Amongst other cardinal virtues the practice of philanthropy was zealously cultivated at Marlowe Grange. The girls made garments for the local hospital, contributed towards a crÈche for soldiers’ children, and on Sunday mornings put pennies into a missionary box. Charity is apt to wax a trifle cold, however, when you never see the object of your doles; and though ample statistics were provided about the crÈche babies, and literature was sent describing the Chinese orphans and little Hindoo widows, these pieces of paper information did not quite supply the place of a real live protÉgÉ. It was felt to be a decided asset to the school when old Wilkinson loomed upon their horizon. The girls discovered him accidentally, engaged in the meritorious occupation of carrying his own water from the well. He had opened a gate for them, and had touched his forelock with the grace and fervour of a mediÆval retainer. His pink cheeks, watery blue eyes, snow-white hair, and generally picturesque personality made the more enthusiastic members of the art class anxious to paint his portrait. It was ascertained that he subsisted upon an old-age pension of five shillings a week, and 189 resided in a romantic-looking, creeper-covered cottage just between the Grange and the village. To visit old Wilkinson, and present him with potatoes from their own little war-gardens, became an immediate institution among the girls. There was no doubt about his gratitude. All was fish that came to his net, and he accepted anything and everything, from tea and tobacco to books which he could not read, with the same toothless smile and showers of blessings. If, as Miss Gibbs suggested, his cottage would have been improved by a little more soap and water, and a good stiff broom, that did not really matter, as he was generally sitting outside on a bench beside a beehive, with a black-and-white Manx cat upon his knee, and a tame jackdaw hanging in a wicker cage by the window, exactly like a coloured frontispiece in a Christmas number of a magazine.

It was a tremendous blow to the school when the news was circulated that old Wilkinson had received notice to quit his cottage. The girls were filled with indignation against his landlord. The fact that that long-suffering farmer had received no rent for the last six months, and badly required the cottage as a billet for lady workers on the land, went for nothing in the estimation of the Grange inmates. Wilkinson, so they considered, was a persecuted old man, about to be evicted from his home, and a very proper object for sympathy and consideration.

“Something’s got to be done for him—that’s flat!” declared Raymonde. “You don’t suppose we can allow him to be taken to the workhouse? It’s unthinkable! He’d break his poor old heart. 190 And we’d miss him so, too. Won’t the landlord change his mind and let him stay?”

“Miss Gibbs went to see him about it,” vouchsafed Aveline agitatedly, “and she came back and shook her head, and said she couldn’t but feel that the man was only doing his duty, and women were wanted on the land, and must have a place to live in, and someone had to be sacrificed.”

“He’s a victim of the war!” sighed Morvyth. “One of those outside victims who don’t get Victoria Crosses and military funerals.”

“He hasn’t come to a funeral yet!” bristled Raymonde. “The old boy looks good for another ten years or so. Don’t you go ordering tombstones and wreaths!”

“I wasn’t going to. How you snap me up! All the same, I heard Miss Beasley tell Miss Gibbs that if he has to go to the workhouse it will be enough to kill him.”

“Then we’ve absolutely got to keep him alive! Won’t anybody in the village take him in?”

“No, they’re all full up, and say they can’t do with him, and he hasn’t any relations of his own except a drunken granddaughter in a town slum.”

Raymonde sighed dramatically.

“I’m going to think, and think, and think, and think, until I find some way of helping him,” she announced. “It’ll be hard work, because I hate thinking, but I’ll do it, you’ll see!”

Raymonde was abstracted that evening, both at preparation and at supper. In the dormitory she put aside all conversation with a firm: “Don’t talk to me, I’m thinking!” She borrowed Fauvette’s bottle of eau-de-Cologne, and went to bed 191 with a bandage tied round her head to assist her cogitations.

“Of course I shan’t go to sleep,” she assured the others. “I must just lie awake until the idea comes to me. Old Wilkinson’s on my mind.”

“Glad he’s not on mine,” gurgled Aveline, settling herself comfortably on her pillow. “Couldn’t you leave him until to-morrow?”

“Certainly not! I shall wake you up and tell you when my idea arrives.”

“Help!” murmured her schoolmate, half-asleep.

That night, when the whole household at the Grange was soundly wrapped in slumber, Aveline was suddenly brought back from a jumbled dream of punts, cows, and Latin exercises by feeling somebody shaking her persistently and urgently.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, sitting up in bed. “Is it Zepps?”

“Sh—sh! Don’t wake the whole dormitory, you goose!” came Raymonde’s voice in a whisper. “Remember Gibbie’s door’s wide open, can’t you? I’ve just got my idea.”

Aveline promptly lay down again and closed her eyes.

“Won’t it keep till to-morrow?” she murmured.

“Certainly not! You’ve got to hear it now. Move further on—I’m coming into bed with you. That’s better!”

“But I’m so sleepy,”—rather crossly.

“Don’t be horrid! You might wake up for once, and listen!”

“I am listening.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, then. I said to myself when 192 I began to think: ‘What’s wanted is a home for old Wilkinson!’ and just now it suddenly flashed into my head: ‘We’ll make him one for ourselves!’”

“Where?”

“That’s the point. The Bumble says she can’t have him at the Grange—Hermie suggested that—and every place one knows of seems to belong to somebody who wants it—all except the island!”

“What island? The one on the river?”

“No, no! Not so far as that. The island on our moat, I mean. We’ll build a little house for him, and he can have it all for his very own.”

“Wouldn’t it—wouldn’t it be rather difficult to build?” gasped Aveline, dazed at the magnitude of her chum’s idea.

“Oh, not impossible! There are heaps and heaps of railway sleepers down in the wood heap, and we could pile them up into a hut. It’s only what people do out in Canada. Gibbie’s always telling us tales of women who emigrate to the backwoods, and build colonies of log-cabins. Ave, you’re not going to sleep again, are you?”

“N—no!” came a rather languid voice; “but how’ll we ever get to the island?”

“We’ll make a raft. We’ll do it to-morrow, you and I. Don’t tell any of the others yet. Morvyth’s been so nasty lately, I’m fed up with her, and Ardiune would only laugh. When we’ve got the thing really started, we’ll take them over and let them help, but not till then. Will you promise to keep it an absolute secret?”

“I’ll promise anything you like”—wearily—“if you’ll only go back to your own bed.” 193

“All right, I’m off now—but just remember you’re not to mention it to a single soul.”

Raymonde, next day, was tremendously full of her new scheme. It savoured of romance. Old Wilkinson would be a combination of a mediÆval hermit and Robinson Crusoe, and in imagination she already saw him installed in a picturesque log-cabin, with his Manx cat and his tame jackdaw for company. Naturally the first step was to take possession of the island. It lay in the middle of the moat, a reedy little domain covered with willows and bushes. It had never yet been explored by the school, for the simple reason that there had been no means of gaining access to it. The water was too deep for wading, and Miss Beasley had utterly vetoed the suggestion of procuring a punt. Raymonde had cast longing eyes at it many times before, but not until now had she made any real effort to reach it. She thought out her plans carefully during the day—considerably to the detriment of her lessons—and when afternoon recreation time came round she linked Aveline’s arm firmly in hers, and led her to the lumber yard. Here, piled up behind the barn, was a large stack of wood stored for fuel—old railway sleepers, bits of broken fencing, packing-cases, tumbled-down trees, and brushwood.

“What we want to make first,” she announced, “is a raft. I wonder it never struck me to make it before!”

Now rafts sound quite simple and easy when you read about them in books of adventure. Shipwrecked mariners on coral islands in the Pacific always lash a few logs together with incredible 194 speed, and perform wonderful journeys through boiling surf to rescue kegs of provisions and other useful commodities which they observe floating about on the waves. The waters of the moat, being tranquil, and overgrown with duckweed, would surely prove more hospitable than the surging ocean, and ought to support a raft, of however amateur a description. Nevertheless, when they began to look round, it was more difficult than they had expected to find just the right material. The railway sleepers were too large and heavy, and the fence poles were of unequal lengths. Moreover, there was nothing with which to lash them together, for when Raymonde visited the orchard, intending to purloin a clothes-line, she found the housemaid there, hanging up a row of pantry towels, and was obliged to beat a hurried retreat. After much hunting about, the girls at last discovered in a corner exactly what they wanted. It was the door of a demolished shed, made of stout planking, strongly nailed and braced, and in fairly sound condition. Nothing could have been better for their purpose. After first doing a little scouting, to make sure that the rest of the school were safely at the other side of the garden, they dragged it down to the edge of the moat, returning to fetch two small saplings to act as punt-poles.

“For goodness’ sake, let’s be quick and get off before anybody comes round and catches us!” panted Raymonde.

“Are you absolutely certain it’s safe?” quavered Aveline dubiously.

Raymonde looked at her scornfully.

“Aveline Kerby, if you don’t feel yourself up to 195 this business, please back out of it at once, and I’ll go and fetch Morvyth instead. She may be a blighter in some things, but she doesn’t funk!”

“No more do I,” declared Aveline, suddenly assuming an air of dignified abandon, reminiscent of the heroes of coral-island stories. “I’m ready to brave anything, especially for the sake of old Wilkinson. Don’t tip the thing so hard at your end! You’ve made me trap my fingers!”

They launched their craft from the water-garden, treading ruthlessly on Linda’s irises and Hermie’s cherished forget-me-nots. It seemed to float all right, so they crawled on, and squatted on the cross-beams on either side of it to preserve its balance. A good push with their poles sent them well out on to the moat. It was really a delightful sensation sailing amongst the duckweed and arrow-head leaves, although their shoes and skirts got wet from the water which oozed up between the planks. The raft behaved splendidly, and, propelled by the poles, made quite a steady passage. They had soon crossed the piece of water, and scrambled out upon the island. It was a rather overgrown, brambly little domain, and to penetrate its fastnesses proved a scratchy performance, resulting in a long rent down the front of Raymonde’s skirt, and several tears in Aveline’s muslin blouse, to say nothing of wounds on wrists and ankles. There was quite a clearing in the middle, with soft, mossy grass and clumps of hemp agrimony, and actually a small apple-tree with nine apples upon it. They were green and very sour, but the girls each sampled one, with a kind of feeling that by so doing they were taking formal possession of the 196 territory, though, with Paradise for an analogy, it should have been just the reverse.

“We’ll have the log-cabin exactly here,” said Raymonde, munching abstractedly. “It’ll face the sunset, and he can sit and watch the glowing west, and hear the evening bells, and—and––”

“Smoke his pipe,” suggested Aveline unromantically. “He generally seems most grateful of all when one gives him tobacco.”

“We shall be able to see him sitting there,” continued Raymonde, in her most meditative mood. “There’ll be a rose-tree planted beside the door, and nasturtiums and other thingumbobs for the bees. It’ll make a beautiful end to his declining years.”

“Yes,” agreed Aveline, suppressing a yawn. She was not so enthusiastic over the scheme as her chum, and her apple had been much too sour to be really enjoyed. Raymonde sat twining pieces of grass round her finger; her eyes were dreamy, and she hummed “Those Evening Bells,” which the singing class had learnt only the week before.

At that identical moment the clang of a very different bell disturbed the echoes. The girls sprang to their feet.

“Prep.!” they gasped in consternation.

They had absolutely no idea it was so late. Time had simply flown. They must get back immediately, and even then might expect to lose order marks. Regardless of scratches, they scurried through the brambles to the place where they had left their raft. To their horror it was gone! They had forgotten to anchor it, and it had floated out into the middle of the moat. 197

This was indeed a predicament! They looked at each other aghast.

“We’re marooned, that’s what it is!” stammered Aveline. “Raymonde, you’re the silliest idiot I’ve ever met in the course of my life!”

“Well, I like that!”

“Can’t help it—it’s the truth! Whatever did you bring me out here for, on such a wild-goose chase?”

“Why, you wanted to come!”

“I didn’t! You’ve landed me in a horrible scrape. I’ve been late for prep. twice already this week, and Gibbie gave me enough jaw-wag last time, so what she’ll say this time, goodness knows! How are we ever going to get back?”

Raymonde shook her head and whistled. She might have attempted to defend herself, but Aveline by this time had begun to sob hysterically, and she knew that arguments were useless. The prospects of immediate rescue certainly appeared doubtful. Everyone would be indoors for preparation. No doubt they would be missed, and probably a monitress might be sent in quest of them, but the house would be searched first, and then the barns and garden; and it was quite problematical whether it would enter into anybody’s head to walk to the edge of the moat, and look across towards the island.

“I suppose you can’t swim?” asked Aveline, choking back her sobs, and dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.

“No; only a little bit when somebody holds me up. Whoever would have thought of that wretched raft floating off in that fashion? It’s too sickening!” 198

“Don’t you think we’d better give a good shout?”

The girls put their united lung power into the loudest halloo of which they were capable, but it only scared a blackbird in the orchard, and provoked no human response. They sat down in a place where they could be best seen from the mainland, and waited. There were too many brambles for comfort, and the midges were biting badly. Raymonde began to wonder whether, after all, the island were as ideal a situation for a residence as she had supposed. Some lines from a parody on one of Rogers’s poems flashed into her mind:

and

“It mightn’t be just the best place in the world for rheumatism,” she decided, “and probably there’d be just heaps of snails and slugs.”

“Shall we shout again?” suggested Aveline forlornly.

The chums called, whistled, halloed, and cooeed until they were hoarse, but not a soul took the slightest notice. Time, which had sped so rapidly during their first twenty minutes on the island, now crawled on laggard wings. After what appeared to them an absolutely interminable period, but which was in reality about an hour and a half, the familiar figure of Hermie Graveson suddenly appeared on the mainland close to the water-garden. Raymonde and Aveline started up, and emitted yells that would have done credit to a pair 199 of Zulu warriors on the war-path. Hermie waved frantically, shouted something they could not hear, and ran back towards the house. In a few minutes she returned with Miss Gibbs. That worthy lady picked up her skirts and advanced gingerly to the extreme limit of the stones that bordered the water-garden. She put her hands to her mouth to form a speaking-trumpet, and bawled a communication of which the marooned ones could only catch such fragments as “How ... get ... doing ...”

On the presumption that it was an enquiry into their means of locomotion, they pointed sadly to the floating raft. Miss Beasley now came hurrying up, surveyed the situation, and also attempted to converse, but with no better success. After an agitated colloquy with Miss Gibbs she retired.

“D’you think they’ll have to leave us here for the night?” fluttered Aveline anxiously.

“Don’t know. It looks like it, unless anyone can swim!” returned Raymonde, with what stoicism she could muster.

“Perhaps they’ll hire a cart to the river, and fetch up a punt?”

“It’ll take hours to do that!”

The prospect of supper and bed seemed to be retreating further and further into the dim and faraway distance. Aveline remembered that it was the evening for stewed pears and custard, and tears dripped down her cheeks on to her torn blouse.

“Oh! brace up, can’t you?” snapped Raymonde. “It gives me spasms to hear you sniff!”

Aveline was bursting into an indignant retort, when her companion nudged her and pointed to the mainland. 200

Mackenzie, the old gardener, was coming across the orchard carrying on his shoulder a very large wash-tub. The cook followed him, bearing a clothes-prop.

“They’ve the best brains in the house! He’s going to rescue us!” exclaimed Raymonde ecstatically.

The prisoners on the island watched with deep interest while Mackenzie launched his shallop, clambered in, and seizing the clothes-prop from Cook, pushed off cautiously. His craft was very low in the water and looked particularly wobbly, and they were terribly afraid it would upset. In spite of their anxiety they could not help seeing the humorous side of the episode, and they choked with laughter as the tub gyrated and bobbed about, and the old man clutched frantically at his pole. He made first of all for the floating raft, secured it with a piece of rope, and dragged it to the island. The girls straightened their faces and welcomed him with polite expressions of gratitude.

He received their thanks ungraciously—perhaps he had seen them laughing—pushed the raft to a spot where they could board it, and remarked tartly:

“Ye deserve to stop where ye are the night, in my opeenion. Get on with ye now, and paddle yerselves back. Giving a body all this trouble—and me with my leg bad, too!”

It was possibly a satisfaction to Mackenzie that Miss Beasley shared his views as to the culpability of the delinquents and the necessity of giving them their deserts. They were summoned to the study after prayers. 201

“What did she say?” whispered Ardiune, Morvyth, and Katherine, as they escorted the crestfallen pair upstairs to the dormitory.

“All recreation stopped for three days, and learn the whole of Gray’s Elegy!” choked the sinners.

“Gray’s Elegy! You’ll never do it! Oh, you poor chickens! The Bumble can be a perfect beast sometimes! I say, what was it like on the island?”

“Top-hole!” responded Raymonde, as she mopped her eyes.

The very next day came the news that the farmer had decided to run up a number of corrugated-iron hutments in one of his own fields to accommodate his lady workers, and that the Squire had promised to pay the rent of old Wilkinson’s cottage so long as he was left there undisturbed. Everybody felt it was a happy solution of the difficulty.

“After all, the island might have been rather an awkward place for him,” admitted Raymonde. “I don’t know how he’d have got backwards and forwards without a drawbridge.”

“Unless he’d used a wash-tub,” giggled Aveline. “I shan’t forget Mackenzie in a hurry! It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Talk of people looking sour! He might have been eating sloes. Cook’s taken it personally, I’m afraid. I asked her for some whitening this morning to clean my regimental button, and she scowled and wouldn’t let me have any—nasty, stingy old thing!”

“It’s a weary world!” sighed Raymonde. “Especially when you’ve got to learn the whole of Gray’s Elegy by heart!”