Bamberton Ferry
Miss Pollard was extremely nervous on the subject of the mumps. She
insisted upon waiting until long after the usual period of disinfection
before she would allow Mavis and Merle to return to 'The Moorings.'
"One can't be too careful!" she fluttered. "I know in a doctor's house
they are apt sometimes to take these things too lightly. It's far better
not to run any risks."
As Merle had a medical certificate of complete recovery, and neither
Mavis nor Clive had developed the complaint, there was now no reason for
keeping the girls away from school, and one Monday morning they were
received back into the fold. They had lost a considerable amount of
ground in regard to their lessons, and had to work hard to try to make up
for the weeks that were missed. At hockey, too, Merle found her teams
were slack. It needed much urging to persuade them to play a really
sporting game.
"I daren't fix a match yet with any other school," she assured them. "We
should only be beaten hollow, and it's no use playing if we have no
chance to win. You must all buck up and get more into the swing of
things. Perhaps next season we shall be a stronger team."
"If we never play matches we shall never improve," objected Sybil, who
was anxious to accept the challenge of the Beverton County School.
"We've got the credit of 'The Moorings' to think about!" snapped Merle.
"You wouldn't like them to go home crowing they'd absolutely wiped us off
the face of the earth? I've had a little experience in matches and I know
what I'm talking about. It would be downright silly to give ourselves
away."
Sybil was rather a thorn in Merle's side. She had come from another
boarding-school, and on the strength of this experience thought she had
the right to become at once a leader at 'The Moorings.' She was very
disgusted not to be in any position of authority, and consoled herself by
continual criticism of the monitresses, particularly Merle, with whom she
was always sparring. She was a curious character, all precept but not
much practice. She loved to give good advice and to lay down the law, and
was rather priggish in bringing out moral maxims for the benefit of
others. She had a tremendous sense of her own importance and what was due
to her, and was very ready to consider herself overlooked, or neglected,
or misunderstood.
"Look here!" said Merle bluntly one day. "_Why_, I ask, _why_
should people be expected to make such a fuss over you? I don't wonder
you're neglected! I'd neglect you myself! And serve you jolly well right
too!"
Whereupon Sybil dissolved into tears, and confided to her nearest friend
that so long as Merle Ramsay was monitress she was afraid she would never
be happy at 'The Moorings.' Poor Sybil had her good points. She was
generous in her own way, and rather affectionate, but nature had not
endowed her with tact, and she would go blundering on, never seeing that
she was making mistakes. Her very chums soon tired of her and discreetly
left her to some one else.
"I sometimes think she's a little bit dotty!" opined Nesta.
"Nonsense! She's as sane as you or I. It's all swank! I've no particular
patience with her!" said Merle.
One particularly aggravating feature of Sybil was the way she traded upon
rather delicate health. There was really nothing much the matter with
her, but she sometimes had slight attacks of faintness, which, the girls
declared, always came on when she thought she could be a subject of
interest. She liked to extract sympathy from Miss Mitchell, or to arouse
Miss Pollard's anxiety. Moreover, it was often a very good excuse for
slacking off in her preparation or her practising.
One afternoon Merle, coming back to school, met Miss Mitchell by the
gate.
"I was just looking for you!" said the teacher. "I've arranged an extra
hockey practice at three, instead of English language. Will you tell the
others?"
This was excellent news. The Fifth hated the English Language class,
which consisted mostly of learning strings of horrible derivations, and
to have it cut out for once in favour of hockey was quite an event. Merle
walked up the drive smirking with satisfaction. By the porch she found
Sybil, with an English language book in one hand, half-heartedly helping
Miss Fanny, who was nailing up creepers. She looked very sorry for
herself.
"I wish you'd hold the ladder, Merle!" she sighed, eager to thrust her
duties on to a substitute. "I don't feel quite well this afternoon. I get
such a faintness. Aren't these derivations too awful for anything?" she
added _sotto voce_. "I don't believe I know one of them."
"Buck up!" whispered Merle with scant sympathy.
"It's all very well to say 'buck up'! You don't know what it is to feel
faint. You're as strong as a horse. I'm really not fit to stand about!"
"Shall I ask Miss Fanny to let you go in and lie down?"
"I wish you would! I don't like to ask her myself; it seems making such a
fuss."
Merle proffered the request, with which Miss Fanny, rather astonished,
complied.
"Certainly, Sybil, if you really are ill! Shall I give you a dose of sal
volatile?"
"No, thanks! I shall be all right if I can just rest on my bed," answered
the plaintive voice.
"I daresay you'll soon feel better. It's a pity you'll miss the hockey
practice," said Merle.
"What hockey practice?"
"Miss Mitchell has just told me to tell everybody. We're to play instead
of having English language this afternoon."
Sybil's face was a study. But Miss Fanny's eyes were fixed upon her with
such a questioning look that she was obliged to preserve her air of
faintness and continue to pose as an invalid. There was nothing for it
but to go and lie down. As she turned, however, she managed to whisper to
Merle:
"You're the meanest thing on the face of this earth! Why couldn't you
tell me sooner about the hockey?"
"Your own fault entirely!" chuckled Merle. "You nailed me straight away
to do your job for you. Hope you'll enjoy yourself! Yes, Miss Fanny! I'm
coming to hold the ladder! I was only opening the door for Sybil, she
still-feels rather faint!"
It was about a week after this episode that Miss Mitchell, who was keen
on nature study, took the Fifth form for a botanical ramble. They started
punctually at two o'clock, so as to be back as soon as possible after
four, on account of Beata Castleton and Fay Macleod, who must not keep
Vicary's car waiting. They went off ready for business, all taking note-
books and pencils, some carrying tin cases, and some armed with boards
with which to press their specimens on the spot. Their exodus was rather
characteristic, for Aubrey was chatting sixteen to the dozen, Iva was
trying to scoot ahead so as to walk alone with Kitty Trefyre, Muriel was
squabbling with Merle as to which should appropriate Miss Mitchell, and
Sybil was, as usual, seeking for sympathy.
"I couldn't find my boots! I had to put on my shoes instead, and the
heels are worn down and they're not comfortable, and I shall very likely
twist my ankle!" she complained. "What would you have done? Ought I to
have gone to Miss Pollard and asked her about my boots?"
"And kept everybody waiting? You are the limit!" exclaimed Merle
impatiently. "No, I'm not going to hold your case for you while you tie
your hair ribbon. You always want to dump your things on to other
people."
"You might carry the camera, at any rate!" wailed Sybil.
"Why should I? You insisted on bringing it, though I told you it would be
a nuisance."
"It's for your benefit! I'm going to take a group of the whole party."
"Right-o! But don't expect to get the credit and make us carry the
camera! You like to do your good deeds so cheaply!"
"Really, Merle!"
"I'm only telling you a few home truths. No, Mavis! I shan't let you load
yourself with Sybil's property! You've got quite enough of your own to
lug along!"
There was keen competition among the girls as to who could find most
specimens. They rooted about in hedgerows, climbed banks, and made
excursions into fields. Durracombe was not quite so good a neighbourhood
for flowers as Chagmouth; still, they found a fair variety, and were able
to chronicle early blooms of such specimens as the greater stitchwort,
the ground ivy, and the golden saxifrage. It was a fresh March day, with
a wind blowing scudding white clouds across a pale blue sky. Rooks were
beginning to build, green foliage showed on the elder trees, and the elms
were flowering.
"We shall all be pixie-led if we gather the white stitchwort!" said
Mavis. "They're the pixies' flowers, so Mrs. Penruddock told me! It's a
very old Devonshire superstition."
"Is that so? I never heard it before," said Miss Mitchell. "I know ever
so many of the flowers are supposed to belong to the fairies in various
parts of the country. Foxgloves are really 'the good folks' gloves,' and
they're called fairies' petticoats in Cheshire, and fairies' hats in
Ireland. Wild flax is always fairy flax, and harebells are fairy bells."
"Our old nurse used to call funguses pixie stools," said Edith Carey,
"and the hollow ones were pixies' baths. She wouldn't let us pick elder,
I can't remember why."
"That's a very old superstition. The 'elder mother' is supposed to live
inside the tree, and to be very angry indeed if any harm is done to it.
In the good old days, people used to ask her permission before they dared
to cut down an elder. They knelt on bended knees and prayed:
"Lady Elder! Lady Elder!
Give me some of thy wood.
"There's a story about a man who hadn't the politeness to perform this
little ceremony. He made a cradle for his baby out of the elder tree. But
the sprite was offended, and she used to come and pull the baby out of
the cradle by its legs, and pinch it and make it cry, so that it was
quite impossible to leave the poor little thing in the elder cradle, and
they had to weave one of basket-work for it instead."
"Tell us some more fairy lore about the plants!" begged the girls.
"Well, the St. John's wort is called 'the fairies' horse.' If you pick it
after sunset a fairy horse will rise from the ground and carry you about
all night, leaving you in the morning wherever you may chance to be at
sunrise. You know if you keep fern-seed in your pockets you'll have the
chance of seeing the pixies. The moonwort is supposed to be a very
supernatural plant, and to have the power of opening locks if you place a
leaf of it in the keyhole. No, I've never tried to burgle with it! I've
never found any moonwort. It's an exceedingly rare plant now, and it's
not been my luck to come across any. If you're troubled with warts, you
ought to go at sunrise to an ash tree, stick a pin into the bark, and
say:
"Ashen tree! Ashen tree!
I pray thee buy these warts of me!
"Then the ash tree would cure you, that's to say, if you'd repeated the
charm properly!"
"I suppose it was always wise to leave a loophole in case the cure didn't
come off!" laughed Mavis.
They had been walking by a footpath across the meadows, and found
themselves in the little village of Bamberton, a small place with
picturesque cottages close to a river. Miss Mitchell, who was an
enthusiast upon architecture, marched her party off to view the church,
much to the disgust of several of them.
"Don't want to see mouldy old churches! I'd rather be out of doors!"
grumbled Merle.
"And there are actually sweet violets growing in a field on the opposite
side of the river," said Edith, who knew the neighbourhood.
"Oh, are there? Do let's get some."
"It'll be too late by the time we've been all round the monuments and
read the inscriptions and the rest of it!"
"How long will Miss Mitchell stay in the church?"
"A good twenty minutes, I daresay. You can't get her away when she starts
talking about architecture. Dad took her round our church one day, and I
thought she'd never go. Tea was getting cold, but she went on asking
questions about windows and pillars and things!"
"Then why shouldn't we slip out and run and get the violets while she's
inside the church with the others?"
It was a naughty thing for a monitress to propose, but even Sybil, who
happened to overhear, did not wax moral for the occasion.
"I'll come with you!" she said eagerly. "I'm not at all fond of going
round churches, and looking at monuments. It always makes me wonder if
I'm going to die young! When Miss Mitchell took us to Templeton Church
and read us the epitaphs, I cried afterwards! There was one about a girl
exactly my age. 'Sweet flower, nipped off in early bloom,' it said, or
something of the sort."
"Don't be so sentimental!" snapped Merle.
"But come with us if you like. Yes, you too, Beata! But for goodness'
sake don't tell any one else or they'll all want to come, and if the
whole lot try to scoot, it will put a stopper on the thing. We'll wait
till the others are inside and then just slide off. Mum's the word,
though!"
It was quite easy to loiter among the tombstones pretending to read the
inscriptions, but the moment Miss Mitchell and her audience had safely
passed through the porch and opened the big nail-studded door, the four
confederates turned and fled.
Edith knew a short cut, and took them between rows of graves, regardless
of Sybil's protesting shudders, to a tiny stile that led down an alley to
the riverside. Here there was a tumbledown wharf, and an old ferryboat
which worked on a chain. Years ago a ferryman had had charge of it, but
there was so little traffic that it was no longer worth his while, so the
boat had been left for passengers to use as they liked. It was lying now
at the edge of the wharf. The girls, following Edith, stepped in, and
began to wind the boat across the river by pulling the chain. It was
rather an amusing means of progression, and they enjoyed their 'Dover-
Calais crossing,' as they called it. Arrived at the opposite bank, Edith
scrambled out.
"Tie the boat up, somebody!" she called, and set off running over the
meadow to the hedge where the violets grew.
Somebody is an exceedingly vague term, and generally means nobody. Merle
and Beata went scampering after Edith, and Sybil, who was last, flung the
boat chain hastily round a post and followed her friends. The violets
were lovely, sweet-scented and blue and modest and everything that
orthodox violets ought to be.
The girls gathered delicious, fragrant little bunches, and felt that they
were scoring tremendously over those unfortunates who were receiving
information about architecture inside the church.
"We mustn't stay too long!" sighed Edith. "It's a pity, but I'm afraid we
really ought to go now. They'll be looking for us if we don't."
So they walked back across the meadow to the bank. Here a most unpleasant
surprise greeted them. The boat, into which they had meant to step and
ferry themselves back, had drifted into the middle of the river.
"Good gracious! Didn't you tie it up?" exclaimed Edith, aghast.
"Of course I did, but-well, I suppose I didn't tie it tight enough. I
never thought it would float away," confessed Sybil.
The boat, though still working on the chain which spanned the river, was
quite inaccessible from either side. The girls were in an extremely
awkward position. Nobody knew where they had gone, and unless it occurred
to some of their party to come and seek them by the wharf, or unless some
chance passer-by happened to notice their plight, they might wait for a
long time without rescue.
"What are we to do?" fumed Beata. "If we're not back at four the
'sardine-tin' will be waiting for me, and Mr. Vicary will be so cross!
The last time we were late he went and complained to Father and said he'd
have to charge us extra for wasting his time. There was an awful row, and
Violet scolded Romola and me, although it was really Tattie's fault."
"Can we get to Durracombe on this side of the river?" suggested Sybil.
Edith shook her head.
"We could; but there isn't a bridge till you get to Parlingford, and
that's five miles round. I think we'd better stay here."
"I could slay that wretched boat for playing us such a trick!" said
Merle.
Meantime Miss Mitchell and the rest of the girls had finished their
survey of the various monuments, and, catching sight of the church clock,
realised how late it was, and that they must start back at once. Of
course the four truants were missed, and a hasty search was made for
them, in the chancel, and behind the organ, and outside among the
tombstones.
"They're not anywhere here!" reported the scouts.
"Then they must have walked on," said Miss Mitchell. "Beata knew she had
to be back by four o'clock. I expect we shall catch them up on the road.
Come along!"
[Illustration: "WHY DIDN'T 'EE FASTEN UP THE CHAIN"]
So the party set off at full speed, all unwitting that four disconsolate
maidens were marooned on the farther side of the river, waiting for some
faerie boat to ferry them across. For a long time no knight-errant
arrived for their relief, but at last, as chance would have it, an urchin
came down on to the wharf, with a string and a bent pin, intent on
fishing. He was at least a link with the outer world, and they yelled
hopefully to him across the water. He stopped and stared, then took to
his heels and ran, but whether in terror or to fetch help they were
uncertain. After what seemed a weary while, however, he returned,
escorted by his father, who evidently understood the situation, for he
shouted something which the girls could not catch, then went away.
"Has he left us to our fate?" asked Merle indignantly.
"Gone to get somebody else, perhaps!" ventured Edith more hopefully.
She proved correct, for after another eternity of time an old man hobbled
on to the wharf, unlocked a boat-house, and slowly took out a punt, by
means of which he reached the ferry-boat, climbed in, and worked it
across the river to the farther bank.
"Why didn't 'ee fasten up the chain?" he asked; but as he was almost
stone-deaf he did not understand either their excuses or professions of
gratitude, and simply motioned to them to enter.
Arriving back on the wharf the girls, after subscribing a shilling
amongst them to reward their rescuer, hurried up to the churchyard,
where, of course, there was no sign of their party, then started as fast
as they could to walk along the high road. They had gone perhaps half a
mile when they heard a warning hoot behind them, and, looking round, what
should Merle see but the little Deemster car with Dr. Tremayne at the
driving-wheel. She shouted wildly and stopped him.
"Oh, Uncle David! Are you going back to Durracombe? Could you possibly
take Beata at any rate! Her car will be waiting for her at school. We'd
be everlastingly grateful!"
"I'll try and cram you all in if you like," smiled Dr. Tremayne. "Open
the dickey, Merle!"
It was a decided squash. Edith and Sybil sat in front, and Merle and
Beata managed to get together into the little dickey seat behind, where
they each held one another in and clutched the hood for support.
"I have to pay a visit, but I'll run you back first," said Uncle David,
setting off at a pace that made Merle and Beata cling for their lives as
they whisked round corners. They arrived at 'The Moorings' exactly as the
town-hall clock was chiming the quarter after four. Mr. Vicary, his face
a study of patience, was standing by the side of the 'sardine-tin,' which
was already packed for transit, and whose occupants set up a joyful
screech of welcome.
"Of course, if Dr. Tremayne motored you back with Merle it's all right,
though you ought to have asked me first," said Miss Mitchell, to whom
Sybil gave a much edited explanation, omitting the ferry-boat incident
altogether, and suppressing the violets.
So the four culprits, who had expected trouble, got off a great deal
better than they deserved.