The Head Girl at the Gables Part 31

"There was a young person named Vivvie, Who liked all her schoolmates to chivvy----"

But at this point Claudia suddenly, and perhaps rather fortunately, interrupted.

"What's that queer noise?" she asked. "It sounds like a sort of suppressed giggling!" There was dead silence for a moment.

"I don't hear anything," said Lorraine.

"I do, though!"

"It's a kind of snorting!"

"I believe it's at the back of the summer-house."

Patsie dashed up and darted round, and, with a yell of vengeance, flung herself upon three juniors crouched with their impudent noses pressed to a crack in the boards, through which they had been spectators as well as listeners during the proceedings. A fourth child was in the very act of descending from the garden wall.

"You young blighters! How dare you! You deserve to break your legs, swarming over a high wall like that! It would just have served you right if you had, and I shouldn't have been sorry for you. Not the least teeny tiny bit, though you limped about on crutches for the rest of your young lives! Come here at once!"

As a speedy method of collecting the offenders, Patsie seized them by their pig-tails, and hauled them in a bunch to the front of the summer-house. Lorraine eyed them severely.

"If this had been a Masonic meeting," she remarked, "you'd have been obliged to have your heads chopped off for eavesdropping. Freemasons keep a sword-bearer on duty, so I'm told, to kill anybody who tries to intrude. I'm not sure if we oughtn't to do something----"

She paused, as if searching for a suitable punishment.

"Cut off their pig-tails," suggested Patsie grimly.

"No! no!" yelled the interlopers, in genuine alarm.

"I certainly shall if you ever try to come eavesdropping again. I give you three seconds to get back to the house. Now then--scoot!"

The juniors did not wait to be told twice, but with their precious pig-tails flying in the wind, raced up the garden at record speed, and disappeared into the gymnasium. Lorraine laughed as she watched their long legs careering away.

"I'm afraid they heard the cream of it!" she admitted. "It was rather clever of them, wasn't it? That little Mona is the limit! She leads all the others. I shall make a point of sitting upon her hard for the rest of the term."

"Solomon said in accents mild, 'Spare the rod and spoil the child; Be they man, or be they maid, Whack them, and wollop them,' Solomon said!"

quoted Patsie, choking over her last piece of chocolate.

CHAPTER XVIII

An Adventure

To give Madame Bertier her dues, it was she who suggested the wild-flower ramble upon the cliffs. It was for seniors only, and it had the immense advantage, in schoolgirl eyes, that it was held upon a Thursday afternoon; Madame had urged Thursday and stuck to the point.

"It was real sporty of her," chortled Patsie. "Miss Kingsley or Miss Janet always try to fix up rambles or things of that kind for Sat.u.r.days, and then it's taking away a holiday instead of giving us one. We've all generally got something on at home for Sat.u.r.day afternoons, and though, of course, we like rambles all right, it isn't quite good enough to have to throw up our home engagements for them. Three cheers for Madame!"

"Bless her!" murmured Audrey, ecstatically. "We shall miss French on Thursday afternoon and I hadn't done a single line of my exercise or learnt my poetry. It's moved a weight from my mind."

"Don't congratulate yourself too soon, old sport! She'll probably tell us to give in the exercises."

"Well, she can't hear the poetry at any rate."

"Unless she makes us say it on the cliffs!"

"Oh, surely there won't be time for that?"

"Um--I don't know! Never trust a teacher to give one a _real_ holiday!

Miss Janet always tries to 'combine instruction with amus.e.m.e.nt', as the old-fashioned children's books used to put it. Madame will probably try to teach us the French names of the flowers at any rate."

"Perhaps she doesn't know them!" said Audrey hopefully.

There were eighteen seniors in the school, and on the Thursday in question they were all ready by half-past two, armed with baskets or tin cases in which to put their flowers. Their exodus was watched with envy by the juniors, who had appealed in vain to be allowed to join the excursion.

"Eighteen are quite a big enough party to keep together," decreed Miss Kingsley, "and you juniors had an aquarium expedition only last week."

"But that was on a Sat.u.r.day!" objected a valiant spirit, anxious to obtain a Thursday holiday.

Miss Kingsley, however, couldn't or wouldn't see the point, and withered the speaker with an extra-scholastic glare.

The elder girls were not at all sorry to be going alone. They clung to their privileges as seniors most tenaciously.

"We don't want the whole rag-tag and bobtail of the school trailing after us," said Dorothy. "It's quite enough in my opinion to include the Fifth. I hate marching about in a troop, like trippers."

"Well, we can spread out when we get on to the cliffs. There's no need to be so fearfully particular to keep together."

Madame Bertier, among her many other accomplishments, possessed some knowledge of botany. She had studied the wild flora of the district, and knew where to take the girls to secure a variety of the best specimens.

The walk she chose was down a lane, over some fields and across a portion of the moor, where Lorraine, who thought she knew all the neighbourhood of Porthkeverne, had never happened to go before. As in most rambles of the sort, it was a difficult task for the mistress to keep all the members of her flock in sight. Some were always on ahead, and others lagging behind, while a few would make detours over gates or banks in quest of particular specimens. There was the usual amount of jodelling, cuckooing and calling, and running back to fetch laggers; there was frantic excitement over a patch of wild strawberries, and great congratulation when several rare flowers were found and carefully put away in tin cases. As generally happens in natural history rambles, there was decided rivalry among the numerous budding botanists. Each wanted to be the first to secure a new specimen and to take it in triumph to show to Madame. Lorraine, who was not superior to the common weakness, had not yet had any luck at all. Seeing the others heading in a bee-line for a small tower on the hill, and, knowing she could catch them up there, she determined to branch off to the left, cross a d.y.k.e and go by herself over a particularly interesting-looking piece of the moor. If she were quick she would probably reach the tower as soon as most of the others; they would be sure to sit down there to rest and compare specimens. She would have asked Claudia to go with her, but Claudia was on in front talking to Dorothy.

"If I jodel to her it will give the show away," thought Lorraine. "No! I must do it on my own."

So she jumped a d.y.k.e, scrambled down a bank, and in a few minutes had reached a tract of wild heather-clad land that adjoined the cliff. Small bushes, bracken, and brambles mixed among the heather made walking difficult, and there were several boggy places which she was obliged to skirt. This took her farther than she had intended. Looking round she could not see her landmark, the tower.

"It must be over there to the right," she said to herself. "Hallo, what a gorgeous silver fritillary! I'll get it if I possibly can."

Lorraine was rather keen on entomology, and though she had no net with her, she pulled off her hat and ran in eager pursuit of the b.u.t.terfly.

It was an exciting chase, several times she nearly secured it, but it managed to elude her and flitted tantalizingly away. At last it paused and hovered, then settled on a spray of wild rose. Lorraine crept up stealthily, hat in hand. Surely she had her prize now? But just at the critical moment, again the lovely wings fluttered; she made a grab and a dash forward simultaneously, then suddenly the earth seemed to open and swallow her up.

As a matter of fact, she fell about nine feet, and lodged on a heap of shale. It was so totally unexpected, and so amazing, that she lay there for a moment or two almost stunned. Then she moved cautiously and sat up. She realized what had happened. In her mad rush after the b.u.t.terfly she had not noticed where she was going, and she had fallen down the shaft of an old tin-mine. Above her were its rocky sides, with bushes and a patch of blue sky at the top. Below the ledge where she sat it sloped away towards a black hole. Lorraine, still a little dazed, shuddered as she looked down in the direction of that dark pit. She was unhurt, and she was safe enough on the edge of the shale, but how was she to get up to the level of the ground above? The sides of the shaft were far too steep to climb, and a slip might mean a plunge down, down, down into that horrible depth that loomed below.

She stood up cautiously and shouted with all the force of her lungs.

There was no reply. Again and again she called, but beyond the alarm-note of a blackbird there was no response. She began to grow seriously frightened. She must be some distance from the tower, and she had wandered from the rest of the party. Suppose n.o.body heard her calling? The bare idea sent her breath in gasps. In time, no doubt, they would notice her absence, but they would not exactly know where to search for her. They might even imagine that she had gone home. Suppose the night came on before she was found? Suppose even days were to pa.s.s and n.o.body remembered the disused mine or thought of looking for her there! With white cheeks and trembling hand she leaned against the side of the shaft and called with what breath she could still muster.

There was a rustling among the heather above, and a face suddenly blocked the blue of the sky--a vacant face that peered down with the curiosity of a child. Lorraine gave a fluttering cry of relief.

"Landry!" she called. "Landry!"