THOUGH the United Sea Urchins were still very faithful to their cricket ground under the cliffs, the older and more daring spirits were always ready to ramble farther afield in quest of new scenes and adventures. Every day seemed to bring with it some fresh delight, whether it were a shrimping expedition among the green sea-weedy pools of the rocks on the far shore, or a cockle gathering on the gleaming banks left by the ebb-tide, where the breath of the salt wind on their faces or the feel of the wet, oozing sand under their bare feet was a joy to be garnered up and held in memory. Sometimes it was a scramble over the moors, between thickets of golden gorse and stretches of heather so deep and long that to lie in it was to bury oneself like a bee in a bed of purple fragrance, or a hard climb would take them to the summit of some neighbouring hill, where, watching the sun sink from a primrose sky into a pearly, shimmering sea, they would all grow a little silent and quiet, even the roughest spirits restrained in spite of themselves by the sight of that indescribable majesty and calm which marks the parting of the day. It is hours such as these—glad, exhilarating, glorious hours, when the world seems as young as ourselves, and merely to live and breathe is a delight—that lay up in our hearts a store of sunshine to be drawn upon in after life as from a treasure-house of the mind, and to brighten dark days to come with the rapture of the remembrance.

It was, perhaps, somewhat against her natural tastes that Belle found herself included in the many and various excursions of the Sea Urchins. She was no country lover, and the stir of a promenade in a fashionable watering-place gave her more pleasure than the dash of waves or the scent of wild flowers. She did not enjoy splashing her pretty clothes with sea-water among the rocks, or tearing them in search of blackberries on the hedgerows; and it was only her love of society, and a dislike of being left behind, which induced her to follow where the others led. The rough walks and hard scrambles were often a real trial to her, though with Isobel to tow her up steep hills, help her across stiles, disentangle her laces from insistent brambles, jump her over pools, and take her hand in dangerous spots, she managed to keep up fairly well. Isobel, to whom these excursions were the topmost summit of bliss, and who was apt to measure others' standards by her own, never suspected for a moment that Belle was beginning to grow tired of it, and received an occasional outburst of petulance or fretful complaint with such amazement that the latter would, for very shame, desist, and for a time the friendship continued to remain at high-water mark. That Belle was selfish and exacting never once crossed Isobel's mind, and though she could not help frequently detecting in her certain little meannesses, exaggeration, or even occasional wanderings from the truth, there always seemed to be some exonerating circumstance which would in a measure either clear her from blame or give her the benefit of a doubt. It is often so difficult to find fault with those for whom we care very dearly: we are ready to make excuses, condone their mistakes, overlook their shortcomings, anything but allow to ourselves the unfortunate and yet unmistakable fact that our idol has feet of clay; and so Isobel went on from day to day blinding her eyes with her adoration for her namesake, and investing Belle with a halo of virtues and attractions which certainly did not exist except in her own imagination.

Apart from Belle, I think that among the various members of the Sea Urchins' Club Isobel found the Chesters the most congenial. They had all the dash and daring of the Rokebys without the over-boisterous manners which characterized that rough-and-tumble family, whose friendship at times was apt to prove a trifle wearing. Little Hilda had taken a great affection for Isobel, and Charlie, since the adventure in the Stormy Petrel, was disposed to consider her in the light of a chum, and to cultivate her acquaintance. As knowing Isobel meant including Belle, the four children therefore might often be found in each other's company, and it was at Charlie's suggestion that they determined one afternoon to pay a visit to a certain small island which lay a short distance along the coast, at the other side of the rocky headland that jutted out at the far side of the bay.

"I've not been close to," said Charlie, "but you can see it very well from the top of the Scar. It looks a regular Robinson Crusoe desert island kind of a place, just given up to sea-gulls and rabbits. I don't believe a soul ever goes there."

"It would be grand if we were the first to set foot on it," said Isobel. "It would be our own island, and we'd claim it in the name of the club, like travellers do in Central Africa when they run up the Union Jack, and then mark the place pink on the map, to show it's a British possession."

"And then all the others could be settlers," added Hilda, "and we'd light a fire and cook fish and have such fun!"

"It would be exactly like the coral island in 'The Young Pioneers,'" said Belle. "Perhaps I might become the queen, like the mysterious white lady they found living among the natives, and have a throne made out of sand and shells, and wear a garland of flowers for a crown."

"Oh, we won't go in for nonsense like that!" declared Charlie, who was not romantic, and, moreover, enjoyed squashing Belle on occasion. "But we might build a hut there, and rig up a sort of camp, and then, if the whole lot of us came, we could have a regular ripping time. It's worth while going to see, at any rate."

Armed with a mariner's compass, a tin pail full of biscuits, Isobel's botanical case for specimens, and a stout stick apiece, the four friends set out on their pioneering expedition with all the enthusiasm of a band of explorers penetrating into the heart of an unknown continent, or a Roman legion bent on the conquest of some distant Albion. As the geography books determine an island to be "a piece of land surrounded by water," the particular spot in question could only claim to justify its name at high tide, since at low water it was joined to the mainland, and by scrambling over the rocks and jumping a few channels which the sea had left behind, any one could reach it quite easily dry shod. The children marched sturdily along over the wet sands, with a pause here and there to dive after a particularly interesting crab, or to float a jelly-fish left stranded by the tide, in the deeper water. Charlie, however, would not allow many digressions, and hurried them as fast as possible towards the object of their journey. The island, on a nearer view, proved to be a bare, craggy spot, about half a mile in length by a quarter in breadth, bounded by steep cliffs which supported a rocky plateau covered with short rough grass and sea pinks, and honeycombed in every direction with rabbit burrows. It seemed the haunt of innumerable gulls, guillemots, and puffins, for whole flocks of them flew away, wheeling overhead in wide circles, and uttering loud, piercing cries in protest at the invasion of their rocky stronghold.

"We'd better do the thing thoroughly. Suppose we start from this big rock and walk right round the island," suggested Isobel. "I have a piece of paper and a pencil in my pocket, and I'll draw a map of it as we go along, and we'll give names to all the capes and bays and headlands."

"Stunning!" agreed Charlie. "This rock can be 'Point Set-Off,' and we can take it in turns to christen the other places. I don't believe the island itself has a name; we shall each have to suggest something, and then put it to the vote. I'm for 'Craggy Holme' myself, but we won't decide anything yet until we have been completely over it."

Thrilled with the excitement of the occasion, the pioneers started on their tour of inspection, noting with approval that the pools at the foot of the cliff were full of sea anemones, star-fishes, hermit crabs, periwinkles, whelks, pink sea-weed, and a wealth of desirable treasures; that the brambles which grew on the slopes above were already covered with fast ripening blackberries; that there were flukes quite seven inches long in the narrow channel on the north shore; and that the sands beyond showed a perfect harvest of cockles and other shells. They had gone perhaps halfway round the coast, and were on the south side, facing the open sea, when suddenly, turning a corner, they found themselves in a spot which made them stand still and look at one another with little gasps of delight. Surely it was the ideal place for a camp. They were in a small creek between two great overhanging crags, where brambles and wood vetch hung down in delightful tangled masses, the fine white sand under their feet alternated with soft green turf, spangled with tiny sea-flowers, and there was quite a bank of small delicate shells left by the high spring tides. Close under the rocks lay the wreck of a schooner, driven ashore by winter storms, and stranded upon the shingle, the broken spars and a fragment of the hull lying half buried in the silvery sand, surrounded by a forest of sea-weed and drift-wood.

"Why, it just beats 'The Swiss Family Robinson' or 'The Boy Explorers' hollow!" said Charlie, turning to his companions with something of the look that Christopher Columbus may have worn when he stepped with his followers on to the shores of the New World. "Here's the very place we were hoping for! We'd soon get that old trail tilted out of the sand; she only needs propping against the cliff, and she'd make a regular Uncle Tom's cabin. With the Wrights and the Rokebys to help, we'd haul her up in a jiffy. Some of these spars and planks would do for seats and tables, and we could light fires with the drift-wood. It's a camp almost ready made for us, I declare."

"And look!" cried Hilda, pointing to a sand-bank which lay at the mouth of the creek; "the tide seems to have thrown up a great many things down there." And she hurried to the water's edge, where the drifting current had lodged a variety of miscellaneous articles—walking-sticks, tin cans, a child's boat, a straw hat, several baskets, glass bottles, and even a lady's parasol, all lying tangled among the sea-weed, washed across the bay no doubt from the beach at Ferndale. "I've fished out a little horse and cart, and there's something here that looks like the remains of a gentleman's top hat. We can use the tins for the cabin. They'll do for flower-pots. O Charlie! aren't you glad we came?"

"It's quite romantic," said Belle, sitting down on a spar, and twisting some pink bindweed round her hat. "We could have tea here, and get up a dance on the sands afterwards. I've found such a pretty pencil-case among the drift-wood. I mean to keep it."

"I don't think any one else has discovered the island," said Isobel. "So we've quite a right to take possession, haven't we?"

"It's the very thing we want, and we'll annex it at once," said Charlie; and drawing the empty shell of a sea urchin from his pocket, he slipped it on to the top of a stick, which he planted firmly in the sand as an ensign; then climbing on to the summit of a rock close by, he waved his handkerchief to north, south, east, and west, exclaiming, "We hereby take solemn possession of this island in the name of the United Sea Urchins' Recreation Society, and are prepared to hold the same in legal right against all comers. If any one has just cause or impediment to offer why the said society should not occupy this territory in peace and prosperity, let him speak now, or hereafter for ever hold his peace. Rule, Britannia! God save the King!"

With a burst of cheers the others unanimously declared themselves witnesses to the deed, and decided that possession being nine-tenths of the law, the island, for the time at any rate, was undoubtedly their own, and until any one appeared to dispute their claim they would make what they pleased of it.

"To-morrow we'll rig out a real pioneer party of settlers, and come with hammers and nails and axes and all the rest of it," said Charlie. "Then we can put up a flag and decide on names and everything. We haven't time to explore the top now, though it looks jolly upon those cliffs; we must get back before the tide turns. It's a ripping place, but it would be no joke, all the same, to be surrounded and have to spend the night here."

The Sea Urchins took to the idea of a camp on a desert island with the greatest enthusiasm, and next day the elder portion of them started off with any tools which they could buy, beg, or borrow, anxious to set to work at once upon the task of constructing a dwelling from the wreck of the old schooner. By fastening a rope to the hull, they contrived to tug it out of the sand and tilt it on end against a rock; then with the aid of the broken planks which were lying near they propped it up securely and repaired any damaged or broken pieces, so that it made the most successful hut, a kind of combination of a Viking's hall with a pirate's cave or an Indian wigwam. The face of the cliff which formed the wall on one side was full of ledges and crevices which served admirably for cupboards, a few nails driven into the boards answered for hat pegs, and it was no difficult matter to put up shelves from odd pieces of drift-wood.

It was amazing how the work brought out the varying capacities of the settlers. To every one's surprise, Arthur Wright developed a perfect genius for carpentry. He had borrowed a few tools from a friendly joiner in the town, and constructed quite a tidy little table, forming the legs from broken masts; and he managed to make a door for the fortress of the best portions of three rotten planks, fastening it on with hinges cut from an old leather strap, and even putting a latch which would open with a string pulled from the outside.

While the boys did the harder part of the work, the girls contented themselves with the more feminine element of artistic decoration. They thatched the roof elaborately with masses of brown bladder-wrack sea-weed, tying it securely with pieces of cord; they fixed a row of twenty-one sea urchins, with the spines on, over the door as a coat of arms, one to represent each member of the club; and pink and white fan shells were nailed alternately round the window, with yellow periwinkles wedged between. A little garden was carefully laid out, a wall being made of stones and sand, and a path of fine gravel leading up to the door. Green sea-weed was put down to represent grass, the most wonderful arrangements in the way of cockles, mussels, and limpets took the place of flower-beds, and a few sea-pinks and harebells planted in tins rescued from the sand-bank adorned the window-sill. Inside, a fireplace had been built with stones at the rocky end, a hole being made in the roof to let out the smoke, and seats were dug from the sand sufficient to accommodate the whole party. A tin kettle and a frying-pan, purchased by subscription, constituted the cooking utensils of the camp, and the members waxed so eager over the domestic arrangements of their hut that they spent all their pennies at the cheap stalls in the market on tin mugs and plates and other articles likely to be of service to the community. Eric Wright denied himself toffee or caramels for three whole days—a heroic effort on his part—that he might contribute a certain gorgeous scarlet tea-tray on which he had set his young affections; the Rokebys clubbed together to buy muslin for window curtains; Belle presented a looking-glass as a suitable offering; and Mrs. Barrington, who was always generous when it was not a question of diet, allowed Ruth and Edna to purchase a dozen pewter teaspoons, a bright blue enamelled teapot, and a bread-and-butter plate with a picture of the Promenade at Ferndale upon it. The sand-bank was rummaged for anything that would come in handy, and though it did not yield such wonderful treasures as the wrecked ship generally contains in desert-island stories, they found several empty bottles, an old lantern, a dripping-tin, a wooden spoon, and a battered bird-cage, all of which they decided might come in useful in course of time and were carefully put by in a safe place among the rocks.

Isobel, who toiled away at the camp with untiring zeal, had drawn and painted a very nice map of the island on a sheet of cardboard, all the various places being neatly marked, and had nailed it on the wall inside. After a good deal of discussion it had been decided to call the domain "Rocky Holme," the crag on the extreme summit was "Point Look-Out," the tall cliff to the north, "Sea-Birds' Cape," while the one on the south was "Welcome Head." The creek where they had established their headquarters was christened by the appropriate name of "Sandy Cove," and the hut bore the more romantic title of "Wavelet Hall." They had fixed a broken mast at the end of the little garden for a flagstaff, and ran up an ensign specially designed and executed for them by Mrs. Stewart, consisting of a large sea urchin cut out of white calico, and stitched upon a ground of turkey-red twill, with the initials "U.S.U.R.S." below; so that, with their colours floating in the breeze and the smoke of their fire rising in a thin white column among the rocks, no band of colonists could have felt that the country was more really and truly their own.