Part 17 (1/2)
”I suppose it was always wise to leave a loophole in case the cure didn't come off!” laughed Mavis.
They had been walking by a footpath across the meadows, and found themselves in the little village of Bamberton, a small place with picturesque cottages close to a river. Miss Mitch.e.l.l, who was an enthusiast upon architecture, marched her party off to view the church, much to the disgust of several of them.
”Don't want to see mouldy old churches! I'd rather be out of doors!”
grumbled Merle.
”And there are actually sweet violets growing in a field on the opposite side of the river,” said Edith, who knew the neighbourhood.
”Oh, are there? Do let's get some.”
”It'll be too late by the time we've been all round the monuments and read the inscriptions and the rest of it!”
”How long will Miss Mitch.e.l.l stay in the church?”
”A good twenty minutes, I daresay. You can't get her away when she starts talking about architecture. Dad took her round our church one day, and I thought she'd never go. Tea was getting cold, but she went on asking questions about windows and pillars and things!”
”Then why shouldn't we slip out and run and get the violets while she's inside the church with the others?”
It was a naughty thing for a monitress to propose, but even Sybil, who happened to overhear, did not wax moral for the occasion.
”I'll come with you!” she said eagerly. ”I'm not at all fond of going round churches, and looking at monuments. It always makes me wonder if I'm going to die young! When Miss Mitch.e.l.l took us to Templeton Church and read us the epitaphs, I cried afterwards! There was one about a girl exactly my age. 'Sweet flower, nipped off in early bloom,' it said, or something of the sort.”
”Don't be so sentimental!” snapped Merle.
”But come with us if you like. Yes, you too, Beata! But for goodness'
sake don't tell any one else or they'll all want to come, and if the whole lot try to scoot, it will put a stopper on the thing. We'll wait till the others are inside and then just slide off. Mum's the word, though!”
It was quite easy to loiter among the tombstones pretending to read the inscriptions, but the moment Miss Mitch.e.l.l and her audience had safely pa.s.sed through the porch and opened the big nail-studded door, the four confederates turned and fled.
Edith knew a short cut, and took them between rows of graves, regardless of Sybil's protesting shudders, to a tiny stile that led down an alley to the riverside. Here there was a tumbledown wharf, and an old ferryboat which worked on a chain. Years ago a ferryman had had charge of it, but there was so little traffic that it was no longer worth his while, so the boat had been left for pa.s.sengers to use as they liked. It was lying now at the edge of the wharf. The girls, following Edith, stepped in, and began to wind the boat across the river by pulling the chain. It was rather an amusing means of progression, and they enjoyed their 'Dover- Calais crossing,' as they called it. Arrived at the opposite bank, Edith scrambled out.
”Tie the boat up, somebody!” she called, and set off running over the meadow to the hedge where the violets grew.
Somebody is an exceedingly vague term, and generally means n.o.body. Merle and Beata went scampering after Edith, and Sybil, who was last, flung the boat chain hastily round a post and followed her friends. The violets were lovely, sweet-scented and blue and modest and everything that orthodox violets ought to be.
The girls gathered delicious, fragrant little bunches, and felt that they were scoring tremendously over those unfortunates who were receiving information about architecture inside the church.
”We mustn't stay too long!” sighed Edith. ”It's a pity, but I'm afraid we really ought to go now. They'll be looking for us if we don't.”
So they walked back across the meadow to the bank. Here a most unpleasant surprise greeted them. The boat, into which they had meant to step and ferry themselves back, had drifted into the middle of the river.
”Good gracious! Didn't you tie it up?” exclaimed Edith, aghast.
”Of course I did, but-well, I suppose I didn't tie it tight enough. I never thought it would float away,” confessed Sybil.
The boat, though still working on the chain which spanned the river, was quite inaccessible from either side. The girls were in an extremely awkward position. n.o.body knew where they had gone, and unless it occurred to some of their party to come and seek them by the wharf, or unless some chance pa.s.ser-by happened to notice their plight, they might wait for a long time without rescue.
”What are we to do?” fumed Beata. ”If we're not back at four the 'sardine-tin' will be waiting for me, and Mr. Vicary will be so cross!