"I wanted to see whether the young ladies would find it out."
"No compliment to our genius," said his aunt.
"I assure you, like Mrs. Bennet, 'there is plenty of that sort of thing,'" said Anna. "Some of them were mystified, but Gillian and Dolores Mohun were in ecstasies."
"Ecstasies from that cheerful name?"
"She is the New Zealand niece-Mr. Maurice Mohun's daughter. They carried it home to their seniors, and of course the verdict was 'too strong for Rockquay atmosphere,'" said his aunt.
"So it did not even go to Uncle Lance," said Anna. "Shall you try the 'Pursuivant'?"
"On the contrary, I shall put in the pepper and salt I regretted, and try the 'Censor'."
"Indeed?" observed his uncle, in a tone of surprise.
"Oh," said Gerald coolly, "I have sent little things to the 'Censor' before, which they seem to regard in the light of pickles and laver."
The 'Censor' was an able paper on the side of philosophical politics, and success in that quarter was a feather in the young man's cap, though not quite the kind of feather his elders might have desired.
"Journalism is a kind of native air to us," said Mrs. Grinstead, "but from 'Pur.'"
"'Pur' is the element of your dear old world, Cherie," said Gerald, "and here am I come to do your bidding in its precincts, for a whole long vacation."
He spoke lightly, and with a pretty little graceful bow to his aunt, but there was something in his eyes and smile that conveyed to her a dread that he meant that he only resigned himself for the time and looked beyond.
"Uncle Lance is coming," volunteered Adrian.
"Yes," said Geraldine. "Chorister that he was, and champion of Church teaching that he is, he makes the cause of Christian education everywhere his own, and is coming down to see what he can do inexpensively with native talent for concert, or masque, or something-'Robin Hood' perhaps."
"Ending in character with a rush on the audience?" said Gerald. "Otherwise 'Robin Hood' is stale."
"Tennyson has spoilt that for public use," said Mrs. Grinstead. "But was not something else in hand?"
"Only rehearsed. It never came off," said Gerald.
"The most awful rot," said Adrian. "I would have nothing to do with it."
"In consequence it was a failure," laughed Gerald.
"It was 'The Tempest', wasn't it?" said Anna.
"Not really!" exclaimed Mrs. Grinstead.
"About as like as a wren to an eagle," said Gerald.
"We had it at the festival last winter. The authors adapted the plot, that was all."
"The authors being-
"The present company," said Gerald, "and Uncle Bill, with Uncle Lance supplying or adapting music, for we were not original, I assure you."
"It was when Uncle Clem was ill," put in Anna, "and somehow I don't think we took in the accounts of it."
"No," said Gerald, "and nobody did it con amore, though we could not put it off. I should like to see it better done."
"Such rot!" exclaimed Adrian. "There's an old man, he was Uncle Lance with the great white beard made out of Kit's white bear's skin, and he lived in a desert island, where there was a shipwreck-very jolly if you could see it, only you can't-and the savages-no, the wreckers all came down."
"What, in a desert island?"
"It was not exactly desert. Gerald, I say, do let there be savages. It would be such a lark to have them all black, and then I'd act."
"What an inducement!"
"Then somebody turned out to be somebody's enemy, and the old chap frightened them all with squibs and crackers and fog-horns, till somebody turned out to be somebody else's son, and married the daughter."
"If you trace 'The Tempest' through that version you are clever," said Gerald.
"I told you it was awful rot," said Adrian.
"There's Merrifield! Excuse me, Cherie." And off he went.
"The sentiments of the actors somewhat resembled Adrian's. It was too new, and needed more learning and more pains, so they beg to revert to 'Robin Hood'. However, I should like to see it well got up for once, if only by amateurs. Miranda has a capital song by Uncle Bill, made for Francie's soprano. She cuts you all out, Anna."
"That she does, in looks and voice, but she could not act here in public. However, we will lay it before the Mouse-trap. Was it printed?"
"Lance had enough for the performers struck off. Francie could send some up."
"After all," said Cherie, "the desert island full of savages and wreckers is not more remarkable than the 'still-vex'd Bermoothes' getting between Argiers and Sicily."
"It really was one of the Outer Hebrides," said Gerald, with the eagerness that belonged to authorship, "so that there could be any amount of Scottish songs. Prospero is an old Highland chief, who has been set adrift with his daughter-Francie Vanderkist to wit-and floated up there, obtaining control over the local elves and brownies. Little Fely was a most dainty sprite."
"I am glad you did not make Ariel an electric telegraph," said his aunt.
"Tempting, but such profanity in the face of Vale Leston was forbidden, and so was the comic element, as bad for the teetotallers."
"But who were the wreckers?" asked Anna.
"Buccaneers, my dear, singing songs out of the 'Pirate'- schoolmaster, organist, and choir generally. They had captured Prospero's supplanter (he was a Highland chief in league with the Whigs) by the leg, while the exiled fellow was Jacobite, so as to have the songs dear to the feminine mind. They get wrecked on the island, and are terrified by the elves into releasing Alonso, etc. Meantime Ferdinand carries logs, forgathers with Miranda and Prospero-and ends-" He flourished his hands.
"And it wasn't acted!"
"No, we were getting it up before Christmas," said Gerald, "and then-"
He looked towards Clement, whose illness had then been at the crisis.
"Very inconsiderate of me," said Clement, smiling, "as the old woman said when her husband did not die before the funeral cakes were stale. But could it not come off at the festival?"
"Now," said Gerald, "that the boy is gone, I may be allowed a glass of beer. Is that absurdity to last on here?"
"Adrian's mother would not let him come on any other terms," said Mrs. Grinstead.
"Did she also stipulate that he was never to see a horse? Quite as fatal to his father."
"You need not point the unreason, but consider how she has suffered."
"You go the way to make him indulge on the sly."
"True, perhaps," said Clement, "but I mean to take the matter up when I know the poor little fellow better."
Gerald gave a little shrug, a relic of his foreign ancestry, and Anna proposed a ride to Clipstone to tell Gillian Merrifield of the idea.
"Eh, the dogmatic damsel that came with you the year we had 'Midsummer Night's Dream'?"
"Yes, sister to Uncle Bernard's wife. Do you know Jasper Merrifield? Clever man. Always photographing."
So off they went, Gerald apparently in a resigned state of mind, and came upon dogs and girls in an old quarry, where Mysie had dragged them to look for pretty stones and young ferns to make little rockeries for the sale of work. 'The Tempest' was propounded, and received with acclamation, though the Merrifields declared that they could not sing, and their father would not allow them to do so in public if they could!
Dolores looked on in a sort of silent scorn at a young man who could talk so eagerly about "a trumpery raree-show," especially for an object that she did not care about. None of them knew how far it was the pride of authorship and the desire of pastime. Only Jasper said when he heard their report-
"Underwood is a queer fellow! One never knows where to have him. Socialist one minute, old Tory the next."
"A dreamer?" asked Dolores.
"If you like to call him so. I believe he will dawdle and dream all his life, and never do any good!"
"Perhaps he is waiting."
"I don't believe in waiting," said Jasper, wiping the dust off his
photographic glasses. "Why, he has a lovely moor of his own, and does not know how to use it!"
"Conclusive," said Gillian.
CHAPTER X. NOBLESSE OBLIGE
The other won't agree thereto, So here they fall to strife; With one another they did fight About the children's life. Babes in the Wood.
"I say, Aunt Cherry," said Adrian, "the fossil forest is to be uncovered to-morrow, and Merrifield is going to stay for it, and I'm going down with him."
"Fossil forest? What, in the Museum?"
"No, indeed. In Anscombe Cove, they call it. There's a forest buried there, and bits come up sometimes. To-morrow there's to be a tremendous low tide that will leave a lot of it uncovered, and Merrifield and I mean to dig it out, and if there are some duplicate bits they may be had for the bazaar."
"Yes, they have been begging Fergus's duplicates for a collection of fossils," said Anna. "But can it be safe? A low tide means a high tide, you know."
"Bosh!" returned Adrian.
"Miss Mohun is sure to know all about the tides, I suppose," said Clement; "if her nephew goes with her consent I suppose it is safe."
"If-" said Mrs. Grinstead.
Adrian looked contemptuous, and muttered something, on which Anna undertook to see Miss Mohun betimes, and judge how the land, or rather the sea, lay, and whether Fergus was to be trusted.
It would be a Saturday, a whole holiday, on which he generally went home for Sunday, and Adrian spent the day with him, but the boys' present scheme was, to take their luncheon with them and spend the whole day in Anscombe Cove. This was on the further side of the bay from the marble works, shut in by big cliffs, which ran out into long chains of rocks on either side, but retreated in the midst, where a little stream from the village of Anscombe, or rather from the moorland beyond, made its way to the sea.
The almanacks avouched that on this Saturday there would be an unusually low tide, soon after twelve o'clock, and Fergus had set his heart on investigating the buried forest that there was no doubt had been choked by the combined forces of river and sea. So Anna found that notice had been sent to Clipstone of his intention of devoting himself to the cove and not coming home till the evening, and that his uncle and aunt did not think there was any danger, especially as his constant henchman, Davie Blake, was going with him, and all the fisher-boys of the place were endowed with a certain instinct for their own tides. The only accident Jane Mohun had ever known was with a stranger.
Anna had no choice but to subside, and the boys started as soon as the morning's tide would have gone down sufficiently, carrying baskets for their treasures containing their luncheon, and apparently expecting to find the forest growing upright under the mud, like a wood full of bushes.
The cove for which they were bound was on the further side of the chain of rocks, nearly two miles from Rockquay, and one of the roads ran along the top of the red cliffs that shut it in, with no opening except where the stream emerged, and even that a very scanty bank of shingle.
In spite of all assurances, Anna could not be easy about her darling, and when afternoon came, and the horses were brought to the door, she coaxed Gerald into riding along the cliffs in the Anscombe direction, where there was a good road, from whence they could turn down a steep hill into the village, and thence go up a wild moor beyond, or else continue along the coast for a considerable distance.
As they went out she could see nothing of the boys, only rocks rising through an expanse of mud, and the sea breaking beyond. She would have preferred continuing the cliff road, but Gerald had a turn for the moor, and carried her off through the village of Anscombe, up and up, till they had had a lively canter on the moor, and looked far out at sea. When they turned back and had reached the cliff road, what had been a sheet of mud before had been almost entirely covered with sparkling waves, and there was white foam beating against some of the rocks.
"I hope Adrian is gone home," sighed Anna.
"Long ago, depend on it," returned Gerald carelessly; but the next moment his tone changed. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, and pointed with his whip to a rock, or island, at the end of the range of rocks.
He was much the more long-sighted of the two, and she could only first discern that there was something alive upon the rock.
"Oh!" she cried, "is it the boys-I can't see?"
"I can't tell. It is boys, maybe fishers. I must get out to them," he replied. "Now, Anna, be quiet-use your senses. It is somebody, anyway. I saw the opening of a path down the rock just now," and he threw himself off his horse, and threw her the bridle. "You ride to the first house; find where there is a Coast-guard station, or any fisherman to put out a boat. No time to be lost."
"Oh, is it, is it-" cried the bewildered girl, with no hand to feel for her eyeglass. "Where shall I go?"
"I tell you I can't tell," he shouted in answer to both questions, half angrily, already on his way. "Don't dawdle," and he disappeared.
Poor Anna, she had no inclination to dawdle, but the two horses were a sore impediment, and she went on some way without seeing any houses. Should she turn back to the little road leading down from Anscombe? but that was rough and difficult, and could not be undertaken quickly with a led horse; or should she make the best of her way to the nearest villas, outskirts of Rockquay? However, after a moment the swish of bicycles was heard, and up came two young men, clerks apparently, let loose by Saturday. They halted, and in answer to her agitated question where there was a house, pointed to a path which they said led down to the Preventive station, and asked whether there had been an accident, and whether they could be of use. They were more able to decide what was best to be done than she could be, and they grew more keenly interested when they understood for whom she feared. Petros White, brother to Mrs. Henderson, and nephew to Aunt Adeline's husband, was one of them, the other, a youth also employed at the marble works. This latter took the horses off her hands, while Petros showed her the way to the Coast-guard station by a steep path, leading to a sort of ledge in the side of the cliff, scooped out partly by nature and partly by art, where stood the little houses covered with slate.
There the mistress was looking out anxiously with a glass; while below, the Preventive man was unlocking the boat-house, having already observed the peril of the boys, but lamenting the absence of his mate. Petros ran down at speed to offer his help, and Anna could only borrow the glass, through which she plainly saw the three boys, bare-legged, sitting huddled up on the top of the rock, but with the waves still a good way from them, and their faces all turned hopefully towards the promontory of rock along which she could see Gerald picking his way; but there was evidently a terrible and fast- diminishing space between its final point and the rock of refuge.
Anna was about to rush down, and give her help with an oar; but the woman withheld her, saying that she would only crowd the boat and retard the rescue, for which the two were quite sufficient, only the danger was that the current of the stream might make the tide rise rapidly in the bay. There were besides so many rocks and shoals, that it was impossible to proceed straight across, but it was needful absolutely to pass the rock and then turn back on it from the open sea. It was agonizing for the sister to watch the devious course, and she turned the glass upon the poor boys, plainly making out Adrian's scared, restless look, as he clung to the fisher-lad, and Fergus nursing his bag of specimens with his knees drawn up. By and by Gerald was wading, and with difficulty preventing himself from being washed off the rocks. He paused, saw her, and waved encouragement. Then he plunged along, not off his feet, and reached the island where the boys were holding out their arms to him. There ensued a few moments of apparently hot debate, and she saw, to her horror and amazement, that he was thrusting back one boy, who struggled and almost fell off the rock in his passion, as Gerald lifted down the little fisher-boy. Of course she could not hear the words, "Come, boy. No, Adrian. Noblesse oblige. I will come back, never fear. I can take but one, don't I tell you. I will come back."
Those were Gerald's
words, while Adrian threw himself on the rock, sobbing and screaming, while Fergus sat still, hugging his bag. Anna could have screamed with her brother, for the boat seemed to have overshot the mark, and to be going quite aloof, when all depended upon a few minutes. She could hardly hear the words of the Preventive woman, who had found a second glass: "Never you fear, miss, the boat will be up in time."
She could not speak. Her heart was in wild rebellion as she thought of the comparative value of her widowed mother's only son with that of the fisher-boy, or even of Fergus, one of so large a family. She could not or would not look to see what Gerald was doing with the wretched little coast boy; but she heard her companion say that the gentleman had put the boy down to scramble among the rocks, and he himself was going back to the pair on the rock, quite swimming now.
She durst look again, and saw that he had scrambled up to the boys' perch, and had lifted Adrian up, but there was white spray dashing round now. She could not see the boat.
"They have to keep to the other side," explained the woman. "God keep them! It will be a near shave. The gentleman is taking off his coat!"
Again there was a leap of foam-over! over! Then all was blotted out, but the woman exclaimed-
"There they are!"
"Oh! where?"
"One swimming! He is floating the other."
Anna could see no longer. She dashed aside the telescope, then begged to be told, then looked again. No prayer would come but "Save him! save him!"
There was a call quite close.
"Mr. Norris, sir, put off your boat! Master Fergus-Oh! is he off?" and, drenched and breathless, Davy sank down on the ground at their feet, quite spent, unable at first to get out a word after those panting ones; but in a minute he spoke in answer to the agonized "Which? Who?"
"Master Fergus is swimming. The young sir couldn't."
Anna recollected how her mother's fears and entreaties had prevented Mr. Harewood from teaching Adrian to swim.
"Gent is floating him," added the boy. "He took me first, because I could get over the rocks and get help soonest. He is a real gentleman, he is."
The Long Vacation Page 7