On the last Saturday in March, by special invitation from Mrs. Glyn Williams, the Ramsays spent the day at The Warren. They went in their best dresses and took their tennis rackets with them. They were not at all sure whether they wished to go, but it was one of those coercive visits which society demands, and which there is no evading, so they set forth, Mavis in one of her quiet moods, and Merle, with an awkward remembrance of past skirmishes, on her very best behaviour. There is no better fence than good manners, and it is really impossible to squabble with a person who preserves a studied politeness. To-day, however, the Glyn Williams did not wish for quarrels. They might have their faults, but they could be pleasant enough hosts and hostesses when they liked, and they really made an effort to entertain their guests. When their shyness thawed, Mavis and Merle began to enjoy themselves. The cinder court was in excellent order, and it was rather delightful to have a game of tennis. Tudor and Merle played Gwen and Mavis, and beat them in two sets, a score which caused them much triumph. "I say, you know, you're a jolly good player," said Tudor to his partner. "Those swift serves of yours are A1!"

"We had cinder courts at school in Whinburn," replied Merle. "It makes a difference if you're used to them."

She might have added that she had been one of the champions, and had helped to win a tournament, but she was not given to boasting. It is pleasant, though, to be congratulated on present prowess, even if you feel too modest to mention your past successes. She began to relent a little towards Tudor. He was so obviously doing his best to give her a good time. According to his own lights he tried to be amusing.

"The cinder court is my last stronghold," he assured her. "Just when we get the grass courts into decent order in the summer the Mater always insists on having half Chagmouth up to trample over them—wheezy old women who drink tea till you think they'll never stop, and awful children who stuff themselves with buns, and run races for bags of sweets. You don't know what I suffer. And the Mater says: 'Do come and speak to them'! Speak to them! What the Dickens am I to say? I'm longing to tell them that I wish the whole lot of them were at Jericho rather than messing about our garden. Why can't they drink tea and run races down in the town? The Mater says we must know our neighbours, but I say bother our neighbours. If she likes to do the Lady Bountiful business I wish she'd leave me out of it." "Chagmouth is a lovely place," ventured Merle.

"Oh yes, but they're a cantankerous set of people. Never satisfied whatever you do for them. The shooting here isn't really up to much either, nor the fishing. I stayed with a friend of mine once in Herefordshire. His father has a splendid place there. I can tell you we had some sport. The woods here haven't been half preserved. Every Dick, Tom, and Harry from Chagmouth thinks he may go into them, and the same on the headland. They pretend there's a right of way along the cliffs, and it's nothing on earth but an excuse for poaching. They go rabbiting up there. I've found lots of traps, and flung them over the cliffs into the sea. Beastly cheek, setting traps on our land. I tell Dad he ought to put up a fence and dispute that right of way along the headland. I believe he's going to too. You must stand up for your rights with these people, or they'll take advantage of you at every end and give you no thanks either."

After lunch, Tudor, a large part of whose interests centred round the stables, offered to show the horses, and all the young people went to admire and pet beautiful "Armorelle", Gwen's pretty cob "Taffy", and Babbie's little pony "Nixie". Merle would have liked to beg to mount Armorelle, but good manners prevailed, and she only stroked the soft nose instead.

"Do you ride?" asked Gwen rather grandly.

"A little," said Merle, not liking to confess that her equestrian experiences were mostly confined to donkeys on the beach at the sea-side. "Brought your habit with you?"

"No," answered Merle, who did not possess a riding-habit at all.

"What a pity! But of course your uncle has sold all his horses. He always goes about in that little yellow car now, doesn't he? Motoring's well enough—one must have a car naturally—but give me a horse."

"Yes, give me a horse, too, for choice," echoed Tudor. "I simply couldn't live without horses."

On the whole the Ramsays spent a pleasant day at The Warren. Gwen and Tudor might be rather patronizing, and too fond of showing off their possessions, and "talking large", but these were their obvious failings, the direct result of their early training and upbringing, and they were not without pleasanter traits. Everybody is a mixture of perfect and imperfect, in greater or lesser degree. The young Glyn Williamses might have false standards of life, and would perhaps have to suffer many hard knocks before they learnt to revise them, yet in their own way they certainly meant to be kind. Gwen gave Mavis several foreign stamps, and was liberal in handing round chocolates. Little Babbie waxed really affectionate. She had liked the Ramsays from the first, and had begged her mother to invite them. In the drawing-room, after tea, she asked them to repeat the dialogue which they had given at The Moorings on the wet afternoon when the day girls waited for the storm to clear.

"I've never forgotten how you two acted," she urged. "It was splendid! Just like going to the theatre. Please do it again! Please! Mother and Tudor haven't heard it."

"We want two other characters," objected Merle.

"Oh, never mind! We'll imagine the other two, and you can say their parts for them. Give the funny piece where the aunt says what she thinks about the modern girl. You did it so well."

"May we dress up a little?" asked Mavis.

"As much as you like. Come upstairs and take what you want."

So after a time the visitors returned duly costumed for the piece, Merle as an elderly spinster with white cotton-wool hair and a black veil tied over a toque, and Mavis in a sporting coat and rakish hat belonging to Gwen. They played up to the best of their ability, and delivered the amusing little sketch with much vigour. Merle, as the maiden aunt, was inimitable, and quiet Mavis astounded everybody in her pose of the up-to-date damsel. Tudor stared as if he had not suspected she had so much in her. The audience of four clapped tremendously at the close of the performance.

"It's really very clever. You're quite actresses," commented Mrs. Glyn Williams. "Have you ever performed in public? No! Why, when you leave school I should think you'll be tremendously in request for dramatic performances in aid of charities."

"We ought to get up something here in the Institute," said Tudor. "It would be topping fun, and astonish the natives no end. I should think everybody's sick to death of their eternal concerts. It's always the same old business—part song by the choir, timid warble by village soprano about spring or roses, seafaring song roared by the bass, ambitious operatic air attempted by tenor, who makes a hash of it, strains on a violin badly out of tune, temperance speech by the Vicar, who, of course, wants to butt in with a word on 'Prohibition', action song by kids from the school, then votes of thanks till everybody has thanked everybody else all round, and said how clever they all are. Then 'God Save the King', and thank goodness one may go home."

"Tudor's a naughty boy," laughed Mrs. Glyn Williams. "I never can get him to take an interest in Chagmouth."

"Well, I hate being trotted out to these functions," declared her son.

When Mavis and Merle, brushing their hair as they went to bed that night, compared notes on their experiences at The Warren, both decided they had had a very enjoyable time there. Merle had revised her first opinion of Tudor.

"He's quite jolly in his own way," she admitted. "I rather like him."

"But of course he's nothing to Bevis."

"They're in a different running altogether."

The two boys were certainly an utter contrast, in circumstances, disposition, and attainments. Tudor was fond of sport, but not at all intellectual. From various hints the girls had gathered that his school career was not unchequered; indeed they strongly suspected, from a foolish remark of Babbie's, that ill-health was not the sole reason for his passing this term at home, and that for some episode, carefully hushed up, he had been temporarily suspended by the authorities. Tudor's accomplishments all seemed to stand on a foundation of wealth. Take away his horses, his gun, his woods, his visits to town to see theatres, and he would have no resources left. His pleasures were inseparable from the spending of money, and though they were well enough in their way, and kept him amused, they were not cultivating the highest part of him. The citizen side, which seeks to be of some use to the community, was conspicuously absent. He posed, indeed, as deliberately scorning the masses, and laughed at his mother for her well-meant efforts at trying to entertain her neighbours. Human souls are surely at different stages of evolution, and his was an undeveloped one that had not yet progressed beyond the period of self-serving. Sometimes a rough lesson is needed to clear the soul's vision, and teach it what things are really worth while; and Fate, who jolts us about much to our own indignation, had her special plan for his education, which in the fulness of her time she meant to bring about.

Bevis, reared up from babyhood at Grimbal's Farm, had learnt to shoot and to ride as well as Tudor, though he had not so good a gun nor so fine a mount. He was a splendid swimmer, and he had brought back many medals from school gained at athletic sports. He could almost do a man's work in the fields now, and while he hated farm labour it had made him physically very fit. He rejoiced in his young strength, with something of the pure gladness of the old Greeks merged with the Christian ideal. Mavis, looking at him as his muscular arms chopped with an axe in the spinney, or his long legs came jumping over a fence, always thought of some lines that she had copied for her "pet quotation" in the High School calendar at Whinburn.

Bevis's brain capacity fully balanced his bodily strength. He liked to read the newspapers, and think out all the problems of the times, and the country's needs. He relished a mental tussle with the same keen zest as he enjoyed a football match or a vaulting contest. Whoever his father and mother might have been the boy was innately refined, and at school had caught up all the culture that his foster parents—kind homely people—unfortunately lacked.

It was a matter of amazement to Mrs. Glyn Williams that Mavis and Merle were allowed to go for walks with Bevis, and she blamed the Doctor for slackness in the care of his nieces, but Dr. Tremayne knew the boy thoroughly, and was perfectly satisfied that he was a fit companion for them.

The girls themselves thought him a most delightful comrade. He was so well versed in all country lore, and he could make so many things, and he was so jolly and humorous and full of fun and jokes. They looked forward to their weekly excursions, and felt they could not have explored Chagmouth half so thoroughly without Bevis as guide. Saturday at the beginning of April saw the three once more setting off for Blackthorn Bower. It was a showery day, but they had their mackintoshes, and did not mind the light rain. Mavis was so wonderfully better that she could now do with impunity what before might have been risky. She had grown, and seemed altogether stronger, though she still looked more ethereal than Merle. That, however, was partly a matter of temperament. The months in Durracombe had been an immense delight to both girls. After the severe winters of Whinburn they had seemed like perpetual spring, and they called Devon "the Garden of Eden". To-day, as they went up the lanes towards the headland, there were many excitements. Bevis, who seemed to have a kind of second-sight for discovering birds' nests, found a hedge-sparrow's, a robin's, and a thrush's, full of eggs, and showed them where a tit-lark was beginning to build. Then they actually saw the first swallow, an early arrival which had come before the cuckoo, but whirled past with unmistakable forked tail and white breast. The primroses were a dream, and Mavis gathered a bunch of wild hyacinths and some purple ground ivy, and Merle thought she saw a snake, but was not perfectly sure about the matter. They were following a footpath which led through the field where the tumulus lay, on to the headland. When they reached the usual point where they had always passed through a gap in the hedge to get down to the tiny quarry they found their way barred. A strong fence had been erected, with prickly gorse placed upon the top of it. The girls halted in much dismay.

"Who's been stopping the path?" asked Merle blankly.

"Some of those keepers, I expect," answered Bevis. "They've no right to do it. It's been a public way for years and years. People come across the hill, and go along the headland, and down to the beach. They always have done, and they always will. There was a bother once before about a right of way through the woods, and Mr. Glyn Williams went to law about it, but he lost his case."

"What are we going to do now?"

"Take down the fence, that's all. It's easily done."

Bevis set calmly to work, and pulled away first the gorse, and then enough of the fence to enable his companions to scramble across. He laughed as he handed them over.

"Those keepers will be jolly vexed when they find their work spoilt, but it serves them right. They shouldn't try to stop a public footpath."

The girls had an uneasy remembrance that last Saturday Tudor had spoken of this very matter of a right of way along the headland, and had said that he had urged his father to dispute it. They had not mentioned to Tudor that they knew the spot, though they had guessed where it was from his description. They did not care for him to know about Blackthorn Bower, or the cups of rough pottery, and their picnics and talks about the prehistoric people. They felt instinctively that he would not understand or sympathize in the least, and would only sneer at it all as nonsense. They did not say anything about Tudor to Bevis now, because the subject always seemed a sore one, and their friend was in such a particularly jolly mood that they did not want to bring the cloud that sometimes settled over his face. They took his word for it that they were not trespassing but pursuing a perfectly legitimate path, and climbed down the bank to the little quarry.

Here a horrible surprise awaited them. Their beautiful bower, put up with so much skill and trouble, had been completely pulled to pieces. The staves of its roof were stacked in a pile, and the sods had been thrown down the cliff. For a ghastly moment they stared as if hardly able to believe the evidence of their own eyes. Then their indignation found vent.

"What an abominable shame!" exploded Merle. "Oh, it's too bad! Our lovely hut!" quavered Mavis, practically in tears.

Bevis said nothing. He gazed round the ruin, then stooped and picked something up from the ground. It was a fragment of the blue pottery cup smashed to atoms. He looked at it with somewhat the same consternation with which a hedge-sparrow might regard her torn and robbed nest and broken eggs.

"I'll make somebody pay for this!" he muttered.

The girls were still exclaiming in much wrath and annoyance. At first they were so busy bemoaning the hut that they never heard sounds on the bank behind, then becoming aware of voices they walked out from the quarry to find Tudor, and two of the keepers standing by the fence.

"Hello!" cried Tudor, springing down and greeting them joyously.

But at that moment Bevis stepped from the ruins of Blackthorn Bower and faced him.

"Is this your doing?" he asked abruptly.

The two boys glared at one another with looks that suggested clashing of steel.

"Certainly it's by my orders," returned Tudor in his most lofty and insolent tone. "What business had you building a hut on my property? A regular squatter! I won't have you fellows from the village coming poaching up here. I'll throw every rabbit trap I find down the cliffs, so I give you warning. I could prosecute you for breaking down that fence." "Oh, Tudor! Bevis doesn't poach," interposed Merle.

"He built the hut for us," put in Mavis.

Unfortunately the girls' remarks only made matters worse.

"A nice fellow you are to take young ladies about!" continued Tudor tauntingly. "I wonder they'll condescend to walk with you. A nobody like you, who doesn't know where he comes from! You may fancy yourself no end——"

But here Bevis, whose dark face held a "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy" expression, sprang at him in an anger too deep and furious for words.

Both the boys were wrestlers. For one wild minute they held each other, and swayed to and fro as they struggled, while the girls shrieked in alarm, and the keepers, standing by the fence, gaped too utterly amazed to interfere. Then Bevis, by far the fitter and stronger of the two, gained the mastery, and seizing Tudor, flung him violently away. He fell, and rolled over and over nearly twenty feet down the side of the cliff. Then the keepers recovered from their frozen paralysis, and rushed to the rescue of their young employer.

Fortunately Tudor had landed upon a platform of rock, but he lay there quite quiet and still, and did not stir when the men carried him up. His eyes were closed, and his head hung loosely as they laid him down beside the ruined bower. One of them fetched water in a hat and bathed his temples, and the other rubbed his hands. The girls looked on in pitiful distress. Bevis was still standing on the patch of grass that was the scene of their combat. He stared at Tudor's prostrate form with wild, horror-stricken eyes.

"I've murdered him," he gasped to Mavis and Merle. "It's murder! Yes, that's what it is! I'm going away, and you'll never see me any more! I'm not fit to say good-bye to you!"

And without another look he turned and began scrambling recklessly down the cliff, not following a path, but dropping anyhow over the rocks as if he did not care what happened to him. For a moment or two he was visible, and then he vanished.

After more water and vigorous rubbing Tudor at last revived and opened his eyes. He was stiff and much shaken, but there seemed no bones broken, and with the help of the two keepers he was able to walk home. Mavis and Merle fled back to Grimbal's Farm with the disastrous news. They poured out the story to Mrs. Penruddock as she was feeding the fowls. She dropped her pan of Indian corn on to the ground.

"There now! I always said it would come to that," she bemoaned. "Bevis flown at young Williams and run away. What will his father say? The lad's so hasty, and he flares up when he's roused. Don't you cry! You say there's not much harm done after all, and I dare say Bevis will come creeping back at dark when things are quiet. It's not the first time he's run off, and turned up again when he felt hungry." "He said we'd never see him any more," sobbed Mavis, much upset by the whole affair.

"He'd say anything, but he doesn't mean it. I'm sorry it's happened because it will make fine trouble with The Warren, and we've trouble enough as it is, goodness knows! But I'm not afraid for Bevis. He'd never go off without fetching some of his things at any rate. He loses his temper and there's a flash, and then it's all over. I know Bevis! He'll come back all right, don't you fear!"