For the School Colours Part 4

"Our old set will follow us, and not care a toss about the prefects!"

Adah and her fellow-officers had indeed made a terrible mistake by their superior and patronizing ways. Instead of welding the school into one, as Miss Thompson had hoped and intended, they had entirely alienated the new element and had set up a most unhappy barrier of division.

Silverside resolved itself into two parties, each apparently determined to misunderstand the other, and obstinately resolute not to mix. Miss Thompson, anxiously watching the result of her experiment, saw only the surface of things, for most of the trouble lay below, deeper than the ken of head mistresses. The teachers were aware of an undercurrent of discontent, but could not absolutely discover the reason. Only the girls themselves knew that the school was split into rival factions, between whom there was going to be war.

CHAPTER III

Walden

As Avelyn Watson is one of the central figures of this story, it will be well to go back some months, and follow the events which preceded her appearance at Silverside. Though apparently trivial enough, they are important, because if they had not happened, she would have come to school as a day girl instead of a boarder, and the part which fate put into her hands to play could never have been acted.

It all began with Daphne forgetting to change her wet stockings. Daphne had done many imprudent things before, and had suffered more or less from them. This time Dame Nature, tired of having her laws flouted, determined to teach her a lesson. The specialist who was called in to consult with the family doctor made an exhaustive examination of the case, then p.r.o.nounced his verdict.

"She mustn't live in the town. If you want her to grow up into healthy womanhood, a year or two in the country is an imperative necessity."

Up to the time when Sir Basil Hunter delivered this ultimatum, the Watsons had always lived in Harlingden. Daphne and Avelyn could remember the old days when Daddy had been alive, and Mother's hair had been brown and not grey; and she had laughed as gaily and easily as they did now. That was many years ago, and to David and Anthony, at any rate, their father was little more than an enlarged photograph on the dining-room wall. They had all been born in the comfortable, commonplace house in Gerrard Square, and had taken it and its uninteresting view, and its smoky little garden, together with the round of town life, entirely for granted. Then the change came. Mrs. Watson, thoroughly alarmed at the doctor's diagnosis, and nervous over the health of her whole family, took immediate steps to carry out his advice. She let the house in Gerrard Square, and removed into the country. The place she selected was a tiny village named Lyngates, two miles from the station at Netherton, and twenty miles away from Harlingden. Its pure air, gravel soil, and record of sunshine were exactly what Daphne required; the boys could go in to town every day by train, and thus continue at King James's School, and Avelyn, who was sufficiently like Daphne to make the fatigue of a daily train journey seem a risky experiment, could be sent as a weekly boarder to Silverside.

By a most fortunate chance, Mrs. Watson came across the very little property she wanted. It was an old farm-house, with a few outbuildings at the back, and a field or two for poultry--the doctor had suggested that Daphne should interest herself in poultry. It was smaller by far than No. 7 Gerrard Square, but big enough for their requirements.

"With present war prices, and income-tax what it is, and four children to educate, I consider I'm very wise to make the move," she decided, "though I should never have had the courage to do it if Sir Basil Hunter hadn't been so emphatic."

So the house, gardens, outbuildings, and fields that composed the small holding were bought and paid for, and formally transferred by deed from their former owner, George Hethersedge, yeoman, to the possession of Helena Watson, widow, and the bargain was complete. That it was a bargain the children had no doubt. So many extra things were included that were never even mentioned in the t.i.tle-deeds--the thrushes and blackbirds and t.i.ts in the garden, the wagtails that flitted up and down the little stream, the owls that sat and hooted in the elm tree at dusk, the wild bees' nest in the bank, the ferns in the crannies of the old wall, the morning view when the sun shone over the valley, and the calm, quiet sunsets when the sky was aflame with rose and violet. It was the most exciting experience to explore their new kingdom. They were always making fresh discoveries. Up till now, beyond their annual summer holiday at some seaside resort, they had had no practical knowledge of the country. To live side by side with Nature was like being transferred into another world.

To Mrs. Watson, no less than to her children, the change was welcome.

She had often pored over Nature books from the library, and they had been wont to stir in her a vague yearning to get away from bricks and mortar and chimneys, and spend a sylvan year somewhere far from the sound of trams or steam hooters. She chafed sometimes against the monotony of her daily shopping and household cares. She longed for lanes and woods, but there seldom seemed time to go for walks at Harlingden; it was a long way from Gerrard Square into the fields. We are such creatures of habit, that it had never struck her to uproot herself and reorder the lives of herself and her children; and if Daphne had not forgotten her galoshes, and thus brought about the visit of Sir Basil Hunter, the family might have remained town birds to the end of the chapter. As it was, they stepped into a fresh inheritance. They named the house "Walden", after Th.o.r.eau's famous _Walden_, a book which her mother loved, and which Avelyn was just beginning to read and appreciate; the magic of its radiant love of Nature, and the breadth of its philosophy appealed to her strongly.

Though the Watsons' Walden was quite unpretentious, it was certainly more comfortable than the shanty in Concord, Ma.s.sachusetts, where Henry David Th.o.r.eau spent his immortal two years and two months. There was a sitting-room on each side of the little hall, a big kitchen and pantry behind, and four bedrooms upstairs. Outside, across the yard, was a cottage, with a lower room which could be used as a den for fretwork, painting, carpentering, or the pursuit of any other cherished hobbies, and an upper storey containing two extra bedrooms for emergencies. The stable and barn were interesting, and held dim, cobwebby recesses, where bats hung head downwards, and a brown owl sometimes perched blinking upon the cross-beams.

In front was a small raised garden, bordered by a very wide ivy-covered stone wall. The house stood on the slope of a steep hill, so that this wall overtopped the road below like a crag. When you leaned your arms on its golden sweet-scented ivy blossom, or sombre berries and smooth leaves, you could look out over a tract of country that spread for miles--green meadows, hazel copses bursting into leaf, thick woods that hid the stream whose rushing waters yet made themselves heard, the reedy reaches of a river, and fir-clad hills that melted faint and blue into a misty horizon. There was a patch of gravel in front of the wall, and a rustic garden seat, dilapidated, but firm enough for occupation. The site made a natural outdoor parlour: a yew tree, grown slantwise with the prevailing wind, formed an umbrella overhead. At the side of the cottage, between the yard and the kitchen garden, purled a shallow little brook, at the edge of which grew watercresses and marsh marigolds. It was spanned by a bridge made of rough slabs of stone.

Beyond the stables lay a couple of small meadows, containing an upper reach of the stream, and a little marshy tract interspersed with gorse and alder bushes.

The Watson family had reviewed the whole premises slowly, critically, and with unbounded satisfaction.

"It's the sort of place you read about in a novel," sighed Daphne, whose tastes were romantic. "Somehow you feel as if anything could happen here--interesting things, I mean. Mysteries and tragedies, and--and even----"

"Love affairs!" finished Avelyn promptly. "Perhaps they may--sometime."

Avelyn was at the stage when life is full of dreams. It was her constant amus.e.m.e.nt to imagine all kinds of delightful but wildly improbable future happenings for Daphne, for herself, and for the boys. The number of castles in the air which she constructed would have built a city.

They were all shadowy and unsubstantial, but none the less fascinating for that. Walden appeared to her, as to Daphne, an appropriate setting for golden visions.

David and Anthony, still in the age of blunt uncompromising frankness, regarded the new home from a practical standpoint.

"It's top-hole!" decided David. "I'll have a thingumjig--what d'you call it?--lathe, I mean, inside that cottage, and a joiner's bench. There's a man in the village who says he's got one to sell cheap, and a vice with it. I'm going to make a rabbit hutch, and all sorts of things."

"There are trout in that part of the stream up the field," beamed Anthony. "Not very big ones, but certainly trout. I saw them jump. The boy who brought the telegram yesterday told me that he catches them with his hands. He knows of sixteen birds' nests on the road to the station, and he's got a young hedgehog at home. I'm going to just sit and sit in the field when it's getting dark till I see one for myself."

"I shall grow ten years younger when I've had a summer here," announced Mrs. Watson to her flock. "You won't know your poor old mother very soon. The country air's making her so frisky and juvenile, she wants to run about like a girl!"

"_Do_, Muvvie darling! We love you in your skittish moods," implored Avelyn. "When you wear that short skirt and that rush hat you don't look a day older than Auntie Belle--truly! You never climbed up step ladders in Gerrard Square!"

"I've begun to do many things I never did before," laughed Mrs. Watson, "partly from necessity. If I could have found anybody else to go up the step ladder, perhaps I shouldn't have tried. We've all got to work if we want to make the place look nice. It'll be worth it when we've finished."

Walden had been empty for two years before its owner sold it, and, though it was in a fair state of repair as regarded masonry and woodwork, it sadly needed decorating. The question of its repapering and painting had been the one hitch in the proceedings, for, when Mrs.

Watson had sought to obtain estimates for its renovation, she found that, in the present war-time shortage of workmen, no firm would undertake to carry out a job so far in the country. For three horrible days matters had seemed at a dead-lock, and the purchase of Walden (not quite concluded) had trembled in the balance. But Daphne's white cheeks brought all Mrs. Watson's native obstinacy to the fore. She was determined not to be vanquished. She enquired in the village, and secured the services of an old soldier who used to be handy-man at the Vicarage, and with his experienced aid and the willing, though unskilled hands of her young flock, she determined to do up Walden herself. She secured lodgings for a few weeks at a farm close by, and the family devoted the Easter holidays to the purpose. It was a new experience for them, and they enjoyed it thoroughly. Armed with pails of distemper and whitewash brushes, they splashed away at the walls, painted woodwork, stained floors, or laid linoleum. They made a delightful discovery in the dining-room, for, when they came to tear down the old wall paper, they found an overmantel of ancient oak beams. The fireplace was large and old-fashioned, with ingle nooks on either side, the woodwork had been completely covered with paper and plaster, but when this was cleared away, and it was cleaned, stained, and varnished, it presented a most quaint and handsome appearance. The great beam that spanned the hearth had a flat surface, and on this Mrs. Watson decided to carve a motto. The family put their heads together over it for many days. They looked up mottoes in books, and consulted their friends, but could not find exactly the right one. Daphne and Avelyn were in favour of English, but Mrs. Watson and the boys plumped for Latin, and finally evolved the following:--

POST LABOREM HAEC REQUIES HAEC FELICITAS.

(After work, here is rest and happiness.)

"When you've finished your lessons in the evenings, we can make a circle round the fire and talk about the day's doings; and it will seem a centre for the whole house and for our lives," said Mrs. Watson. "I believe this little home is going to be far more precious to us than Gerrard Square."

To the children the doing up of the establishment was the utmost fun.

Th.o.r.eau himself could not have obtained more enjoyment from his "Walden"

than they did from theirs. There were many humorous incidents; as when Anthony sat down in the colour wash pail, or when Daphne dropped a pot of pink paint on the top of David's head, or when Avelyn poured in paraffin by mistake, instead of methylated spirit, to thin the varnish.

It was a proud day when at last colour wash and paint were dry, and the floor was swept and cleaned, and the vans arrived and the furniture was carried in. Mrs. Watson had sold most of the heavy possessions which they owned in Gerrard Square, and had bought in their place tasteful antiques which suited the house far better, and gave it an air of quaint culture and comfort. When all was arranged it looked a charming little abode, and thoroughly in harmony, from the black beams of its ingle nook to the carved settle and gate-legged oak table, or the framed samplers on its walls.

Many surprising incidents happened in the first days of occupation. Very early one morning, as Daphne and Avelyn lay in bed, they were awakened by a tweeting and whirr of wings, and found that a pair of newly-arrived swallows had flown in through the open window, and were whirling overhead, evidently with designs on the big cross beam for nesting purposes. The sight of the girls, who sat up in bed, seemed to annoy them, for they twittered with anger, scintillated rapidly round the room, then flashed out through the window into the spring sunshine.

"Well," exclaimed Daphne, "this certainly is living in the country!

Actually swallows in our bedroom!"

"The poor darlings!" declared Avelyn. "They've had a horrible disappointment. They'd made up their minds to have their nest on that beam. I remember Martin Jones pulled down a swallow's nest before he whitewashed, and said they had built there last year, and had got in because the window was broken. They must think we're dreadful intruders.

They were scolding us as hard as they could in bird language."

"Shall we hang out a notice: 'To Let, Eligible Quarters for Swallows'?"

laughed Daphne. "We might even put nesting boxes round the walls, and extend the invitation to other birds."

To anyone who wished to study natural history, Walden certainly offered advantages. There was a friendly robin that domesticated itself, and would fly into the dining-room at meal times, hop on to the table, and even perch upon the loaf. He would haunt the kitchen in quest of crumbs, and grew so cheeky that when Ethel, the maid, who resented his occasional flounders into her pudding dishes, drove him out through the window, he would merely fly round the corner and pop in again through the open door.

As at first the Watsons possessed neither dog nor cat, their garden became for that spring at any rate a veritable bird sanctuary. A pied fly-catcher built in the thatch of the summer-house, a pair of gold-crested wrens swung their dainty cradle under a pine bough, a nettle creeper nested in the long gra.s.s of the orchard, cole t.i.ts and blue t.i.ts haunted the yew tree, a family of young water wagtails issued from a hole under the stone bridge, and a wood pigeon took possession of the top storey of a fir tree, to say nothing of the blackbirds, thrushes, robins, and other everyday birds that availed themselves of the hospitality of the bushes.

"I thought I owned Walden, but I'm beginning to doubt it," said Mrs.

Watson. "It seems to me that the wild creatures put in a prior claim, and come unasked to share it."

"They're welcome, bless 'em!" murmured Avelyn, fondling a newly-fledged and quite undismayed young missel-thrush, which she had temporarily taken from its nest just outside the drawing-room window.

Some of the incidents which happened were decidedly funny. The Watsons were not used to the country, and had to learn by experience. One morning they had left some washing in the field, and found that a neighbour's calves had strayed through a hole in the hedge and were contentedly sucking stockings and pyjamas, and reducing them to a jelly-like pulp. It took several sharp lessons before the family grasped that cardinal rule of country life: "Keep your gate shut". On the first Sunday of their occupation they had gone to church, and on returning had strolled into the dining-room, to find three pigs comfortably in possession. A wild scene ensued, for the intruders, instead of allowing themselves to be chased through the door, careered madly round and round the table, squeaking and grunting in protest, and finally jumped on to the sofa, and made their exit through the open window, knocking over books, work-baskets, and pots of geraniums in their hurried flight, and completely flattening a bed of young pansies that had just been planted.

One night the family, who had sat up later than usual, heard stealthy steps in the garden, and, fearful of burglars, issued forth in a body, armed with the poker and other implements of aggression, only to find a melancholy donkey cropping the gra.s.s beyond the laurel bushes, with apparent appreciation of its superior juiciness.

These little adventures, however, added a spice of excitement to their existence. They agreed that life at Walden was supremely interesting.

Daphne, who was nearly eighteen, had finished with lessons, and for the summer term Mrs. Watson allowed Avelyn also to stay at home and run wild. She had been growing fast, and a rest was considered good for her.

David and Anthony left the house every morning at half-past seven, walked to Netherton Station, caught the train to Harlingden, and proceeded to King James's School, where they spent the day and dined, returning home by about six in the evening. They were st.u.r.dy boys of fourteen and twelve, and enjoyed the daily expedition. Time had often hung heavy on their hands out of school hours in Gerrard Square; it was now agreeably filled in with a railway journey and a walk across fields where birds' nests might be found, and where they sometimes saw stoats and squirrels.

To the whole family the first sylvan spring and summer had been one long round of delight. By the end of August they felt that town had faded away from their mental vision, and that they had become "sons of the soil".