A January Picnic
Winter in the Craigwen Valley, instead of proving a dreary season of
frost or fog, was apt to be as variable as April. Sheltered by the tall
mountains, the climate was mild, and though snow would lie on the peaks
of Penllwyd and Cwm Dinas it rarely rested on the lower levels. Very
early in January the garden at The Woodlands could boast brave clumps of
snowdrops and polyanthus, a venturous wallflower or two, and quite a
show of yellow jessamine over the south porch. The glade by the stream
never seemed to feel the touch of winter. Many of the oak-trees kept
their brown leaves till the new ones came to replace them, honeysuckle
trails and brambles continually put out verdant shoots, the lastrea
ferns that grew near the brink of the water showed tall green fronds
untouched by frost, and the moss was never more vivid. The glen, indeed,
had a special beauty in winter-time, for the bare boughs of the alders
took exquisite tender shades of purples and greys, warming into amber in
the sunshine, and defying the cunningest brush which artist could wield
to do them justice. By the middle of January the tightly rolled lambs'
tails on the hazels were unfolding themselves and beginning to scatter
pollen, and a few stray specimens of last summer's flowers, a belated
campion or hawkweed, would struggle out from the rough grass under a
protecting gorse-bush. The days varied: rain, the penalty for living
near mountains, often swept down the valley, bringing glorious
cloud-effects, and sending the stream swirling over its boulders with a
boom of myriad voices. Sometimes the sudden swelling of its tributaries
made the Craigwen River overtop its banks, flooding the low-lying
meadows till, augmented by the high tide, its waters filled the valley
from end to end like a lake. This occasional flooding of the marsh was
good for the fields, and ensured a rich hay-crop next summer, so the
school felt it could enjoy the picturesque aspect without needing to
deplore loss to the farmers.
On the 21st of January Miss Teddington had a birthday. She would have
suppressed the fact altogether if possible, or treated it in quite a
surreptitious and off-hand fashion, but with her autograph plainly
written in forty-nine separate birthday-books the Fates were against
her. She was obliged to receive the united congratulations of the
school, to accept, with feigned surprise, the present which was offered
her, and to say a few appropriate words of appreciation and thanks. She
did not do it well, for her manner was always abrupt, and even verged on
the ungracious, the greatest contrast to the bland and tactful
utterances of Miss Bowes.
This year the annual ceremony was gone through as usual: Catherine, as
head girl, proffered the good wishes and the volume of Carlyle; Lucy
Morris, on behalf of the Nature Study Union, handed a bouquet of
polyanthus, rosemary, periwinkle, pansies, and pink daisies culled from
the garden, the earliness of which Miss Teddington remarked upon, as
though she had not watched their progress for the last week.
"I'm very much obliged to you all," she said jerkily, looking
nevertheless as if she were longing to bolt for the door.
But she was not yet to make her escape. There was another time-honoured
ceremony to be observed. All eyes were turned to Miss Bowes, who rose as
usual to the occasion.
"I think, girls," she said pleasantly, "that, considering it is Miss
Teddington's birthday, we ought to take some special notice of the
occasion. Suppose we ask her to grant a holiday, so that we may make an
expedition in her honour. Who votes for this?"
Forty-nine hands were instantly raised, and forty-nine voices cried "I
do!" Miss Teddington, who utterly disapproved of odd holidays during
term-time, submitted with what grace she could muster, and gave a rather
chilly assent, which was immediately drowned in a storm of clapping. The
girls, who always suspected the Principals of an annual argument on the
subject, felt they had scored for this year at any rate, and were
certainly one holiday to the good.
There was no question at all as to where they should walk. Every 21st
January, weather permitting, they turned their steps in the same
direction. On certain portions of the marsh, near the river, grew fields
of wild snowdrops, and to go snowdropping before February set in was as
much an institution as turning their money when they first heard the
cuckoo, or wishing at the sight of the earliest white butterfly. As a
matter of fact, though the delicate fiction of asking for the holiday
was preserved, it was such a _sine qua non_ that the cook was prepared
for it. She had baked jam tartlets and made potted meat the day before,
and was already cutting sandwiches and packing them in greaseproof
paper. Every girl at The Woodlands possessed a basket, just as she owned
a penknife or a French dictionary. It was equally indispensable. She
would carry out her lunch in it, and bring it back filled with flowers,
berries, or nature specimens, as the case might be. Each was labelled
with the owner's name, and hung in a big cupboard under the stairs. Some
of the girls also used walking-sticks with crooked handles, which were
found convenient weapons for hooking down brambles or branches of
catkins.
Shortly after ten o'clock the school started, every Woodlander bearing
her basket, containing sandwiches, two tartlets, an orange, and a small
enamelled drinking-mug. There were to be no camp-fires to-day, so cold
water from the stream would have to suffice, and would make tea all the
more welcome when they returned home. It was quite a fine morning, with
sudden gleams of sunshine that burst from the clouds and spread in
long, slanting, golden rays over the valley; just the kind of sky the
early masters of landscape painting loved to put in their pictures, with
a background of neutral tint and a bright, scraped-out light in the
foreground. The little solitary farms stood out white here and there
against the green of the fields, the pine-trees on the hill-sides showed
darkly in contrast to the bare larches. Cwm Dinas was inky purple
to-day, but Penllwyd was capped with snow. Miss Bowes, who was not a
good walker, had not ventured to join the expedition, but Miss
Teddington strode along at the head of the party, chatting to some of
the Sixth Form.
"I'm sure she's wishing she were giving a Latin lesson instead," said
Lizzie Lonsdale. "She looks rather grim."
"Perhaps she's remembering she's a year older to-day," returned Beth
Broadway.
"How old is she, do you think?" giggled Addie Knighton.
"That, my child, is a secret that will never be divulged. I dare say
you'd like to know?"
"I should, immensely."
"Then you won't be gratified, unless you go to Somerset House and hunt
her name up in the register of births. Even then you'd find it
difficult, for you don't know her Christian name, only her initial."
"Yes; she never will write more than 'M. Teddington' in anybody's
birthday-book. M might stand for Mary or Martha or Margaret or
Millicent or anything. Doesn't even Miss Bowes know?"
"If she does she won't tell. It's a state-secret."
"Well, never mind; we call her Teddie, and that will do."
Many were the ingenious devices which the girls had adopted for trying
to find out both Miss Teddington's Christian name and her age. They
spoke of historic events that had happened before their parents had been
born, fondly hoping she might betray some memory of them and commit
herself. But she was not to be caught; she treated all events, however
recent or old, from a purely impersonal standpoint, and left them still
in the dark as to whether she was an infant in arms at the time or an
adult able to enjoy the newspapers. On the subject of names she was
indifferent, and would express no opinion on the relative merits of
Mary, Martha, Margaret, Millicent, Marion, Muriel, Mona, or Maud.
"It's either plain Mary, or something so fearfully fancy she won't own
up to it," decided the girls.
In whatever decade Miss Teddington's birthday placed her, this year she
was certainly in the prime of life and energy as concerned the school.
Her keen eyes noticed everything, and woe betide the slacker who thought
to escape her, and dared bring an unprepared lesson to class. Her
sarcasms on such occasions made her victims writhe, though they were apt
to be witty enough to amuse the rest of the form. Though, like John
Gilpin's wife, she was on pleasure bent to-day, she never for a moment
forgot she was in charge, and kept turning to see that everybody was
following, and nobody straggling far off in the rear.
It was a three-mile walk from The Woodlands to the snowdrop
meadows--first along the high road, with an occasional short cut across
a field or through a spinney, then down a deep, narrow lane past a farm,
where the sight of a new-born lamb (the first of the season) caused
great excitement. Some of the girls, who loved old superstitions,
pretended to divine their luck by whether it was standing facing them or
otherwise when they first caught a glimpse of it; but, the general
verdict deciding that it was exactly sideways, they found it impossible
to give any accurate predictions for the future.
"You'd better keep to something vague that can be construed two ways,
like the Delphic Oracle or _Old Moore's Almanac_," laughed Ulyth.
Once past the farm the walk began to grow specially interesting. The
deep lane, only intended for use in summer, when carts brought loads of
hay from the marsh, was turned by winter rains into the bed of a stream.
The girls picked their way at first along the bank, then by jumping from
stone to stone, but finally the water grew so deep it was impossible to
proceed farther without wading. They had been in the same emergency
before, so it did not daunt their enthusiasm. One and all they scaled
the high, wide, loosely built wall to their left. Here they could walk
as on a terrace, with the flooded lane on one side and on the other the
rushing Porth Powys stream, making its hurrying way to join the Craigwen
River. It was not at all an easy progress, for the wall was overgrown
with hazel bushes and a tangle of brambles, and its unmortared surface
had deep holes, into which the unwary might put a foot. For several
hundred yards they struggled on, decidedly to the detriment of their
clothing, and rather encumbered by their baskets; then at last they
reached the particular corner they were seeking, and scrambled down into
the meadow.
This field was such a favourite with the girls that they had come to
regard it almost as their own property. Miss Teddington had found it out
many years ago, and its discovery was always considered a point in her
roll of merit. It was an expanse of grassy land, bounded on one side by
the Porth Powys stream and on the other by a deep dyke, and leading down
over a rushy tract to the reed-grown banks of the river. The view over
the many miles of marshland, with the blue mountains rising up behind
and the silvery gleam of the river, was superb. The brown, quivering,
feathery reeds made a glorious foreground for the amber and vivid green
of the banks farther on; and the gorgeous sky effects of rolling clouds,
glinting sun, and patches of bluest heaven were like the beginning of
one of St. John's visions.
Near at hand, dotted all over the field, bloomed the wild snowdrops in
utmost profusion, with a looser habit of growth, a longer stalk, and a
wider flower than the garden variety. Lovely pure-white blossoms, with
their tiny green markings, they stood like fairy bells among the grass,
so dainty and perfect, it seemed almost a sacrilege to disturb them. The
girls, however, were not troubled with any such scruples, and set to
work to pick in hot haste.
"I'm going down by the stream," said Ulyth; "one gets far the best there
if one hunts about, and I brought my stick."
Rona, Addie and Lizzie joined her, and with considerable difficulty
scrambled down to the water's edge. For those who preferred quality to
quantity, and who did not mind getting torn by briers, this was
undoubtedly the place to come. In pockets of fine river-sand, their
roots stretching into the stream, grew the very biggest and finest of
the snowdrops. Most of them peeped through a very tangle of brambles;
but who minded scratched arms and torn sleeves to secure such treasures?
"Look at these. The stalks must be nine inches long, and the flower's
nearly as big as a Lent lily," exulted Ulyth. "I shall send them to
Mother, with some hazel catkins and some lovely moss."
"Everybody will be sending away boxes to-night," said Addie. "The
postman will have a load."
"What's that?" cried Lizzie, for a sudden rush and scuffle sounded on
the other side of the stream, a rat leaped wildly from the bank, and a
shaved poodle half jumped, half fell after it into the water.
The rat was gone in an eighth of a second, but the dog found himself in
difficulties. It was a case of "look before you leap", and a fat,
wheezy, French poodle is not at home in a quick-rushing stream.
"Oh, the poor little beast's drowning!" exclaimed Ulyth in horror.
Rona, with extreme promptitude, had flown to the rescue. Close by where
they stood the trunk of a half-fallen alder stretched out over the
water. It was green and slippery, and anything but an inviting bridge,
but she crawled along it somehow, and, clinging with one hand, contrived
to reach the dog's collar with the other and hold him up. What she would
have done next it is impossible to say, for he was too heavy to lift in
her already precarious position; but at that moment a gentleman,
evidently in quest of his pet, parted the hazel boughs and took in the
situation at a glance.
"Hold hard a moment," he called, and, scrambling down the bank, managed
to make a long arm and hook his stick into the poodle's collar and drag
the almost strangled creature to shore.
Until Rona had cautiously wriggled round on the bough, and crept back
safely, the spectators watched in considerable anxiety. They need not
have been alarmed, however, for after her many New Zealand experiences
she thought this a very poor affair.
The owner of the dog shouted his thanks from the opposite bank of the
stream and disappeared behind the high hedge. The whole episode had not
taken five minutes.
"Do you know who that was? It was Lord Glyncraig," said Addie in rather
awestruck tones.
"Was it? Well, I'm sure I don't care," returned Rona a trifle defiantly.
"I'd have saved John Jones's dog quite as readily."
"What a pity he didn't ask your name! He might have invited you to tea
at Plas Cafn, then you'd have scored over Stephie no end."
"I'm sure I don't want to go to tea at Plas Cafn, thank you," snapped
Rona, rather out of temper.
"But think of the fun of it," persisted Addie. "I only wish they'd ask
me."
"They won't ask any of us, so what's the use of talking?" said Lizzie.
"Let's go back to the others; it must be time for lunch."
They found the rest of the girls seated on the wall, as being the driest
spot available, and already attacking their packets of sandwiches. Some
had even reached the jam-tartlet stage.
"It's a good thing we've each got our own private basket, or there
wouldn't be much left for you," shouted Mary Acton. "Where have you been
all this while?"
"Consorting with members of the Peerage," said Addie airily. "Oh yes, my
dear girl! We've had quite what you might call a confidential talk down
by the stream with Lord Glyncraig."
"Not really?" asked Stephanie, pricking up her ears.
"Really and truly! He's not your special property any longer. Rona has
quite supplanted you."
"I don't believe it. You're ragging." Stephanie was rather pink and
indignant.
"Ask the others, if you want to know."
No one was particularly sorry to take a rest after all the scrambling.
The lunch tasted good out-of-doors, and the last tartlet had soon
disappeared. Rona, perched on a tree-stump, began her orange, and tossed
long yellow strands of peel on to the bank below her.
"Oh, stop that, before Teddie catches you!" urged Ulyth; but she was too
late, for Miss Teddington had already spied the offending pieces.
"Who threw those?" she demanded. "Then, Rona Mitchell, you ought to be
ashamed of yourself. Go and pick them up at once, and put them inside
your basket. What do you think the field will look like if more than
fifty people strew it with orange-peel and sandwich-paper! We don't come
here to spoil the beautiful spots we have been enjoying. I should be
utterly disgraced if the school behaved like a party of cheap-trippers.
Woodlanders ought to respect all natural scenery. I thought you would
have learnt that by this time, but it appears you haven't. Don't forget
it again."
Much crushed, Rona collected the peel, and, wrapping it carefully in her
piece of sandwich-paper, put it in the very bottom of her basket, under
a layer of catkins. The girls had brought bobbins of thread with them,
and were making their snowdrops into little bunches, with ivy leaves and
lambs'-tails from the hazel. A few lucky explorers had even found some
palm opening on the sallows. Several had nature notes to contribute.
Nellie Barlow and Gladys Broughton had seen a real weasel, and plumed
themselves accordingly, till Evie Isherwood capped their story by
producing the remains of a last year's chaffinch's nest she had found in
a tree.
"If I said I'd seen a snake, should I be believed?" whispered Rona.
"Certainly not. Everyone knows that snakes hibernate; so don't try it
on," returned Ulyth, laughing.
"Half-past two. We must be going back at once, girls, or there won't be
time to send off your snowdrops," said Miss Teddington. "Pack your
baskets and come along."