Greek meets Greek
On the last Saturday in March, by special invitation from Mrs. Glyn
Williams, the Ramsays spent the day at The Warren. They went in their
best dresses and took their tennis rackets with them. They were not at
all sure whether they wished to go, but it was one of those coercive
visits which society demands, and which there is no evading, so they set
forth, Mavis in one of her quiet moods, and Merle, with an awkward
remembrance of past skirmishes, on her very best behaviour. There is no
better fence than good manners, and it is really impossible to squabble
with a person who preserves a studied politeness. To-day, however, the
Glyn Williams did not wish for quarrels. They might have their faults,
but they could be pleasant enough hosts and hostesses when they liked,
and they really made an effort to entertain their guests. When their
shyness thawed, Mavis and Merle began to enjoy themselves. The cinder
court was in excellent order, and it was rather delightful to have a
game of tennis. Tudor and Merle played Gwen and Mavis, and beat them in
two sets, a score which caused them much triumph.
"I say, you know, you're a jolly good player," said Tudor to his
partner. "Those swift serves of yours are A1!"
"We had cinder courts at school in Whinburn," replied Merle. "It makes a
difference if you're used to them."
She might have added that she had been one of the champions, and had
helped to win a tournament, but she was not given to boasting. It is
pleasant, though, to be congratulated on present prowess, even if you
feel too modest to mention your past successes. She began to relent a
little towards Tudor. He was so obviously doing his best to give her a
good time. According to his own lights he tried to be amusing.
"The cinder court is my last stronghold," he assured her. "Just when we
get the grass courts into decent order in the summer the Mater always
insists on having half Chagmouth up to trample over them--wheezy old
women who drink tea till you think they'll never stop, and awful
children who stuff themselves with buns, and run races for bags of
sweets. You don't know what I suffer. And the Mater says: '_Do_ come and
speak to them'! Speak to them! What the Dickens am I to say? I'm longing
to tell them that I wish the whole lot of them were at Jericho rather
than messing about our garden. Why can't they drink tea and run races
down in the town? The Mater says we _must_ know our neighbours, but I
say bother our neighbours. If she likes to do the Lady Bountiful
business I wish she'd leave me out of it."
"Chagmouth is a lovely place," ventured Merle.
"Oh yes, but they're a cantankerous set of people. Never satisfied
whatever you do for them. The shooting here isn't really up to much
either, nor the fishing. I stayed with a friend of mine once in
Herefordshire. His father has a splendid place there. I can tell you we
had some sport. The woods here haven't been half preserved. Every Dick,
Tom, and Harry from Chagmouth thinks he may go into them, and the same
on the headland. They pretend there's a right of way along the cliffs,
and it's nothing on earth but an excuse for poaching. They go rabbiting
up there. I've found lots of traps, and flung them over the cliffs into
the sea. Beastly cheek, setting traps on our land. I tell Dad he ought
to put up a fence and dispute that right of way along the headland. I
believe he's going to too. You must stand up for your rights with these
people, or they'll take advantage of you at every end and give you no
thanks either."
After lunch, Tudor, a large part of whose interests centred round the
stables, offered to show the horses, and all the young people went to
admire and pet beautiful "Armorelle", Gwen's pretty cob "Taffy", and
Babbie's little pony "Nixie". Merle would have liked to beg to mount
Armorelle, but good manners prevailed, and she only stroked the soft
nose instead.
"Do you ride?" asked Gwen rather grandly.
"A little," said Merle, not liking to confess that her equestrian
experiences were mostly confined to donkeys on the beach at the
sea-side.
"Brought your habit with you?"
"No," answered Merle, who did not possess a riding-habit at all.
"What a pity! But of course your uncle has sold all his horses. He
always goes about in that little yellow car now, doesn't he? Motoring's
well enough--one must have a car naturally--but give me a horse."
"Yes, give me a horse, too, for choice," echoed Tudor. "I simply
couldn't live without horses."
On the whole the Ramsays spent a pleasant day at The Warren. Gwen and
Tudor might be rather patronizing, and too fond of showing off their
possessions, and "talking large", but these were their obvious failings,
the direct result of their early training and upbringing, and they were
not without pleasanter traits. Everybody is a mixture of perfect and
imperfect, in greater or lesser degree. The young Glyn Williamses might
have false standards of life, and would perhaps have to suffer many hard
knocks before they learnt to revise them, yet in their own way they
certainly meant to be kind. Gwen gave Mavis several foreign stamps, and
was liberal in handing round chocolates. Little Babbie waxed really
affectionate. She had liked the Ramsays from the first, and had begged
her mother to invite them. In the drawing-room, after tea, she asked
them to repeat the dialogue which they had given at The Moorings on the
wet afternoon when the day girls waited for the storm to clear.
"I've never forgotten how you two acted," she urged. "It was splendid!
Just like going to the theatre. _Please_ do it again! _Please!_ Mother
and Tudor haven't heard it."
"We want two other characters," objected Merle.
"Oh, never mind! We'll imagine the other two, and you can say their
parts for them. Give the funny piece where the aunt says what she thinks
about the modern girl. You did it so well."
"May we dress up a little?" asked Mavis.
"As much as you like. Come upstairs and take what you want."
So after a time the visitors returned duly costumed for the piece, Merle
as an elderly spinster with white cotton-wool hair and a black veil tied
over a toque, and Mavis in a sporting coat and rakish hat belonging to
Gwen. They played up to the best of their ability, and delivered the
amusing little sketch with much vigour. Merle, as the maiden aunt, was
inimitable, and quiet Mavis astounded everybody in her pose of the
up-to-date damsel. Tudor stared as if he had not suspected she had so
much in her. The audience of four clapped tremendously at the close of
the performance.
"It's really very clever. You're quite actresses," commented Mrs. Glyn
Williams. "Have you ever performed in public? No! Why, when you leave
school I should think you'll be tremendously in request for dramatic
performances in aid of charities."
"We ought to get up something here in the Institute," said Tudor. "It
would be topping fun, and astonish the natives no end. I should think
everybody's sick to death of their eternal concerts. It's always the
same old business--part song by the choir, timid warble by village
soprano about spring or roses, seafaring song roared by the bass,
ambitious operatic air attempted by tenor, who makes a hash of it,
strains on a violin badly out of tune, temperance speech by the Vicar,
who, of course, wants to butt in with a word on 'Prohibition', action
song by kids from the school, then votes of thanks till everybody has
thanked everybody else all round, and said how clever they all are. Then
'God Save the King', and thank goodness one may go home."
"Tudor's a naughty boy," laughed Mrs. Glyn Williams. "I never _can_ get
him to take an interest in Chagmouth."
"Well, I hate being trotted out to these functions," declared her son.
When Mavis and Merle, brushing their hair as they went to bed that
night, compared notes on their experiences at The Warren, both decided
they had had a very enjoyable time there. Merle had revised her first
opinion of Tudor.
"He's quite jolly in his own way," she admitted. "I rather like him."
"But of course he's nothing to Bevis."
"They're in a different running altogether."
The two boys were certainly an utter contrast, in circumstances,
disposition, and attainments. Tudor was fond of sport, but not at all
intellectual. From various hints the girls had gathered that his school
career was not unchequered; indeed they strongly suspected, from a
foolish remark of Babbie's, that ill-health was not the sole reason for
his passing this term at home, and that for some episode, carefully
hushed up, he had been temporarily suspended by the authorities. Tudor's
accomplishments all seemed to stand on a foundation of wealth. Take away
his horses, his gun, his woods, his visits to town to see theatres, and
he would have no resources left. His pleasures were inseparable from the
spending of money, and though they were well enough in their way, and
kept him amused, they were not cultivating the highest part of him. The
citizen side, which seeks to be of some use to the community, was
conspicuously absent. He posed, indeed, as deliberately scorning the
masses, and laughed at his mother for her well-meant efforts at trying
to entertain her neighbours. Human souls are surely at different stages
of evolution, and his was an undeveloped one that had not yet progressed
beyond the period of self-serving. Sometimes a rough lesson is needed to
clear the soul's vision, and teach it what things are really worth
while; and Fate, who jolts us about much to our own indignation, had her
special plan for his education, which in the fulness of her time she
meant to bring about.
Bevis, reared up from babyhood at Grimbal's Farm, had learnt to shoot
and to ride as well as Tudor, though he had not so good a gun nor so
fine a mount. He was a splendid swimmer, and he had brought back many
medals from school gained at athletic sports. He could almost do a man's
work in the fields now, and while he hated farm labour it had made him
physically very fit. He rejoiced in his young strength, with something
of the pure gladness of the old Greeks merged with the Christian ideal.
Mavis, looking at him as his muscular arms chopped with an axe in the
spinney, or his long legs came jumping over a fence, always thought of
some lines that she had copied for her "pet quotation" in the High
School calendar at Whinburn.
"God who created me
Nimble and light of limb,
In three elements free
To run, ride, or swim.
Not when the sense is dim,
But now from the heart of joy
I would remember Him--
Take the thanks of a boy."
Bevis's brain capacity fully balanced his bodily strength. He liked to
read the newspapers, and think out all the problems of the times, and
the country's needs. He relished a mental tussle with the same keen zest
as he enjoyed a football match or a vaulting contest. Whoever his father
and mother might have been the boy was innately refined, and at school
had caught up all the culture that his foster parents--kind homely
people--unfortunately lacked.
It was a matter of amazement to Mrs. Glyn Williams that Mavis and Merle
were allowed to go for walks with Bevis, and she blamed the Doctor for
slackness in the care of his nieces, but Dr. Tremayne knew the boy
thoroughly, and was perfectly satisfied that he was a fit companion for
them.
The girls themselves thought him a most delightful comrade. He was so
well versed in all country lore, and he could make so many things, and
he was so jolly and humorous and full of fun and jokes. They looked
forward to their weekly excursions, and felt they could not have
explored Chagmouth half so thoroughly without Bevis as guide. Saturday
at the beginning of April saw the three once more setting off for
Blackthorn Bower. It was a showery day, but they had their mackintoshes,
and did not mind the light rain. Mavis was so wonderfully better that
she could now do with impunity what before might have been risky. She
had grown, and seemed altogether stronger, though she still looked more
ethereal than Merle. That, however, was partly a matter of temperament.
The months in Durracombe had been an immense delight to both girls.
After the severe winters of Whinburn they had seemed like perpetual
spring, and they called Devon "the Garden of Eden". To-day, as they went
up the lanes towards the headland, there were many excitements. Bevis,
who seemed to have a kind of second-sight for discovering birds' nests,
found a hedge-sparrow's, a robin's, and a thrush's, full of eggs, and
showed them where a tit-lark was beginning to build. Then they actually
saw the first swallow, an early arrival which had come before the
cuckoo, but whirled past with unmistakable forked tail and white breast.
The primroses were a dream, and Mavis gathered a bunch of wild hyacinths
and some purple ground ivy, and Merle thought she saw a snake, but was
not perfectly sure about the matter. They were following a footpath
which led through the field where the tumulus lay, on to the headland.
When they reached the usual point where they had always passed through a
gap in the hedge to get down to the tiny quarry they found their way
barred. A strong fence had been erected, with prickly gorse placed upon
the top of it. The girls halted in much dismay.
"Who's been stopping the path?" asked Merle blankly.
"Some of those keepers, I expect," answered Bevis. "They've no right to
do it. It's been a public way for years and years. People come across
the hill, and go along the headland, and down to the beach. They always
have done, and they always will. There was a bother once before about a
right of way through the woods, and Mr. Glyn Williams went to law about
it, but he lost his case."
"What are we going to do now?"
"Take down the fence, that's all. It's easily done."
Bevis set calmly to work, and pulled away first the gorse, and then
enough of the fence to enable his companions to scramble across. He
laughed as he handed them over.
"Those keepers will be jolly vexed when they find their work spoilt,
but it serves them right. They shouldn't try to stop a public footpath."
The girls had an uneasy remembrance that last Saturday Tudor had spoken
of this very matter of a right of way along the headland, and had said
that he had urged his father to dispute it. They had not mentioned to
Tudor that they knew the spot, though they had guessed where it was from
his description. They did not care for him to know about Blackthorn
Bower, or the cups of rough pottery, and their picnics and talks about
the prehistoric people. They felt instinctively that he would not
understand or sympathize in the least, and would only sneer at it all as
nonsense. They did not say anything about Tudor to Bevis now, because
the subject always seemed a sore one, and their friend was in such a
particularly jolly mood that they did not want to bring the cloud that
sometimes settled over his face. They took his word for it that they
were not trespassing but pursuing a perfectly legitimate path, and
climbed down the bank to the little quarry.
Here a horrible surprise awaited them. Their beautiful bower, put up
with so much skill and trouble, had been completely pulled to pieces.
The staves of its roof were stacked in a pile, and the sods had been
thrown down the cliff. For a ghastly moment they stared as if hardly
able to believe the evidence of their own eyes. Then their indignation
found vent.
"What an abominable shame!" exploded Merle.
"Oh, it's _too_ bad! Our _lovely_ hut!" quavered Mavis, practically in
tears.
Bevis said nothing. He gazed round the ruin, then stooped and picked
something up from the ground. It was a fragment of the blue pottery cup
smashed to atoms. He looked at it with somewhat the same consternation
with which a hedge-sparrow might regard her torn and robbed nest and
broken eggs.
"I'll make somebody pay for this!" he muttered.
The girls were still exclaiming in much wrath and annoyance. At first
they were so busy bemoaning the hut that they never heard sounds on the
bank behind, then becoming aware of voices they walked out from the
quarry to find Tudor, and two of the keepers standing by the fence.
"Hello!" cried Tudor, springing down and greeting them joyously.
But at that moment Bevis stepped from the ruins of Blackthorn Bower and
faced him.
"Is this your doing?" he asked abruptly.
The two boys glared at one another with looks that suggested clashing of
steel.
"Certainly it's by my orders," returned Tudor in his most lofty and
insolent tone. "What business had you building a hut on my property? A
regular squatter! I won't have you fellows from the village coming
poaching up here. I'll throw every rabbit trap I find down the cliffs,
so I give you warning. I could prosecute you for breaking down that
fence."
"Oh, Tudor! Bevis _doesn't_ poach," interposed Merle.
"He built the hut for _us_," put in Mavis.
Unfortunately the girls' remarks only made matters worse.
"A nice fellow you are to take young ladies about!" continued Tudor
tauntingly. "I wonder they'll condescend to walk with you. A nobody like
you, who doesn't know where he comes from! You may fancy yourself no
end----"
But here Bevis, whose dark face held a "Hast thou found me, O mine
enemy" expression, sprang at him in an anger too deep and furious for
words.
Both the boys were wrestlers. For one wild minute they held each other,
and swayed to and fro as they struggled, while the girls shrieked in
alarm, and the keepers, standing by the fence, gaped too utterly amazed
to interfere. Then Bevis, by far the fitter and stronger of the two,
gained the mastery, and seizing Tudor, flung him violently away. He
fell, and rolled over and over nearly twenty feet down the side of the
cliff. Then the keepers recovered from their frozen paralysis, and
rushed to the rescue of their young employer.
Fortunately Tudor had landed upon a platform of rock, but he lay there
quite quiet and still, and did not stir when the men carried him up. His
eyes were closed, and his head hung loosely as they laid him down beside
the ruined bower. One of them fetched water in a hat and bathed his
temples, and the other rubbed his hands. The girls looked on in pitiful
distress. Bevis was still standing on the patch of grass that was the
scene of their combat. He stared at Tudor's prostrate form with wild,
horror-stricken eyes.
"I've murdered him," he gasped to Mavis and Merle. "It's murder! Yes,
that's what it is! I'm going away, and you'll never see me any more! I'm
not fit to say good-bye to you!"
And without another look he turned and began scrambling recklessly down
the cliff, not following a path, but dropping anyhow over the rocks as
if he did not care what happened to him. For a moment or two he was
visible, and then he vanished.
After more water and vigorous rubbing Tudor at last revived and opened
his eyes. He was stiff and much shaken, but there seemed no bones
broken, and with the help of the two keepers he was able to walk home.
Mavis and Merle fled back to Grimbal's Farm with the disastrous news.
They poured out the story to Mrs. Penruddock as she was feeding the
fowls. She dropped her pan of Indian corn on to the ground.
"There now! I always said it would come to that," she bemoaned. "Bevis
flown at young Williams and run away. What will his father say? The
lad's so hasty, and he flares up when he's roused. Don't you cry! You
say there's not much harm done after all, and I dare say Bevis will come
creeping back at dark when things are quiet. It's not the first time
he's run off, and turned up again when he felt hungry."
"He said we'd never see him any more," sobbed Mavis, much upset by the
whole affair.
"He'd say anything, but he doesn't mean it. I'm sorry it's happened
because it will make fine trouble with The Warren, and we've trouble
enough as it is, goodness knows! But I'm not afraid for Bevis. He'd
never go off without fetching some of his things at any rate. He loses
his temper and there's a flash, and then it's all over. I know Bevis!
He'll come back all right, don't you fear!"