Part 7 (2/2)
”She knew she'd caught us,” finished Diana.
”She took the boots straight to Miss Todd, and Toddlekins blew her whistle and counted us over like sheep to find who was missing. Then she asked who'd seen you last, and if anyone had given you leave to wade.
She dragged it all out of Geraldine. I don't think Gerry would have told on her own.”
”Spot!” said Diana, turning reproachful eyes on that panting specimen of the canine race. ”I used to think you a d.i.n.ky little dog, but I'm out of friends with you now. It's a real mean trick you've played us. Oh! you needn't come jumping up on me and licking my hand. What possessed you to unearth those boots? 'Bounds' for a whole fortnight! And I wanted to go to Glenbury on Wednesday. It's too disgusting for words! Vi, d'you think if I looked an absolute hallowed saint all Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, Miss Todd would let me go to Glenbury? My name's down for the exeat, you know.”
Violet regarded Diana for a moment or two as if making mental calculations.
”You couldn't do it,” she decided at last. ”You couldn't look the least tiny, weeny atom like a saint if you tried till doomsday. Saints ought to be thin and wan, with straight noses and fair hair parted in the middle. You're rosy and substantial, and your nose isn't straight, and your hair's too brown, and as for your eyes--they've a wicked twinkle in them the whole time. No, my good girl, whatever else you may do, you won't succeed in looking saintly.”
”Well, I guess I've got some bounce in me, certainly,” agreed Diana.
”But I thought perhaps if I went about on tiptoe and whispered, and”--hopefully--”I could keep my eyes half-shut, couldn't I?”
Violet shook her head decisively.
”That twinkle would ooze out of the smallest c.h.i.n.k, and besides, even if you managed to look a saint, that wouldn't influence Toddlekins. You don't know her yet. Once she says a thing she sticks to it like glue.
_She_ calls it necessary firmness in a mistress, and _we_ call it a strain of obstinacy in her disposition. In the old days we could get round Mrs. Gifford, but now Toddlekins rules the show, you may as well make up your mind to things and have done with it. What she says is kismet.”
”Why do you want to go to Glenbury?” asked Jess.
”Oh! just a reason of my own,” evaded Diana.
”You'll very likely get an exeat the week after,” consoled Violet.
”It would be no use to me then,” said Diana dismally.
The procession of rush-bearers, each carrying a good-sized sheaf in her arms, wound down the hill-side to go back to Pendlemere by a different route. This was a wild track over the moors, past the old slate-quarry, where rusty bits of machinery and piles of broken slates were lying about, then over the ridge and down by Wethersted Tarn to the gorge where the river took its rise. Here a stream of considerable force thundered along between high walls of rock. It was a picturesque spot; rowan-trees hung from clefts in the crags, their bright berries rivalling the scarlet of the hips and haws; green fronds of fern bent at the water's edge, and brilliant carpets of moss clothed the boulders. At one point a great tree-trunk, a giant of the fells, rotten through many years of braving the strong west wind, had fallen and lay across the torrent. It stretched from bank to bank like a rough kind of natural bridge, with the stream roaring and foaming only six feet below. The girls scrambled over its upturned roots, and stood looking at the straight trunk and withered branches that lay stretched before them.
”Shouldn't care to venture across there,” said Loveday with a s.h.i.+ver.
”It looks particularly slippery and horrid,” agreed Geraldine.
”The water must be so very deep down there,” said Hilary.
”I don't believe there's one of us who'd go across for a five-pound-note,” said Ida. ”What offers? Don't all speak at once!”
The girls smiled, and were turning away to follow Miss Todd, when Geraldine stopped and held up a finger.
”What's that noise?” she asked.
”I don't hear anything but the stream,” said Ida doubtfully.
”I do, though,” said Diana, who with Wendy and Vi had joined the seniors. ”It sounds like somebody whimpering.”
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