The Youngest Girl in the Fifth Part 23

"I wish it were Dad's parish!" said Gwen, following up her private train of thought. "If Skelwick were a separate living of its own, quite apart from North Ditton, he could do so much more. It's fearfully hampering to be under another church that's such a long way off. It doesn't give Dad a free hand at all."

"Yes--yes--yes; exactly so," commented the stranger, wrinkling up his forehead into thick lines.

He was very silent after this, as if he were turning something over in his mind, and Gwen, who began to think she had chattered too much, walked along trying to remember what she had said. They had almost reached the village by now; the sun was glaring on the red roofs below them and on the white highroad which led to North Ditton.

"This is my short cut back to the Parsonage," said Gwen, stopping at a stile; "but if you want the 'King's Arms' you must go along that footpath to the right."

"Thank you! I shall get some lunch there, and then go on to North Ditton. By the by, what time is your evening service on Sunday?"

"Half-past six," replied Gwen, wondering as she turned away why a stranger who was evidently only pa.s.sing through Skelwick should ask such a question.

"Mere curiosity, I suppose," she thought. "He seems an inquisitive old fellow."

She told her experiences to Beatrice and Winnie, but they had no more idea than herself of the ident.i.ty of the little old gentleman.

"Some tourist on a walking tour, I expect," said Beatrice. "You were quite right to show him the way; but you really must be careful, Gwen, and not talk so freely to chance people whom you meet. I'd rather you didn't go on the moors quite alone. Take one of the boys next time."

"Stumps is a far worse blabber than I am!" laughed Gwen. "He'd have given the most intimate details of our household arrangements, and what we were going to have for dinner to-day. Perhaps have added an invitation!"

"Which would surely not have been accepted."

"I don't know! Such an eccentric old fellow might be capable of anything. I shall look out for him in church to-morrow evening."

And much to Gwen's surprise he was actually there. He turned up rather late--during the singing of the first Psalm, in fact--and left in the middle of the hymn after the sermon. He sat on one of the benches close to the door, and Gwen would hardly have known of his presence had she not recognized the peculiar way in which he cleared his throat, which attracted her attention to him.

"Who was that stranger, Robert?" she asked the clerk afterwards.

"Don't know at all, Miss Gwen. I never see him in my life before.

Funny old chap, weren't he? But he put a half-crown in the plate before he left! We don't get many half-crowns at Skelwick; it's mostly pennies and threepennybits, with a few sixpences, as I collect."

"Perhaps he just came over from North Ditton for the walk; he seems to be fond of walking, and perhaps he wanted to see the village by sunset," said Gwen. "I wish he'd stayed five minutes longer and spoken to Father. He always likes to welcome strangers who come to the church."

"And those bean't a-many," returned the clerk as he locked the big door.

It was a little incident, and seemed quite unimportant at the time.

Gwen dismissed it quickly from her mind, for she had very many other things to think about just then, things that seemed paramount and far more interesting and exciting than chance tourists who asked questions.

But she was to hear of the eccentric old gentleman again.

CHAPTER XVI

First Aid

Gwen's quarrel with Netta was so complete that the two were no longer on speaking terms. Gwen was very apprehensive lest her former chum should carry out her old threat and betray the secret of the broken china, and in the first heat of her anger Netta had been inclined to do so; on further reflection, however, she decided that the consequences might be too compromising to herself, and that it would be safer to preserve silence. She had already scored by fetching Miss Trent into the schoolroom during Gwen's conversation with d.i.c.k, and the trouble which had ensued was almost enough to satisfy her. Really Netta had been rather tired of Gwen before this, and she was not sorry to seize upon an excuse for breaking their friendship. She now took up hotly with Annie Edwards, and the pair were for the moment inseparable.

"I believe it's as I thought," said Elspeth Frazer to Charlotte Perry; "Gwen Gascoyne's quite off with Netta. Now, if she can only get into a better set she may be a different girl. I want to find out what she's really like, so I'm going to be nice to her to-morrow when we go the geological excursion."

"Perhaps we have been rather horrid to her," returned Charlotte thoughtfully.

"It was mostly her own fault for putting on airs when she first came up, and then making such friends with Netta. She couldn't expect any of us to have anything to say to her after that."

"Probably she didn't know Netta."

"I dare say not; but it shows she's a bad judge of character. All the same I've got Gwen a little on my conscience, and I'm going to try what I can do. She may improve now."

Elspeth spoke the truth when she said that she had Gwen on her conscience. It had occurred to her several times lately that perhaps she had misunderstood her schoolfellow, and that she might have done more to help her. "Am I my brother's keeper?" rose uneasily to her mind. She had an uncomfortable feeling that in happier circ.u.mstances Gwen might have made a better impression on the Form, and that she and Hilda and Edith and Louise were partly responsible for her ill reception.

"I'm very sorry if we've been Pharisees!" she thought. "Of course one wanted to keep to one's own set, and not have anything to do with the tag-end of the Form--but--Well, I mean to give Gwen Gascoyne a chance now, anyhow."

The geological excursion was rather an event of the term. The Form had been learning geology with Miss Roberts, who promised to take the girls for an afternoon to Riggness, a place a few miles away on the coast, greatly noted for its fossils, where they could have a practical demonstration to supplement the information in their textbooks. On the Friday afternoon chosen for the ramble everybody started armed with hammers of all varieties, from Miss Roberts's beautiful geological pick to stout tack hammers and even toffee hammers.

"One never knows--one might find an ichthyosaurus embedded in the cliffs!" declared Charlotte Perry, brandishing a wooden mallet and an iron wedge, as if she were prepared to clear away tons of rock in the pursuit of her researches.

"Don't I wish we could!" said Miss Roberts. "But I'm afraid a few ammonites and belemnites will have to content us; those are quite difficult enough to get out intact. We shall do very well if we can only bring back some really perfect specimens for the school museum."

Riggness was on the other side of Stedburgh from Skelwick, and Gwen had never been there before, so the excursion was new to her. It was great fun going with the whole Form; the girls had come well prepared to enjoy themselves, and Miss Roberts also was in a jolly frame of mind, and had even brought with her a box of chocolates, which she handed round impartially till the contents vanished. Three compartments seemed to overflow with Rodenhurst hats. Gwen had just been following Millicent Cooper and Minna Jennings when Elspeth Frazer gripped her by the arm.

"Come in here with us, Gwen," she said, and Gwen, too much astonished for words, complied. Why she should be invited into a carriage with Hilda Browne, Charlotte Perry, Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, and Edith Arnold, the most elect set in the Form, was beyond her comprehension, but it was a very pleasant circ.u.mstance all the same. To be sure, they did not take much notice of her, but they were not disagreeable, and Elspeth spoke to her more than once in quite a friendly fashion.

It was so utterly different from their former att.i.tude towards her that Gwen almost believed she was dreaming. Perhaps it was only because they were on a holiday this afternoon, she thought, and to-morrow they would be as usual again. Well, at any rate, she would take advantage of to-day, and make the most of her opportunities, so she chatted a little with Elspeth, and sat ruminating over this amazing change of front on the part of those girls whom Netta, in mockery, had nicknamed "The Saints". Riggness was reached in twenty minutes, the train stopped at the small wayside station, and the Rodenhurst party got out in a hurry. They were to descend to the beach, and walk along the sh.o.r.e to Linkthwaite Bay, a distance of about three miles, geologizing as they went. A steep zigzag path led down the side of the cliff to the sands, and when once her flock was all collected at the bottom, Miss Roberts improved the occasion by giving a short lecture on the formation of the rocks which formed the headland, then, leading the way, she showed them how to hunt about for the ammonites embedded in the face of the cliffs, or the long belemnites that could be seen in flat terraces of rocks at the water's edge.

"Miss Roberts is right--they're uncommonly difficult to get out whole," said Elspeth, tapping gingerly round a particularly fine specimen; "just when you think you've done it, they go smash."

"It's most aggravating," agreed Gwen, whose heavy hammer, borrowed from Winnie's hen-yard, had been rather too forcible in its effects.

"I'd almost got the loveliest, biggest belemnite, and it broke into three pieces like a slate pencil."

"I like my toffee hammer best," said Charlotte, tenderly fingering one or two good specimens which she had managed to secure. "I mean to save up and buy a real geological one like Miss Roberts's."

Tapping the rocks was a fascinating occupation, and a fairly profitable one, for this part of the coast was rich in fossils. By the time the girls had walked a mile along the sh.o.r.e they had all been able to procure some souvenirs, though as yet nothing of very special importance. Miss Roberts looked about with a practised eye, and the pick end of her hammer would withdraw a specimen neatly, where clumsier blows worked havoc.

"We'll hurry on a little farther now," she said. "Those cliffs in the middle of the bay are a particularly good hunting ground, and if there's anything interesting to be found, we ought to find it there."

At the place in question the rocks were intersected by a narrow gorge, where a small stream trickled its way from the moorlands above. The shelving platforms of the cliff were here comparatively easy to climb, and the action of water and weather combined had carried down a ma.s.s of stones and debris that would be worth investigation. Miss Roberts was as active and enthusiastic as any of the girls; she jumped lightly from stone to stone, tapping likely spots with her hammer, and finally, seeing something protruding from a rock above, began to scale the face of the cliff.

"I believe I've got something here at last!" she called.

"Oh! what is it?" cried the eager girls.

"I can't tell yet till I've cleared it a little."

"Oh! Is it an ichthyosaurus, do you think?" cried Charlotte Perry.

"I'm going to send down a shower of stones--stand out of the way!"

commanded Miss Roberts, and balancing herself nimbly on a narrow ledge, she swung her hammer vigorously.