"I'll tackle him for you if we meet him, never fear!" laughed Bevis.

"I'll tell him it isn't respectable to go about without a head, and he must put it on again at once! All the same, though" (more gravely), "I think, if I were you, I wouldn't come down this lane in the dark all by yourselves."

"We certainly shan't!"

"It's a good thing I didn't use the hatchet on poor Fan," said Clive, forbearing to mention that he had been huddling in the hedge, much too paralysed to take such violent measures.

"Bless her! She's an angel dog--not a demon!" murmured Merle, fondling the silky ears that pressed close to her dress. "But you gave your auntie rather a scare, darling! Another time you mustn't bounce upon her in the dark! You must be a good girlie, and remember!"

The adventurous trio were not at all sorry to be taken safely to their own gateway by Bevis, but all the same they felt a little disappointed that they had no real peep at phantom forms in the lane. The girls did not intend to tell their experience to William, but Clive let it out, so they had to give him the full account. He looked at them with awe-struck admiration.

"Suppose it had really been the ghost and it had got you!" he ventured.

William took the supernatural side of life seriously. It was no laughing matter to him. On the very next day he came to Merle with important news.

"There's something queer in the wood above the house. I was up there with Connie, and we both heard it!"

Of course Merle had to go and investigate. William escorted her at once to the spot. There was a large elm just at the edge of the wood, and certainly it was emitting very strange sounds. At intervals a curious clicking whirr came from among the branches. Mr. and Mrs. Treasure, who had also been informed of the mysterious noises, had hurried up from the farm with little Connie. They stood staring upwards in much perplexity.

"Could it be a bird?" suggested Merle.

"That's no bird! It's something beyond that!" said Mr. Treasure solemnly.

"Oh! Is it an omen? My mother's been ill the last fortnight!" exclaimed Mrs. Treasure in much distress.

"Maybe it's a warning of some kind or another!" opined the postman, who had been pa.s.sing and had joined the party.

Whatever might occasion the noises, they continued with great regularity.

The postman, continuing his round, spread news of the strange happening, and soon quite a number of people came into the wood to listen for themselves. No one was in the least able to account for the sounds, and the general opinion was that the tree was haunted. Superst.i.tion ran rife, and most of the neighbours considered it must be a portent. Poor Mrs.

Treasure began to be quite sure it had some intimate connection with her mother's illness. Several girls were weeping hysterically, and one of them asked if the end of the world was coming. Meantime, more and more people kept crowding into the wood, and the idea spread that some disaster was imminent.

"My John's out with the trawler!" wailed one woman. "I wish I'd not let him go! As like as not he'll be wrecked!"

"You never know!" agreed a friend.

Old Grandfather Treasure, who had hobbled up from the stackyard, quoted texts from Scripture and began to improve the occasion. His daughter-in- law, with Connie clasped in her arms, sobbed convulsively.

Into the midst of all this excitement suddenly strode Bevis.

"I heard about it down on the quay," he said. "I came up at once. I'll soon show you what it is!"

He was buckling climbing-irons on to his legs while he spoke, and with the aid of these he rapidly mounted the elm tree to where the boughs forked, put his hand into a hollow, and drew out a wooden box, which he brought down with him.

"It's nothing at all ghostly," he explained. "The fact is I'm fearfully keen on photographing birds, and I've just got a cinema camera. There's a sparrow-hawk's nest in the next tree, and I want to take pictures of it; only I knew the clicking of the cinema business would scare them away probably for hours, so I made a little mechanical contrivance that would go on clicking and let them get used to the noise, so that they'd take no notice when I really went to work. You can look at it if you want to."

It was such a simple explanation that those among the neighbours who had most loudly expressed superst.i.tious fears looked rather foolish, and the crowd began to melt away.

"Why didn't you tell us about it, Bevis?" asked Merle in private.

"Well, Soeurette, the fact is the birds are so shy that the fewer people who go and watch them the better for the success of a photograph. I'm afraid this will have sent them off altogether. Annoying, isn't it? Can't be helped, though, now. It's a good dodge all the same, and I shall try it again in some other tree when I can find a nest I want to take. Better luck next time, I hope!"

CHAPTER XV

Leave-takings

The precious delightful holidays at Chagmouth seemed to be flying only too fast. All the various young people were busy with their several hobbies, but they liked to meet and compare notes about them, and took a keen interest in one another's achievements. Bevis's bird-photography, and especially his cinema camera, was highly appreciated, particularly by the younger members of the party, who persistently tried to track him and follow him, greatly to his embarra.s.sment, for their presence frightened the birds away and defeated the very object for which he had gone out.

Mavis had struck up a friendship with Miss Lindsay and Lorraine Forrester, and often went to see them at the studio which they had temporarily hired. Lorraine's princ.i.p.al branch of art was sculpture, and she was modelling a bust of Morland, who came readily for sittings, though he had refused point-blank to act model for his father.

The two were on terms of what Lorraine called "sensible friendship,"

which Mavis suspected might mean a good deal more some day, if Morland stopped merely drifting and put his shoulder in dead earnest to the wheel of life. Lorraine was much the stronger character of the two, and could generally wind up Morland's ambition while he was with her, though it often came down again with a run as soon as her influence was removed.

Whether or no her feelings went deeper than she would at present allow, she was a loyal chum to him, and almost the only person who could really persuade him to work. To Claudia also Lorraine was a splendid friend. The girls lived together at a Students' Hostel in London, and shared all their jaunts and pleasures. Claudia held a scholarship at a college of music, and was training for grand opera. With her talent and lovely face she had good prospects before her, but the Castleton strain was strong in her, as also in Morland, and it needed Lorraine's insistent urging to make her realise that it does not do only to dream your ideals, that you must toil at them with strong hands and earth-stained fingers, and that on this physical plane no success can ever be achieved without hard work.

"They'll both of them absolutely have to be towed through life!" thought Mavis. "I could shake the whole family sometimes. Beata's the most practical, but the others might have strayed out of a poetry book! Of course they're all perfectly charming and romantic, but you want to frame them and glaze them and hang them in exhibitions, not set them to do ordinary every-day things. They don't fit somehow into the twentieth century. Lorraine stirs them up like yeast. She'll be the making of Morland if she elects to take on so big a job."

The Ramsay girls were very much attracted by the Macleods. They liked Fay and her father and mother, whose experience of the world and sensible views appealed to them. They often went to Bella Vista and enjoyed a chat, or sat looking at American art magazines, while Morland, who could not keep away from the grand piano, sat improvising memories of Debussy or compositions of his own. Mrs. Macleod was one of those delightful women who can appreciate other people's daughters as well as their own.

Her adoration for Fay did not hinder her from genuinely admiring Mavis and Merle and Romola, and the other young friends who flocked to her hospitable house. She had a nice word for them all, and was so sympathetic that they always wanted to tell her of their little achievements. It was a most congenial atmosphere.

"She's such a _dear_!" commented Mavis. "Now when Fay and I went out painting together, she praised my sketch, although it was a daub compared with Fay's! Once I was silly enough to show one of my efforts to Mrs.

Earnshaw; she put on her pince-nez, and looked at it most critically, and said,' Oh, you must see _Opal's_ work! She's done some really _beautiful_ paintings at Brackenfield! They know how to teach there!' I felt so squashed!"

"Mrs. Earnshaw is the limit!" agreed Merle. "The last time I went to tea there-when you had a cold and couldn't go-she asked me to play the piano.

I'd brought my music, but I didn't like to seem too anxious, so I said I'd rather not. 'Oh, never mind then!' she said, 'you play something, darling!' (to Opal). And then she whispered proudly to me, 'Opal plays magnificently since she's been to Brackenfield!' I wanted to sing out 'c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo!' only I remembered my manners. Then a friend came in, and she introduced us. 'This is Miss Ramsay,' she said casually, 'and this (with immense pride) is our daughter Opal!' I felt inclined to quote, 'Look on this picture and on that!' It was so evident which of us he was expected to take notice of! I simply wasn't to be in it at all!"

"Opal's more decent, though, since she's been at Brackenfield."

"There was room for improvement. I shall never like her, not if I know her to all eternity."

The glorious three weeks at Chagmouth were over at last, and there would be no more picnics on the beach, or walks down primrose-decked lanes, or rambles on the cliffs, or merry parties at The Haven or Bella Vista, or expeditions in search of flowers or sh.e.l.ls. The girls were almost weeping when it came to saying good-bye to Burswood Farm, and to Mr. and Mrs.

Treasure, and William and little Connie, and Ethel the small servant (brought up from the village to wait on the visitors), and Charlie, the boy who helped to milk the cows and weed the fields. Mavis and Merle had been very busy concocting one of their wonderful rhyming effusions, and wrote it in the Visitors' Book, much to the delight of their landlady, who appreciated such souvenirs.

Who welcomed us to Burswood Farm Amid the heart of Devon's charm, With skies so blue and seas so calm?

'Twas Mrs. Treasure.

Who was it chopped our logs of wood To make our fires so bright and good, And brought from Durracombe our food?

'Twas Mr. Treasure.

Who brought our luggage to the door And then went back to fetch some more, And showed us cows and pigs galore?

'Twas Charlie.

Who made our boots and shoes to shine, And brought us plates wherewith to dine, And boiled our breakfast eggs by nine?

'Twas Ethel.

Who was it gave us ferns so green From hedges that we'd often seen, And called the holiday a dream?

'Twas William.

Who was it down the pa.s.sage ran And shouted, 'Kiss me if you can!'