Monitress Merle Part 9

"I love the quaint old legends!" said Mavis. "I shall always think of your mermaid now, when I hear the bell. This is our way down to the cove.

It's a most frightful scramble. Can you manage it?"

The girls went first over gra.s.s and gorse, then climbed down a tiny track so narrow and slippery they were obliged to sit and slide, and finally, with some difficulty, scrambled on to the grim rugged rocks beneath. They were on a kind of platform, covered with seaweed and little pools, and with deep swirling water below.

Beata decided it would be a good place to fish, so they got out their log-lines. The first and most manifest thing to do was to find bait.

There were plenty of limpets on the rocks, and with penknives they managed to dislodge some of them. It was only when a limpet was caught napping that it was possible to secure him: once he sat down tight and excluded the air from his sh.e.l.l, no amount of pulling could move him. The victims thus gathered were sacrificed by Beata and Merle, who acted as high priestesses, and chopped them up, and placed them upon the hooks, for neither Mavis nor Romola would touch them, and even Fay was not particularly keen upon this part of the fishing operations. They were ready at last, and cast their lines. Merle, unfortunately, through lack of experience, had not unreeled hers far enough, and the heavy weight sank deeply in the water and jerked the whole thing out of her hands into the sea.

"Oh, what a shame! And we've only just paid two and sixpence for it! What an utter idiot I was! I never thought it would pull like that. See, it's floating about down there!"

"I'll get it for you if I can," said Beata. With some manoeuvring she managed to fling her own line over it and drag it slowly in, losing it several times but rescuing it in the end.

After that mishap Merle was wiser, and threw with more discretion. Fay also tried her luck, and the girls sat waiting for bites. But alas! none came. There were several false alarms, but the lines when hauled in held nothing more exciting than hunks of seaweed. It was really most disappointing.

"I'm afraid they don't like the bait," said Beata at last. "If we could find a few lob-worms now, it might tempt them. They're evidently rather dainty."

"And I expect we don't know much about it!" said Mavis.

"Well, people have to learn some time, I suppose. You can't tumble to fishing by instinct!"

It was decided to go farther along and try to find lob-worms. The difficulty was to scramble down the rocks on to the sand. From above it looked quite easy and possible, but at close quarters the crags were very precipitous. At one point, however, they determined to venture. They sat on the edge of the sloping rock, let go, and then simply slid down, hanging on to pieces of ivy and tufts of gra.s.s. The cove, when they thus reached it, was worth the trouble of getting there. Sand-gobies were darting about in the pools, and came swimming up to fight for the pieces of limpet which the girls dropped in for them. They found a few lobworms and re-baited their hooks and cast their lines afresh, but met with no better success than before.

"I'm fed up with fishing!" announced Romola at last. "Let's go home!"

She had voiced the general opinion of the party. All immediately began to wind up their lines.

"The tide's coming in fast, and we're close to the blow-hole," said Mavis. "It seems a pity not to stop and watch it."

The blow-hole was a curious natural phenomenon. The sea, pouring into a narrow gully, forced air and water to spurt through an opening at certain intervals. First a low groaning noise was heard, which waxed louder and louder until--so Beata declared--it resembled the snoring of Father Neptune. Then suddenly a shower of spray spurted from the aperture, the sunshine lighting it with all the prismatic colours of the rainbow. For a few seconds it played like a fountain, then died down as the wave receded. The girls were so interested in watching it that they quite forgot the sea behind them. While their backs were turned to it, the great strong tide was lapping and swelling in, moving higher and higher up the rocks, and covering the pools, and creeping into the cove, and changing the sand and seaweed into a lake. When Mavis happened to look round she found her basket floating. She started up with a cry. The one accessible spot where they had climbed down now had a deep pool under it.

"We must wade!" gasped Beata, and hurriedly pulling off her shoes and stockings she plunged as pioneer into the water.

She soon realised it was too dangerous a venture. The slimy seaweed underneath caused her to slip, and the strong swirl of the tide nearly swept her from her feet. With difficulty she splashed back again.

"We might swim it!" she suggested. "But what about our clothes?"

Mavis shook her head.

"We can't cross there till the tide goes down."

"Are we going to be drowned?" asked Romola, in a tremulous little voice.

"Certainly not!"--Mavis sounded quite calm and sensible--"we're safe enough here, but we're in a jolly nasty fix. We can sit above high-water mark, but it means staying till the tide goes down and that won't be for hours, and then it will be dark and how can we see to scramble up the cliffs?"

"I suppose we've got to wait till morning!" groaned Fay. "This is _some_ adventure at any rate!"

"Rather more than most of us bargained for!" agreed Beata.

"I wouldn't care a nickel, only Mother'll be in such a state of mind when I don't turn up!"

"And Uncle David will be waiting to go home in the car. I wonder what he'll do?"

"They'll have the fright of their lives!"

"And we shall have the colds of ours!" shivered poor Romola. "October isn't exactly the month you'd choose for camping out. I wish we'd brought some more biscuits with us. I'm hungry!"

"Don't talk of biscuits or eating! I'm just ravenous."

Five very disconsolate girls found a sheltered corner under the cliff and squatted down to watch the sunset. There was a glorious effect of gold and orange and great purple clouds tipped with crimson, but they were none of them quite in the mood to appreciate the beauties of nature, and would much have preferred the sight of a tea-table. It was beginning to grow very cold. They b.u.t.toned their sports coats about their throats, and huddled close together for warmth. The sun sank into the sea like a great fiery ball, and the darkness crept on. Presently the moon rose, shining over the sea in a broad spreading pathway of silver, that looked like a gleaming fairy track across the water to the far horizon, where a distant lighthouse glinted at intervals like a fiery eye. The waiting seemed interminable. Romola, who felt the cold most, had a little private weep.

"I've always been crazy on stories of shipwrecks and desert islands,"

said Fay, "but when you go through it yourself somehow it seems to take the edge off the romance. I don't want any more to be a Robinson Crusoe girl! I'd rather stay warm with p.u.s.s.ie by the fire."

"If we'd had a box of matches with us we might have lighted a fire!"

sighed Beata. "Why _didn't_ we bring some?"

"Why didn't we look at the tide and get home in decent time? It's no good crying over spilt milk!" grunted Merle rather crossly.

After that they all subsided into silence for a while. There was no sound except the monotonous lap of the waves. The sea-gulls and cormorants had flown past at sunset and gone to roost. The absolute quiet, and the dark shadows, and the silver light of the moon gave such an eerie atmosphere to the scene that presently Fay could stand it no longer.

"I guess I'll stir up the spooks!" she remarked, and scrambling to her feet she made a trumpet of her hands and called out a loud "Coo-o-ee."

To the immense astonishment of everybody an answering shout came from somewhere across the water. Instantly all sprang up and woke the echoes with their loudest possible lung-power. Before long came a splash of oars, and a boat, with a lantern fastened to its bow, entered the cove.

It advanced cautiously to the rocks, and a tall boyish figure sprang out and held it steady, while some one in a fisherman's jersey stretched out a strong hand to help the girls to enter. Only when they were safely seated and the moonlight shone on their faces did Mavis recognise their rescuers.

"Mr. Penruddock--and surely not _Bevis_!" she exclaimed.

He enjoyed her amazement.

"I've got the week-end. There's been 'flu' at school, so they've sent some of us off while Matron fumigates the rooms. I thought I'd find you at the farm. There was a pretty to-do when it grew dark and you didn't turn up. The Doctor went to the Vicarage to ask if you were there, and they said you'd gone along the rocks fishing. So we took the boat and came to look for you. I say, you were in a jolly old mess, weren't you?

Rather cold for sleeping out?"

"If we'd known you were coming over we wouldn't have started."

"I didn't know myself till the last minute. I'll bike over to Durracombe to-morrow afternoon if I may? I haven't seen you and Merle for ages.

You've given Chagmouth people an excitement! I should think half the town's waiting on the quay for you! We'd rather a business to find you.

But 'all's well that ends well,' isn't it?"

CHAPTER VII

Musical Stars

Mavis and Merle had not seen Bevis since last July, so they had an immense amount to talk about when he came over to Bridge House on the following afternoon. They had to tell him all their adventures during the summer holidays and about the changes at 'The Moorings,' and he also had much to relate about his own school and his future plans. Though he was now squire of Chagmouth, he took his new honours very quietly and made no fuss about them.

"It's something to feel I'm back at the old Coll. and can go on to Cambridge," he acknowledged in reply to the girls' questions. "The lawyers are very decent to me and give me pretty well all I want. In the spring I'm going to have a yacht of my own! They've promised me that.