For the School Colours Part 18

"If I weren't going home to-morrow I don't know what I should do," she thought. "Thank goodness I'm only a weekly boarder! I do think they might have come and lit the gas."

The room was getting more and more dim, and Avelyn's spirits fell in exact ratio. She was beginning to feel an almost superst.i.tious horror of the plaster Venus. Suppose it were to come to life, like Pygmalion's statue of Galatea? The bare fancy gave her shivers, and a sudden sound made her turn with a start. It was nothing less than an unmistakable tap on the outside of the window. Avelyn's nerves were strung at highest pitch. She almost screamed aloud. Peering in through the darkness was a face. She forced herself to approach and look, and with a revulsion of feeling recognized the enquiring countenance of her brother David, with his freckled nose pressed flat against the gla.s.s. He tapped again, and she opened the window.

"Dave! You mascot! How did you get here?"

"Climbed up the spout!" chuckled David. "It was quite easy. Move out of the way! I'm coming in."

He dropped inside the room, then turning to the window again, gave a soft whistle.

"Tony's down below," he explained, "and he'll swarm up too, now I've given him the signal. I'll just lend him a hand over that last piece of coping. Here he is! Come on, old chap! We've struck the right shanty after all. Told you you might trust your grandfather!"

Anthony made his appearance with equal caution. His round face was wreathed in delighted smiles.

"It was a little difficult to fix exactly _which_ window," he volunteered.

"But how did you know I was here?" asked Avelyn ecstatically.

"We met Pamela at the station, and she told us all about it. So, instead of going home by the 4.45, we thought we'd come up and see how you were getting on."

"We made Pam describe which room you were in," added David. "I say, it's a bit of beastly bad luck for you! Pretty stiff, I call it, to be shut up here!"

"It's too ghastly for words!"

"Cheer oh! We've brought you something. Look!" David felt in his pocket, and produced a paper bag full of toffee and a copy of _t.i.t Bits_. "It'll do to read. We'd have got you more, only we didn't happen to have much money with us."

"It was lucky we met Pam before we got into the train," commented Anthony. "We were earlier than usual at the station to-day. As a rule we tear up at the last moment."

"It was ripping of you to come!"

"Well, we couldn't desert you, old sport, at such a pinch."

"I don't believe anyone could have such decent brothers." Avelyn gazed at him through the gathering darkness with admiration.

At that moment a tread of footsteps and a rattle of crockery sounded in the pa.s.sage.

"Goody! It's my tea coming!" she gasped.

There was not time for the boys to make their exit through the window.

While the door handle was turning they fled to what cover they could find. David took shelter behind the pedestal of Apollo, and Anthony crouched in a corner among some drawing boards. Fortunately it was Miss d.i.c.kens who entered, and Miss d.i.c.kens was short-sighted.

"Take this tray from me, Avelyn," she commanded. "Dear me, you're all in the dark here! Has n.o.body been to light the gas yet?"

"No, Miss d.i.c.kens."

"I must fetch some matches, then. Be careful not to upset that tray as you put it down."

The second her back was turned the boys flew to the window, and, dropping out one after the other, made their way safely down the spout into the garden below, whence they waved parting salutations, and retreated with all speed. Avelyn had just time to hide the toffee and the _t.i.t Bits_ before Miss d.i.c.kens returned with the matches and lit the gas. She a.s.sumed an air of appropriate subjection and melancholy before her mistress, which at the moment she certainly did not experience.

Until four o'clock on Friday her punishment continued. Not a single word was exchanged between herself and her schoolfellows. She had never felt so glad to go home. The week-end made a break, and when she returned to school on Monday she found herself apparently forgiven at head-quarters, and no more a black sheep, but an ordinary member of society. Her room-mates' att.i.tude was a mixture of admiration and grat.i.tude.

"You're the limit, Ave!" said Irma.

"I'd never have thought of it myself," admitted Janet.

"It was such a topping idea!" chuckled Laura.

"And we all got just the very time of our lives at 'The Temple Bells', thanks to you!" added Ethelberga.

"But I never intended it for anything but a joke!" protested Avelyn.

CHAPTER XI

Moss Cottage

Though Avelyn was happy enough as a boarder at Silverside, the real focus and centre of her life lay at Walden. The little house, with its romantic surroundings, had touched a very deep chord in her nature. Home had been dear in Harlingden because it was home, but now it was a magic spot, a palace of fairy dreams, a place where new and hitherto undreamed-of interests and ideals had suddenly leaped into being. The glamour of it seemed to begin when she stepped out of the train at Netherton on Friday afternoons and started on her walk to Lyngates.

Different neighbourhoods seem to have different scents. This one smelled of lichens and green ferns, and moist, warm, rain-splashed earth, a half-pungent odour that she got used to directly, but which struck her afresh each time as she returned to it. Every inch of the road had grown dear to her, and she would welcome each clump of ferns or gurgling reach of stream as if she were greeting old friends. After five days in the prosaic, matter-of-fact, workaday, self-contained little world of school, her week-ends seemed to belong to a different planet.

Avelyn was a girl who loved sometimes to be quite alone. She had a favourite seat on the orchard wall among the ivy, where she would curl herself up with her back against an apple tree and watch the landscape below. So changeful and wonderful were the effects of storm and sunshine over this valley, that it never looked for one half-hour the same.

Sometimes there would be sunrise tints of rose and violet, sometimes a soft yellow haze, sometimes storm-clouds would roll from end to end, or perhaps a magnificent rainbow would span the gorge like an ethereal bridge, or, grander still, the lightning would flash its wicked forks over the hills from summit to base, gleaming against a background of inky darkness.

The very air at Walden seemed softer than at Harlingden. It was a mild autumn; leaves lingered long on the trees and made the woods gorgeous, and traveller's-joy hung in exuberant ma.s.ses over the hedgerows, like a soft silver cloud trying to veil the growing bareness beneath.

One Sat.u.r.day early in December Avelyn started off to see Pamela. It was some distance to Moss Cottage, and, instead of walking by the high road, she meant to take a path that led up the gorge and across the hill. It was a glorious morning; a grey wind-swept sky showed, here and there, bright patches of blue between the ma.s.ses of heavy clouds that were rolling down from the hill-tops like smoke from a cauldron, and fitful gleams of sunshine, bursting out in wonderful brilliance, made marvellous effects of light and shadow. The river, winding slowly through the marsh lands, was now vivid blue, now inky purple, as it reflected the clouds or the sunshine; a ma.s.s of larch-clad hill-side showed dark in contrast to the red of the ploughed field on its summit, which was catching the light descending in rays from one bright patch above. In a few moments all had changed: the larches were tipped with gold, the marsh lands were purest emerald, and the hills veiled in filmy mists floating like threads of gossamer down the slopes. Avelyn turned from this wide prospect and plunged up the glen, with her face towards the hill whence the mist was rolling. Ages ago a glacier must have slidden down there, and left its mark on the huge boulders which lay scattered everywhere around. Over this rough bed a stream, swollen by days of incessant rain, thundered along, its brown, peat-stained waters churned to the whitest spray as it forced its way in leaping cataracts over the rocks. Stepping-stones, which could be easily crossed in July, were deep under feet of foam, and the lower boughs of the trees were washed and swayed by the flood. It was so sheltered that the gale, which had stripped the leaves on the hill-side above, had spared enough here to tint the gorge with gold and brown. Some of the oaks were still green; a birch displayed the purest Naples yellow; low-growing mountain ashes and alders had kept their summer clothing intact, and the thick undergrowth of briar and bramble was verdant as ever. Even more beautiful, perhaps, were the bare boughs of the hazel copse, the exquisite tender shades of which were such a subtle blending of purples and greys as to defy the most cunning brush that artist ever wielded, and, contrasted with an occasional pine, or holly, or ivy tree, made a dream of delicate colour.

The boulders were almost completely covered with vivid green mosses, in sheets so thick and deep and compact that a slight pull would raise a yard at a time. Here and there among them were tiny bright red toadstools, or some of the larger purple or orange varieties that had lingered on since October. On a hazel twig Avelyn found the curious birds'-nest fungus, with its tiny eggs packed neatly inside. The day was so mild that a squirrel was taking a whiff of fresh air, waving his feathery tail from a fir tree overhead, but at the sight of a human being he disappeared suddenly into a hollow in a big tree, where no doubt he had established cosy winter quarters. There were few birds--perhaps they did not like the dampness or the roar of the water--but Avelyn caught sight of a dipper darting down the stream, a flight of long-tailed t.i.ts twittering noisily for a moment or two on a tree-top, and a heron sailing majestically towards the mountains. On the brambles the unpicked blackberries still hung ripe, though so absolutely sodden and tasteless that they were not worth the eating; there was even a spray of blossom left here and there. A branch of scarlet hips shone brightly in the sunlight; the birds, sated with yew berries, had spared it thus far, and it rivalled the holly on the bush close by, while trails of bryony berries repeated the colour with varieties of lemon and orange. There were a few wild flowers, even in December--a belated foxglove, a clump of ragwort, a blue harebell, or a stray specimen of b.u.t.tercup, campion, herb robert, yarrow, thistle, and actually a strawberry blossom. The tall equisetum lingered on the boggy bank, and ferns were everywhere green; great clumps of the common polypody clung to the tree-trunks and flourished on boughs high overhead, and under the rocks grew the delicate fronds of the English maidenhair, or the rarer beech fern.

Avelyn had at last reached the waterfall. The great white cascade leaped over a ledge of rock, and dashed with such thundering force into the pool below that all the air around was filled with floating mist on which the sun formed a dancing rainbow. As each neighbourhood has its own distinctive scent, so each stream has its own peculiar sound, as if it would give us some message that it has no words to convey. The little gurgling brook tries to tell us cheery things; the slow-flowing river has a sadder story; the trout stream babbles kindly hopes. To Avelyn the leaping, rushing cascade, with its whirl of living, dashing foam, seemed to be calling out in a voice that rose and fell with the roar of the waters: "Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of Heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name".

She stood a long time gazing at the foam and the mist and the rainbow, then she turned and plunged up among the trees to the head of the glen.

Looking back she felt as if she had held Nature, or something bigger than Nature, tight by the hand.

From the top of the gorge was an easy walk across fields to Moss Cottage. In spite of the bright morning the little house looked gloomy among the trees. It always struck Avelyn with an air of extreme melancholy. She was almost morbidly sensitive to impressions. She decided that she would not go to the front door, because she would then be certain to see Pamela's mother, and somehow she felt rather frightened of poor, quiet, retiring Mrs. Reynolds. She knew that her friend would probably be at work in the garden, so she tacked into the wood and climbed the palings at the back. Only half of the ground behind the cottage had as yet been brought into cultivation, and the part where Avelyn descended was still a wilderness. There were large rocks and tangled ma.s.ses of brambles, and faded clumps of ragwort and teasel, and yellow bracken stumps. Not far away, however, was a newly-dug border, with a spade lying on the ground, and Pamela's hat. Pamela herself was not to be seen, but surely she must be somewhere near. Avelyn prowled about in search of her. She did not want to go up to the cottage, and decided that if her friend were indoors she would wait until she came out again. Possibly she might be in the hen-house. That was certainly an alternative. She had heard Pamela mention hens. In the distance some roofs were visible which looked like outbuildings. She went to investigate. Right in the far corner of the garden, almost indeed in the wood itself, and thickly embedded in trees, she came upon a ramshackle, tumble-down, two-storied kind of stable. A giant oak, shrouded with ivy, stretched out long protecting arms and almost hid it from view; the roof was built against the very bole of the tree, whose branches sheltered the windows. Was Pamela here? Avelyn gave a long coo-e-e and called her name. The next moment a startled face looked out from the upper window.

"Hallo, Pam!" shouted Avelyn gleefully, "I've unearthed you at last, old sport!"

"Wait a sec. I'll come down," returned her friend in a cautious voice.

Pamela appeared from out the stable door, with a rainbow face in which storm and sunshine seemed to be struggling.

"I never expected to see you, Ave! Have you dropped from the skies?"

"No, climbed over the palings. I thought I'd be sure to find you somewhere about in the garden. I saw your hat, and went to look for you."

"Yes. I was gardening."