn colour: tree-crested crags, ravines with brawling
brooks, stretches of heather-clad moor, banks of faded bracken, rugged
rocks and stony hill-crests were spread on the one hand, while to the
west lay a distant chain of lakes, embosomed in meadows green as
emerald, and reflecting the pale autumn sky in their smooth expanse. At
the top of the first fell, Miss Todd called a halt. They had reached
number one of the objects she had set in the day's programme. It was a
pre-historic cromlech--three gigantic stones reared in the form of a
table by those old inhabitants of our island whose customs and modes of
worship are lost in the mists of antiquity. The storms and snows of many
thousand years sweeping round it had slightly displaced the cap stone,
but it stood otherwise intact, a grey, hoary monument to the toil of the
short, dark neolithic race who once hunted on these self-same fells. The
girls crowded round the cromlech curiously. It was large enough for four
of them to sit underneath, and several crammed in as an experiment.
"Was it an altar?" asked Stuart.
"The altar theory is exploded now," said Miss Todd. "It is generally
recognized that they were burial-places of great chiefs. The body would
be placed inside, with stone weapons and drinking-cups, and any other
articles the man had loved when he was alive. Then a great heap of
stones and earth would be piled over and round it, to keep out the
wolves which were the terror of early man. The weather, and perhaps
farmers, have taken away the mound, and laid bare the cromlech; but
look! here is one that is almost in its natural position."
The girls turned, and saw close by a rocky mound that jutted from among
the crags. In its side was a small opening, just large enough to squeeze
through. Miss Todd had brought candle and matches, and personally
conducted relays of girls into the chamber within. They went curiously
or timorously as the case might be.
"Is there a skeleton inside? I don't know whether I _dare_," shivered
Tattie. "It's like going into a grave, and I'm scared to death."
"Don't be silly!" said Geraldine, who, with Loveday and Hilary, was
making her exit. "There's nothing inside it. It's only like a cave."
"You're sure bogeys won't catch my legs?"
"Stop outside, if you're afraid."
"It's like a fairy-tale, and going into the gnome's hill," fluttered
Magsie.
Everybody was determined to have a peep, and even Tattie mustered up
sufficient courage to screw through the narrow portal, though she
squealed in the process, and clung tightly to Magsie's hand. Diana and
Wendy were among the last to effect the investigation. By that time the
piece of candle was guttering out, and Miss Todd, tired of acting
show-woman, returned to the open air, and gave marching orders.
Diana and Wendy, rather fascinated with the "Goblin Hole", as they
called it, lingered, poking their noses inside the entrance.
"I didn't go in," said a voice behind them. Turning, they saw Sadie's
face, interested, and half-regretful.
"Then you've lost your luck," said Diana decisively. "If you go in and
turn round three times inside, you can have a wish, and it's bound to
come true. You'd better do it. You've just time."
"In the dark?" hesitated Sadie.
"Quick! Go on!" urged her companions, standing back to make way for her.
"Here are the matches."
Sadie struck a match, and cautiously ventured forward. The moment she
was well inside Diana motioned to Wendy, and, catching up a piece of
wood that lay on the ground, tilted it like a door across the entrance,
and piled some stones against it. Then the pair fled. They heard an
agonized shriek behind them, but they turned deaf ears to it.
They were half-way down the heathery hill-side when a very ruffled and
indignant Sadie overtook them.
"Hallo! I thought you'd gone to live with the goblins," exclaimed Diana
cheerfully.
"You're a pair of BEASTS!" exploded Sadie.
"Don't mench! What kind of beasts, please? Young gazelles or kittens?"
"Pigs would be more like it!" snapped Sadie. "To think of shutting me up
alone in that bogey-hole! I might have lost my reason."
"Didn't fancy you'd go stark staring mad as fast as all that," chuckled
Diana. "It didn't take you very long to push that door down."
"If we see any symptoms of insanity cropping out in you, we'll know the
reason," added Wendy smartly.
"And you see it's been very good for you to know what it feels like to
be left behind," rubbed in Diana. "You never told us about that gipsy
trail dodge. Tit for tat's my motto."
"I think you're the two horridest girls in the school! I sha'n't speak
to you again. You may consider yourselves funny, but no one else does,"
said Sadie witheringly, as she flounced away to hang on to Geraldine's
arm, and pour her woes into the head girl's not too willing ear.
It was a good hour's walk from the cromlechs to Birk Water, the lake
where they intended to pick the rushes. The path was the merest track,
and the tramp through the heather and over rough and rugged stones well
justified the thick footgear upon which Miss Todd had insisted. Birk
Water was a lovely little mountain tarn lying under the shadow of Fox
Fell, a smooth, grassy eminence down which hurried a noisy stream. They
found a sheltered place in the sunshine on the bank, and sat down to eat
their lunch. Hard-boiled eggs and cheese sandwiches tasted delicious in
the open air, and for a special treat there was an apple apiece. In
normal times the supply of apples was liberal, but this year the crop
had failed, and they were rare dainties.
"I sympathize with Eve," said Wendy, munching blissfully. "It must have
been a very great temptation, especially with 'knowledge' thrown in.
Just think of being able to eat an apple that would teach you all your
dates and French verbs."
"There weren't any dates then, unless they counted the geological
periods; and the Tower of Babel came later, so the French language
wasn't invented," objected Tattie.
"Oh! don't be so literal-minded. I never meant that Eve sat at a desk
and wrote exercises. I'm only telling you I like apples."
"Well, so do I, and yours is a bigger one than mine."
"It won't be long, don't you worry yourself. It's getting 'small by
degrees and beautifully less'."
The slopes of the hill were slightly marshy, and grew a crop of
remarkably tall and fine rushes. They were much easier to gather than
those on the borders of the lake. The girls had brought knives, and,
when lunch had vanished to the last crumb, they dispersed up the
hill-side to reap their rush harvest.
"If they're not all wanted for the church, I vote we ask Miss Todd to
let us put some down on the schoolroom floor," said Diana, hacking away
cheerfully. "I'd just admire to know what they feel like under one's
feet. It would take one back about five centuries."
"Spiffing! We'll ask her! Get as many as you can carry, and tell the
others. They'd be far more interesting than linoleum. Think of being
able to swish one's toes about in them. I hope the church won't want too
many."
"It oughtn't to claim more than its tithe. I suppose it's entitled to a
tenth of every harvest, if we stick strictly to the old customs," smiled
Loveday, whose arms were already filled with a sheaf of green and
orange.
On the open side of the fell the wind blew strongly, and it was a
struggle to toil upwards. The school tacked instead towards the
sheltered bank of the stream, and with one accord broke into Scotch
songs. Geraldine, in a full contralto, was singing "Green grow the
rashes, O". Betty Blane's chirpy voice proclaimed "I'm ower young to
marry yet",--a self-evident proposition, as she was only thirteen.
Stuart and Loveday were crooning "Flowers of the Forest" as a kind of
soprano dirge, which was drowned by a chorus of juniors roaring "Auld
Lang Syne".
"We twa hae paidled i' the burn
Frae mornin' sun till dine",
chanted Diana after them. "And that's just what I want to do. I've never
had a chance yet to 'paidle' in a British burn."
"You won't to-day, then," said Geraldine, who chanced to overhear, and
stopped her singing to interpolate a remark. "Shoes and stockings aren't
allowed off, except in the summer term."
"Green grow the rashes, O!
Green grow the rashes, O!
The sweetest hours that e'er I spent
Were spent among the lassies, O!"
Diana stood frowning as Geraldine passed along, carolling at the pitch
of her voice.
"What nonsense!" she growled. "Who made such a silly old rule? I'm not
going to keep it."
"It's quite as warm to-day as it sometimes is in summer," agreed Wendy.
"I believe it's only 'swank' on Geraldine's part, because she's head
prefect. I _shall_ paddle! Just because she said I mustn't. Come on,
Wendy! Let's scoot into this hollow and enjoy ourselves. Geraldine makes
me feel real bad when she bosses. I want to go and break all the rules I
can."