The School By The Sea Part 23

"I wish we could have stayed here for a whole day and prepared our own dinner," she said. "It is wonderful how much can be done with a three-legged iron pot and some gorse to burn under it. We would have made a most delicious stew. I should have liked to teach you to build a camp oven, but we should need a spade for that. One has to dig a hole nearly a yard deep and wide, line it with stones, light a fire in it, then pop one's iron pot on to the ma.s.s of hot ashes, and cover the whole with a roof of sticks and sods. I have often baked bread this way out in the bush. Then you ought to know how to wrap up your food in cases of green leaves and wet clay, to be cooked in the ashes round an ordinary camp fire; and how to mix flour and water cakes when there is no yeast to be had for bread."

"If only we could come and camp out with you here for a week!" sighed the girls. "It would be ripping fun!"

"Yes, if the weather were fine; but our English weather is apt to play unkind tricks. My brother is a doctor, and medical officer to a Boys'

Brigade. At Whitsuntide he went with them to camp. It was delightful for the first three days, then in the night a perfect blizzard arose and the rain fell in torrents. The wind got under his tent and tore up some of the pegs, then half the canvas came flapping down, a wet ma.s.s, over his bed. A tightly-stretched tent will keep out the weather, but if it gets loose and rests against anything inside, the rain will soak through, and you can imagine the miserable condition. In preparing breakfast, &c., all the boys got wretchedly wet, and to try to prevent their taking cold my brother dosed them all with camphor. As there were eighty in camp, you can understand it took a long time to measure out the orthodox ten drops on to each separate lump of sugar. I am afraid the last patient had full opportunity of catching the cold before he took the cure."

"I expect the ancient Britons did camp cookery when they lived here,"

suggested Irene Jordan.

"No doubt they did. There are traces that a most early and primitive people, far older than the Celts whom Julius Caesar wrote about, must have lived on this headland. We are sitting on the very remains of their little circular huts. Look! you can trace the outlines of the ancient stone walls. Here a small community must have lived, and hunted and fished, and fetched limpets and periwinkles from the beach to eat as dessert. Probably the reindeer or the Irish elk still came to feed on the mossy gra.s.s, and there would be a grand pursuit with bows and flint-tipped arrows. It must have been a great event to kill an elk. The whole primitive village would feast for days afterwards, toasting the flesh on little spits of wood. Then the women would prepare the skin and st.i.tch it with bone needles into warm garments, and the horns would be used as picks or other implements, so that nothing was wasted. Their camp cookery would have to be even more simple than ours, for they had not yet discovered the use of metals, so could not have a three-legged cauldron. They boiled their water in a very curious manner, by dropping red-hot stones into it. It must have taken a long time and given rather a funny flavour to the joints, but no doubt they tasted delicious to Neolithic appet.i.tes."

"I'd like to restore a few of the huts, and come and live in them for a few days, and pretend we were primitive folk," said Deirdre.

"Mrs. Trevellyan has often talked of excavating them," remarked Miss Birks. "I hope she will do so. It is quite possible that some very interesting relics of the Stone Age might be turned up. It would probably fix the period when they were inhabited."

"How long ago would that be?" asked one of the girls.

"Most likely about two thousand years or more."

The conversation at this point was interrupted, for in the distance appeared Miss Herbert, running, beckoning and calling to them all at once. In considerable alarm they went to meet her.

"Where's Ronnie?" she gasped. "I've lost him! Oh, has anybody seen him?

Is he here with you?"

"He's certainly not here," said Miss Birks. "We've not seen him since we met you an hour or more ago. When did you miss him, and where?"

"On the beach," sobbed Miss Herbert hysterically. "He was playing with his little shrimping net. I sat down to read my book, and I kept looking to see that he was all right, and then suddenly he had disappeared. I thought he must have trotted back round the point, so I followed, but I couldn't find him. I hoped he'd come up here to you. It's very naughty of him to run away."

"We must find him at once," said Miss Birks gravely. "Girls, you had better go in parties of three, each in a different direction. Miss Barlow and I will go with Miss Herbert. We won't give up the search until he is found."

"Did he go round the other corner of the cove?" asked Gerda.

"He couldn't. The waves were dashing quite high against the rocks. I'm sure he would never venture," declared the distracted governess.

"He's such a plucky little chap, he would venture anything."

"Oh, surely not! He couldn't! He couldn't have gone there! He may have run home!"

"Better not waste any more time, but go and see what's become of him,"

suggested Miss Birks rather dryly. She had always thought Miss Herbert too easy-going where Ronnie was concerned.

The bands of searchers set off in eight different directions, shouting, hallooing, cuckooing, and making every kind of call likely to attract the child's attention. Some took the beach and some the cliffs, while others ran to the Castle to see if he had returned to the garden. There had never been such a hue and cry on the headland. That Ronnie should be lost was an unparalleled disaster, and considering the many accidents which might possibly have happened to him, each of his friends searched with a deadly fear in her heart. Gerda, her once rosy face white as chalk, had flown along the cliffs with Deirdre and Dulcie, shouting his name again and again.

"He may have gone round the west corner, though Miss Herbert says he couldn't," she panted. "Let us get on to the cliff above, where we can look down. Oh, Ronnie! Ronnie! Cuckoo! Where are you? Cooee!"

As Gerda gave the last long-drawn-out call she stopped suddenly and motioned the others to silence. From the sh.o.r.e below there came a faint but quite unmistakable response. Creeping to the verge of the overhanging precipice Gerda peeped down. There, at a distance of forty feet beneath, stood Ronnie, a pathetic little figure, turning up a small frightened face and quavering a shrill "Cooee!" His position was one of imminent danger. The point round which he had scrambled half an hour before was now covered with great dashing waves that hurled their spray high into the air, and the narrow strip of shingle upon which he stood was rapidly growing smaller and smaller as the tide advanced. On either hand escape was impossible; behind him roared the sea, and in front towered the steep unscalable face of the cliff.

"Gerda! Gerda!" he wailed piteously.

Gerda turned to her companions almost like an animal at bay. Her lips were white as her cheeks, her eyes blazed. "We must save him!" she choked.

"The life-boat! Let us fetch the life-boat!" cried Deirdre. "You stay here and I'll run to Pontperran. Some of the others will go with me; Annie Pridwell is a fast runner. Cooee! Cooee! Ronnie is found!"

Deirdre was very swift of foot and darted off like a hare, shouting her message to the nearest band of searchers. In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time the news had spread, and all were hurrying towards the cliff.

The ill tidings reached Mrs. Trevellyan at the Castle, and, sick with anxiety, she hastened to the spot, first sending one of her men to urge speed in launching the life-boat. The tide was sweeping in fast, and nearer and nearer crept the cruel, hungry waves, as if thirsting to s.n.a.t.c.h the little figure huddled at the foot of the cliff. Ronnie was too worn out and too frightened to call now; he lay watching the advancing water with terror-stricken blue eyes, still grasping the shrimping net that had led him to this disaster.

Could the life-boat possibly arrive in time? That was the question which each spectator asked dumbly, not daring to voice it in words. Nearer and ever nearer swept the waves. Where there had been yards of shingle there were only feet; soon it was a matter of inches. There was not a sign of any boat to be seen. A sea-crow below flapped its wings like an omen of death.

"Tom and Smith have gone to fetch ropes," breathed Miss Birks, and her voice broke the strain of almost intolerable silence.

"There's not time to wait for them."

"Can we do nothing?"

"Oh, is there no way to save him?"

Then Gerda stood up, with a sudden light shining in her clear eyes.

"Yes, yes!" she cried. "There's the old windla.s.s! I'm going down to him by that!"

Years ago there had been a small find of china clay on the headland. It had been lowered in buckets over the side of the cliff to be taken away by boat, and the remains of the apparatus, a derelict, rickety affair, stood within a few yards of the place where the watchers were gathered.

A rusty bucket was still attached to the frayed, weather-worn rope twisted round the roller. To descend by so frail a support was indeed a risk so great that only the most desperate necessity could justify it. A general murmur of horror arose from those a.s.sembled.

"It's the one chance--I'm going to try it," repeated Gerda. "You can lower me gently by the handle. I'm going to save him--or die with him."

She began rapidly to unwind the windla.s.s so as to allow the bucket to reach the edge of the cliff. Realizing that she was in grim earnest, the others offered no further objection, and came eagerly to her a.s.sistance.

She had seized the rope and was about to step into the bucket when a strong hand put her aside. The stranger in the brown jersey had silently joined himself to the group.

"This is my place," he said firmly. "I am going down the cliff. Hold hard, there! Pay out the rope gently and don't let me go with a run or I'm done for. Easy! Easy! Give me more rope when I call."

So quickly did he subst.i.tute himself for Gerda that he was over the edge of the cliff almost before anyone had realized what was taking place.

The onlookers held their breath as they watched the perilous descent.

The bucket swayed from side to side and b.u.mped against the rock, but holding on to the rope with one hand the man managed with the other to keep himself from injury. Down--down--down he swung, till, clear of the cliff, he dangled, as it seemed, in mid-air.

"Now, rope! More rope!" he called. "Quicker!"

The windla.s.s creaked on the rusty axle, there was a rush, a drop, then a shout of triumph. The next moment he had s.n.a.t.c.hed Ronnie in his arms.

Ringing cheers reached him from above, but the battle was only half won after all. There was still no sign of the life-boat; a wave swept already over his feet. The only road to safety lay up the cliffside.

Would the old weather-worn rope stand the double strain? There was no time for questioning. Telling Ronnie to hold on tightly round his neck he once more entered the bucket and gave the signal for the ascent. To the anxious hearts of the watchers the next few minutes seemed an eternity. Those at the windla.s.s turned the handle slowly and steadily in response to the shouts from below. If there had been danger before, the peril now was trebled. With a child clinging round his neck it was far more difficult for the stranger to keep clear of the rock. The old worn-out machine creaked and groaned like one in mortal agony. Life or death hung on the strength of a rusted piece of chain and a half-rotten hempen rope. Up! Up! Up! Would the suspense never end? Only a few yards now and the watchers were waiting to help. Once more the rickety axle creaked and shivered, then the stranger's head and shoulders appeared over the edge of the cliff, and eager hands grasped him and pulled him gently forward on to firm ground. He had lost his hat in the descent, and now the sunlight fell full on his clear-cut features and his fair, closely-cropped hair.

"You--L'Estrange! You! You!" shrieked Mrs. Trevellyan wildly.

But for answer he placed Ronnie in her arms, and pushing his way through the excited group ran off over the warren and was out of sight before the lookers-on had recovered from their amazement. By the time the life-boat had made its way round the coast from Pontperran harbour great breakers were crashing against the face of the rock with a dull booming and showers of foam, as if angry to have been cheated of their prey.

"No one could live for a moment in this cruel sea!" exclaimed Deirdre, shuddering with horror as she thought how the fierce water would have dashed and tossed and crushed the little helpless figure left to the mercy of the waves.

"Ronnie will be doubly dear to us now," said Miss Birks, marshalling her girls together and turning to leave the cliff.