SOMEWHAT hot and tired with their exertions, the children dispersed in small groups to lounge about or amuse themselves in any way they happened to feel inclined. As there was still plenty of time before the coaches returned at seven o'clock, Belle and Isobel, together with four of the Rokebys, decided to stroll up the Scar, from the top of which they expected to obtain a very good view of the distant moorland, together with a wide stretch of sea. A narrow path led steeply by a series of steps through the wood, a delightful, cool, shady place, with soft moss spreading like a green carpet underfoot, and closely-interlacing boughs shutting out the sunlight overhead. Trails of late honeysuckle still hung in sweet-scented festoons from the undergrowth, and an occasional squirrel might be seen whisking his bushy tail round the bole of an oak tree in a quest for early acorns. There was an interesting little pool, too, where a number of young frogs were practising swimming; and the children thought they saw an otter, but they could not be quite sure, for it scurried off so quickly up the bank that they had not the chance to get more than a glimpse of it. The hazel bushes were covered with nuts, a few of which already contained kernels, and clumps of ferns grew luxuriantly under the shadow of the trees.

Pleasant as it was in the wood, it was even more enjoyable when they reached the top of the hill, and seating themselves upon a thick patch of heather, looked down the other side of the Scar over the rich undulating silvan slope, where among great round boulders they caught the glint of a stream, and heard in the distance the rushing noise of a waterfall. At the foot of the incline, in a narrow valley between the Scar and the cliffs which bounded the sea, rose the gray-brown stone roof of a quaint old Elizabethan house. The richly-carved timbers, the wide mullioned windows, and the ornamental gables were singularly fine, and told of the time when those who built put an artistic pride into their work, and thought no detail too unimportant to be well carried out. The south side was covered with a glorious purple clematis, which hung in rich masses round the pillars of a veranda below, and even from the distance the flaming scarlet of the Scotch nasturtium clothing the porch arrested the eyes by its brilliant contrast with the delicate tea-roses that framed the windows.

"What a splendid place!" cried Belle, glancing beyond the twisted chimneys to where the smooth green lawns and gay beds of a garden peeped from between the trees of the shrubbery. "Just look at the beautiful conservatories and greenhouses, and such stables! There's a tennis lawn on the other side of the flagstaff, and a carriage drive leading down towards the road. It's the nicest house I've seen anywhere about Silversands. I wonder to whom it belongs, and what it's called."

"It's the Chase, and belongs to Colonel Smith, I believe," said Cecil. "There's a huge 'S' on the gates, at any rate, and one day when we were passing I saw an old buffer going in with a gun, and Arthur Wright said he was sure it was Colonel Smith, who has all the shooting on the common. Lucky chap! If it were mine, wouldn't I have a glorious time! I'd keep ever so many ferrets and dogs in those stables, and go rabbiting every day in the year."

"I'd have a very fast pony that could fly like the wind," said Winnie, "and I'd gallop all over the moors and the shore with my hair streaming out behind in ringlets like the picture of Diana Vernon on the landing at home."

"You'd very soon fall off," remarked Bertie unsympathetically, "seeing you can't even stick on to a donkey on the sands. The little brown one threw you twice this morning."

"That was because the saddle kept slipping," said Winnie indignantly. "And that particular donkey has a trick of lying down suddenly, too, when it's tired. It wants to get rid of you—I know it does—because it rolls if you don't tumble off. It did the same with Charlie Chester the other day, and shot him straight over its head; then it got up and flew back to the Parade before he could catch it. The pony would be quite a different thing, I can tell you, and I'd soon learn to ride it. What would you do, Belle, if you owned the Chase?"

"I'd give the most wonderful parties," said Belle, "and invite all kinds of distinguished people—dukes and duchesses, you know, and members of Parliament, and admirals, and generals, and perhaps even the Prince and Princess of Wales; and I'd send to Paris for my hats, and have my clothes made by the Court dressmaker."

"I'd give a cricket match on that lawn," said Isobel, "and ask all the Sea Urchins to tea. We'd have loads of lovely fruit from those gardens and greenhouses, and when we were tired of cricket we could get up sports, and let off fireworks in the evening just when it was growing dark. That's what I'd like to do if I lived there."

"Pity you don't," exclaimed Bertie; "we'd all come. But what's the use of talking when you know you'll never have the chance. I say, suppose we go down the wood on this side and try to find the waterfall? It must be rather a decent-sized one to make such a thundering noise."

The others jumped up very readily at the suggestion, and leaving the path, they slid through the steep wood, and climbing a high wall, found themselves at the rocky bed of a stream, which rushed swiftly along under the overhanging trees, forming little foaming cascades as it went. At one point the water, dashing between two steep crags, descended in a sheer fall of about thirty feet, emptying itself at the bottom into a wide and deep pool overhung by several fine mountain ashes, the scarlet berries of which made a bright spot of colour against the silvery green of the foliage behind. The Rokebys instantly rushed at these, and began tearing off quite large branches, breaking the boughs in a ruthless fashion that went to Isobel's heart, for she always had been taught to pick things carefully and judiciously, so as not to spoil the beauty of tree or plant.

"It's grand stuff," said Cecil, descending to the ground with a crash, and switching at the ferns by the water's edge with his stick as he spoke. "I've got a perfect armful. Hullo! what's that all down the side of this overhanging rock? It's actually maidenhair fern growing wild in the open air! I'm going to have some. We'll plant it in pots, and take it home."

It was indeed the true maidenhair, flourishing on the damp crag under the spray of the waterfall as luxuriantly as though it had been in a conservatory, its delicate fronds showing in large clumps wherever it could obtain a hold on the rocky surface. I grieve to say that the Rokebys simply threw themselves upon it, pulling it up by the roots, and destroying as much as they gathered by trampling it in their frantic haste. "O Cecil!" cried Isobel, in an agony, "you're spoiling the ferns. They looked so lovely growing there by the waterfall. Please don't take them all. Haven't you got enough now?"

"But he hasn't given me any yet," protested Belle. "And I must have some."

"One doesn't often get the chance to find maidenhair," declared Cecil, "so I shall make the most of it, you bet.—Here, Belle, you may have this piece. Catch! If I climb a little higher I can reach that splendid clump under the tree. I'll take that to the mater."

"I think, on the whole, you will not, my boy," said a dry voice from the bank behind; and looking round, the children, to their horror and astonishment, saw the tall figure of an elderly gentleman who had stolen upon the scene unawares. He spoke quite calmly, but there was a twitch about his mouth and a gleam in his gray eye which suggested the quiet before a thunderstorm, and he stood watching the group in much the same way as a detective might have done who had made a sudden successful capture of youthful burglars red-handed in the act of committing a felony.

"May I ask," he observed, with withering politeness, "by whose invitation you have entered my grounds, and by whose permission you have been destroying my trees and uprooting my ferns? I was under the impression that this was my private property, but you evidently consider you are entitled not only to annex my possessions, but to exercise a cheap generosity by presenting them to others. I shall be obliged if you will kindly offer me some explanation."

Cecil was so absolutely transfixed with amazement that for a moment he remained with his mouth wide open, staring at the newcomer as though the latter had dropped from the skies. The Rokebys were not well-trained children; they did not possess either the moral courage or the good manners which Charlie Chester, madcap though he might be, would undoubtedly have displayed in the same situation, and instead of meeting the matter bravely and making the best apology he could, Cecil flung down the ferns, and without a word of excuse took to his heels and ran back up the wood at the top of his speed, closely followed by Winnie, Bertie, and Arnold.

Belle for an instant wavered, but recognizing the old gentleman as the same whose acquaintance she had cultivated on the beach with such unsatisfactory results, she decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and turning away, vanished through the trees like a little white shadow.

Isobel, the only one of the six who stood her ground, was left to bear the whole brunt of the matter alone. She looked at the broken branches of mountain ash and the damaged ferns which the Rokebys had dropped in the panic of their flight, and which surrounded her like so much guilty evidence of the deed, then screwing up her courage, she faced the outraged owner in a kind of desperation.

"I'm very sorry," she began, twisting and untwisting her thin little hands, and colouring up to the roots of her hair with the effort she was making. "We oughtn't to have come. But, indeed, we didn't know it was your ground; we thought it was only just part of the Scar. And I don't believe the others would have taken the ferns if they'd thought for a moment, because they would have known maidenhair doesn't grow wild out of doors like bracken or hart's-tongue."

"But it was wild," said the colonel—"that's the unfortunate part of it. It wouldn't have distressed me if I could have replaced it from the conservatory. This happens to be one of the few spots in the British Isles where Adiantum Capillus-Veneris is found in an undoubtedly native situation."

"Oh, then that's worse than ever!" cried Isobel, with consternation. "I know how very, very rare it is, because mother and I once found a little piece in a cave in Cornwall."

"Did you? Are you sure it was an absolutely genuine specimen and not naturalized?" asked Colonel Stewart, with keen interest.

"No; it was quite wild, for it was in a very out-of-the-way place by the seashore."

"I hope you didn't take it?"

"Oh no! we didn't even pick a frond; and mother made me promise never to tell any one where it grew, she was so afraid some one might root it up."

"A sensible woman!" exclaimed the colonel. "Pity there aren't more like her! Why people should want to grub up every rare and beautiful thing they find in the country to plant in their miserable town gardens, I can't imagine. It's downright murder. The poor things die directly in the smoke. Look at these splendid roots that have been growing here since I was a boy! I would rather they had destroyed every flower in my garden than have worked such wanton havoc in the spot I value most in all my grounds."

"It's most unfortunate we came this particular walk," said Isobel, almost crying with regret. "You see, the Rokebys aren't used to the country, so they don't seem to think about spoiling things. I believe I could manage to plant these roots again; they're not very bad, and if I tucked them well into the crevices of the rock I really fancy they'd grow."

She picked up some of the ferns as she spoke, and began carefully to replace them in the little ledges on the side of the rock, moistening the roots first in the stream, and scraping up some soil with a thin piece of shale which she made serve the purpose of a trowel.

"They haven't taken quite all," she said. "That beautiful clump up there hasn't even been touched, and it may spread. I wish I could put back the mountain ash. I simply can't tell you how sorry I am we ever came."

The colonel smiled.

"I don't blame you," he said. "It was those young heathens who ran away. Their methods of studying botany were certainly of a rather rough-and-ready description. I should have thought better of them if they had stayed to apologize. Your friend with the light curls, whom, by-the-bye, I have met before, seemed also unwilling to enter into any explanations. In fact, to put it plainly, she left you in the lurch."

"I think she was frightened," said Isobel, wondering what possible excuse she could frame for Belle's conduct. "You came so—so very suddenly. There! I've put all the ferns back. They're rather broken, I'm afraid; but there are plenty of new fronds ready to come up, so I hope you'll find that, after all, we haven't quite spoilt everything."

"Think I'm not so much hurt as I imagined?" said the colonel, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Oh, I didn't mean that!" replied Isobel quickly. "I know we've done a great deal of harm. Please don't think I wanted to make out we hadn't."

"All right; you've done your best to repair the damage, so that's an end of the matter."

"I ought to be going now," continued Isobel. "The Rokebys and Belle will be wondering what has become of me, and the coaches were to start at seven o'clock. It must be after six now."

"Exactly half-past six," said Colonel Stewart, consulting his watch. "If you follow that footpath it will take you through a side gate and straight up the hillside; I expect you will find the others waiting for you on the top of the Scar. Good-bye. Give my compliments to your friends, and tell them to learn to enjoy the country without spoiling it for other people; and the next time they get into a tight place to show a little pluck, and not to run off like a set of cowardly young curs."