Armed with their instructions, pocket compa.s.ses, and note-books, the girls set off in cheerful spirits. They dearly loved these country rambles, and heartily approved of this particular method of education.

It was a beautiful bright afternoon towards the middle of February, one of those glorious days that seem to antic.i.p.ate the spring, and to make one forget that winter exists at all. The sky was cloudless and blue, not with the serene blue of summer, but with that fainter, almost greenish shade so noticeable in the early months of the year, and growing pearly-white where it touched the horizon. There was a joyous feeling of returning life in the air; a thrush, perhaps remembering that it was St. Valentine's Eve, carolled with full rich voice in the bare thorn tree, small birds chased each other among the bushes, and great flocks of rooks were feeding up and down the ploughed fields. In sheltered corners an early wild flower or two had forestalled the season, and the girls picked an occasional celandine star or primrose bud, and even a few cherished violets. The catkins on the hazels were shaking down showers of golden pollen, and the sallows were covered with silky, silvery tufts of palm; the low sycamores in the hedge showed rosy buds almost ready to burst, and shoots of bramble or sprays of newly-opened honeysuckle leaves formed green patches here and there on the old walls.

The girls walked at a brisk, swinging pace, in no particular order, so long as they kept together, and with licence to stop to examine specimens within reasonable limits of time. Miss Harding, who was herself a fairly good naturalist, might be consulted at any moment, and all unknown or doubtful objects, if portable, were popped in a basket and taken back to be identified by the supreme authority, Miss Birks.

Though they fully appreciated the warren as a playground, it was delightful to have a wider field for their activities, and the opportunity of making some fresh find or some interesting discovery to report at head-quarters. Miss Birks kept a Nature Diary hung on the wall of the big schoolroom, and there was keen compet.i.tion as to which should be the first to supply the various items that made up its weekly chronicle. It was even on record that Rhoda Wilkins once ran a whole mile at top speed in order to steal a march on Emily Northwood, and claim for VA the proud honour of announcing the first bird's nest of the year.

The special point for which the girls were bound this afternoon was a ruined windmill that stood on a small eminence, and formed rather a landmark in the district. From here an excellent view might be obtained of both the outline of the coast and the course of the little river that ambled down from the hills and poured itself into the sea by the tiny village of Kergoff. No fitter spot could have been chosen for a general survey, and as the girls reached the platform on which the building stood, and ranged themselves under its picturesque ragged sails, they pulled out their note-books and got to business.

It was a glorious panorama that lay below them--brown heathery common and rugged cliff, steep crags against which the growing tide was softly lapping, a babbling little river that wound a noisy course between boulders and over rounded, age-worn stones, tumbling in leaps from the hills, dancing through the meadows, and flowing with a strong, steady swirl through the whitewashed hamlet ere it widened out to join the harbour. And beyond all there was the sea--the shimmering, glittering sea--rolling quietly in with slow, heavy swell, and dashing with a dull boom against the lighthouse rocks, bearing far off on its bosom a chance vessel southward bound, and floating one by one the little craft that had been beached in the anchorage, till they strained at their cables, and bobbed gaily on the rising water. Only one or two of the girls perhaps realized the intense beauty and poetry of the scene; most were busy noting the natural features, and calculating possible distances, marking here a farm or there a hill crest, and trying to reproduce in some creditable fashion the eccentric windings of the river.

"That little crag below us just blocks the view of the road," said Deirdre. "I can't get the bend in at all. Do you mind, Miss Harding, if some of us go to the bottom of the hill and trace it out?"

"Certainly, if you like," replied the mistress. "I'm tired, so I shall wait for you here. It won't take you longer than ten minutes."

"Oh, dear, no! We'll race down. I say, who'll come?"

Dulcie, Betty, Annie, Barbara, and Gerda were among the energetically disposed, but Evie, Romola, and Elyned preferred to wait with Miss Harding.

"We'll copy yours when you come back," they announced shamelessly.

"Oh, we'll see about that! Ta-ta!" cried the others, as they started at a fair pace down the hill.

The road was certainly the most winding of any they had attempted to trace that afternoon. It twisted like a cork-screw between high banks, then hiding beneath a steep crag plunged suddenly through a small fir wood, and crossed the river by a stone bridge. The girls had descended at a jog trot, trying to take their bearings as they went. Owing to the great height of the banks it was impossible to see what was below, therefore it was only when they had pa.s.sed the wood that they noticed for the first time an old grey house on the farther side of the bridge.

It was built so close to the stream that its long veranda actually overhung the water, which swept swirling against the lower wall of the building. Many years must have pa.s.sed since it last held a tenant, for creepers stretched long tendrils over the broken windows, and gra.s.s grew green in the gutters. The dilapidated gate, the weed-grown garden, the weather-worn, paintless woodwork, the damp-stained walls, the damaged roof, all gave it an air of almost indescribable melancholy, so utterly abandoned, deserted, and entirely neglected did it appear.

"Hallo! Why, this must be 'Forster's Folly'!" exclaimed Barbara. "I'd no idea we were so close to it. We couldn't see even the chimneys from the windmill."

"What an extraordinary name for an even more extraordinary house!" said Deirdre. "Who in the name of all that's weird was 'Forster'? And why is this rat's-hall-looking place called his folly?"

"He was a lawyer in the neighbourhood, I believe, and, like some lawyers, just a little bit too sharp. It was when the railway was going to be made. He heard it was coming this way, and he calculated it would just have to cut across this piece of land, so he bought the field and built this house on it in a tremendous hurry, because he thought he could claim big compensation from the railway company; and then after all they took the line round by Avonporth instead, five miles away, and didn't want to buy his precious house, so he'd had all the trouble and expense for nothing."

"Served him right!" grunted the girls.

"They say he was furious," continued Barbara. "He was so disgusted that he never even painted the woodwork or laid out the garden properly. He tried to let it, but n.o.body wanted it; so he was obliged to come and live in it himself for economy's sake. He was an old bachelor, and he and a sour old housekeeper were here for a year or two, and then he died very suddenly, and rather mysteriously. His relations came and took away the furniture, but they haven't been able to sell the house, it's in such a queer, out-of-the-way place. Then everybody in the neighbourhood said it was haunted, and not a soul would go near it for love or money."

"It looks haunted," said Dulcie with a shiver. "Just the kind of lonely-moated-grange place where you'd expect to see a 'woman in white'

at the window."

"Never saw anything so spooky in my life before," agreed Deirdre.

"Did you say it used to belong to Mr. Forster, the lawyer?" asked Gerda.

"The one who had business at St. Gonstan?"

"I don't know where he had business, but it was certainly Mr. Forster, the lawyer. I don't suppose there'd be more than one."

"When did he die?"

"About five years ago, I fancy. Why do you want to know?"

"Oh, nothing! It doesn't matter in the least," returned Gerda, shrinking into her sh.e.l.l again.

"It's the weirdest, queerest place I've ever seen," said Deirdre. "Do let's go a little nearer. Ugh! What would you take to spend a night here alone?"

"Nothing in the wide world you could offer me," protested Betty.

"I'd go stark, staring mad!" affirmed Annie.

"Hallo!" squealed Dulcie suddenly. "What's become of Gerda? She's sneaked off!"

"Why, there she is, peeping through one of the broken windows!"

"Oh, I say! I must have a squint too, to see if there's really a ghost!"

fluttered Annie.

"You goose! You wouldn't see ghosts by daylight!"

"Well, I don't care anyhow. I'm going to peep. Cuckoo, Gerda! What can you see inside?"

When Annie Pridwell led the way, it followed of necessity that the others went after her, so they scurried to catch her up, and all ran in a body over the bridge and into the nettle-grown garden. Gerda was still perched on the window-sill of one of the lower rooms, and she turned to her schoolfellows with a strange light in her eyes and a look of unwonted excitement on her face.

"I put my hand through the broken pane and pulled back the catch," she volunteered. "We've only to push the window up and we could go inside."

"Oh! Dare we?"

"Suppose the ghost caught us?"

"Oh, I say! Do let us go!"

"It would be such gorgeous sport!"

"I'm game, if you all are."

As usual it was Annie Pridwell who led the adventure. Pushing up the window, she climbed over the sill and dropped inside, then turning round offered a hand to Gerda, who sprang eagerly after her. It was imperative for Deirdre, Dulcie, Betty, and Barbara to follow; they were not going to be outdone in courage, and they felt that at any rate there was safety in numbers. There was nothing very terrible about the dining-room, in which they found themselves, it only looked miserable and forlorn, with the damp paper hanging in strips from the walls, and heaps of straw left by the remover's men strewn about the floor.

"We'll go and explore the rest of the house," said Annie, with a half-nervous chuckle. "Come along, anybody who's game!"

n.o.body wished to remain behind alone, so they went all together, holding each other's arms, squealing, or gasping, or giggling, as occasion prompted. They peeped into the empty drawing-room and the silent kitchen, where the grate was red with rust; hurried past a dark hall cupboard, and found themselves at the foot of the staircase.

"Oh, I daren't go up; I simply daren't!" bleated Barbara piteously.

"Suppose the ghost lives up there?" suggested Betty.

"My good girl, no self-respecting spook likes to make an exhibition of itself," returned Annie. "The sight of six of us would scare it away. I don't mean to say I'd go alone, but now we're all here it's different."

"We've been more than Miss Harding's ten minutes," vacillated Deirdre.

"Oh, bother! One doesn't often get the chance to explore. Come along, you sillies, what are you frightened at?"

So together they mounted the stairs and took a hasty survey of the upper story. Here the remover's men had evidently done their work even more carelessly than down below, for though the furniture had been taken away, enough rubbish had been left to provide a rummage sale. All kinds of old articles not worth removing were lying where they had been thrown down on the bedroom floor--old curtains, old shoes, sc.r.a.ps of mouldy carpet, the laths of venetian blinds, broken lamp shades, empty bottles, torn magazines, cracked pottery, worn-out brushes, and decrepit straw pallia.s.ses.