CHAPTER VI

A LONG SUNDAY

THE next head that appeared was Aylwin's, with a broad grin upon his face. I knew instantly that they must have found Pat.

"Pat is with you?" I cried, and Aylwin's head nodded. The voice of the sea quite drowned our voices.

Davey gave a kind of chuckle. "Might have known it, so we might; he'll always turn up again, will that limb of a boy!"

"But why didn't you find him?" Lynette asked a little indignantly.

Davey shook his head.

Then we heard Aylwin shouting: "We're in here till the tide turns, unless you can fling us a rope!"

Now I knew how daring the boys are. I knew if we did, they would squeeze themselves through that hole, and we would see them dangling in mid-air by the rope, so I told Davey not to say he had got one at the bottom of his boat.

"The tide is going out," said Davey, "but it will take a couple of hours yet for them to be able to get out of that cave."

Then Pat's head appeared at the hole. "How's yourselves?" he shouted.

"How are you?" Lynette cried back.

"Hurt my leg! Had to lie low. Go home to your breakfasts. We have the boat and will come as soon as ever we can!"

But we waited till Denys's head popped out again, and when he shouted the same thing we thought we had better go back. Davey said Pat's aunt must be told that he was safe, so we rowed back, and I felt as if a great heavy lump had been lifted off my chest. It was so glorious to have them all alive and jolly!

We weren't scolded for going out so early when they heard the good news. Even Peggy beamed with delight. Davey rode off to tell Miss Douglas and all the village people, and Aunt Isobel came into the schoolroom to hear all about it, while we had our breakfast.

We went down to the beach directly afterwards, and Puff said:

"I do think God might hurry up the sea, and tell it to move quicker."

It seemed really very slow at going out. But gradually the rocks began to show themselves, and then the seaweed, and then, after a very long time, we saw a little boat in the distance, and it came nearer and nearer. And at last, the boys came in sight. And we danced and shouted like savages, and took off our shoes and stockings, and waded into the sea to meet them.

Pat was as funny as ever, but he looked very white, and had a bandage round his ankle. Denys carried him on his back right up the beach, for he couldn't walk, and then Aylwin took a turn, and as we went up to the house, we heard all about it. Pat had planned a lovely picnic on the island. He landed there on the way to us to leave his big basket of provisions and to get the cave ready for us. He said, one day, there was a horrid dead fish in it which made an awful smell, and he didn't want anything of that sort to be there when we came. He was a little longer than he meant to be, and then, to his horror, he saw that his boat had slipped her anchor and was drifting away. He was in a hurry to get to a high part of the cave to shout for help, when he had an awful tumble and cut a great gash in his leg. It wouldn't stop bleeding, and it made him sick, and he thinks he must have fainted.

When he came to himself, he was afraid of moving lest the bleeding should burst out again, and he was also in too much pain to move. He saw the tide was coming in, and knew he was caught and would have to stop there, so he dragged himself slowly to the high and dry part of the cave, and there he lay down and ate a good meal and then went to sleep, he said, for hours. I suppose that was when the men were hunting for him, but they stupidly never looked in the cave. Pat says the villagers think it is haunted, and will never go right in.

When he woke up, he tore some strips off his shirt and bound up his leg very tight, and then he could hop about. And when it came on to be dark, he thought what a fool he was not to make a fire. So he made it at last, and that was how Denys and Aylwin saw it, and they got over to him all right, for it was low tide. But when they tried to bring him down to the boat, his leg burst out bleeding afresh, and by the time they had bound it up, and he began to feel fit to hop down to the beach, they found the horrid tide had turned, and was washing into the cave. So they had to wait till the morning, and then they saw us coming. It all sounded so natural that I thought how stupid we were not to find Pat before.

When we got to the house, Aunt Isobel came running out, and Miss Douglas, who had just arrived. She had ridden over. It seemed funny to me to see a grey-haired lady on a horse, but everybody seems to ride here.

Pat waved his hand airily to them.

"Sorry am I to have turned up again to plague you," he said.

But Miss Douglas looked as if she wanted to hug him.

"Oh Pat, you'll be my death one day," she said. "I had quite made up my mind that you were lying fathoms deep below the sea."

When Aunt Isobel saw how hurt Pat's leg was, she had him carried by Davey into one of the empty spare rooms, and then the doctor came and sewed up his leg, for he had a great gash in it. We thought it was awful to actually sew up his flesh with needle and cotton. I had never heard of such a thing before. And then we were told that, as he had to keep quiet and not move his leg, he was going to stay with us for a few days, and of course we voted it great fun. Miss Douglas fussed in and out of his room all the day, but she went away before it got dark.

In the evening, Pat came into the schoolroom and lay on the couch there. We had a big fire, and we all sat round it and told ghost stories; and Pat's "yarns," as the boys called them, were simply ripping!

"It's queer," he said, just before we went to bed, "that you should have come to my rescue two days running. I hope you'll get into difficulties next, and sure I'll get you out of them! So as to be quits!"

"I suppose it's being by the sea that brings so many dangers," I said.

"No," he said with his merry laugh, "it's just meself, born to be the plague of my belongings! If anybody can get into a scrape, it's I that do it."

"It's very interesting and exciting," said Lynette. "I do hope you'll go on doing it. We do love adventures."

And when we came up to bed Lynette said to me:

"Isn't Pat a darling, Grisel? I'm so glad we know him."

"Yes," I said, "he's so merry that I can't help liking him, but Lynette, he uses such words—almost swearing—I can't bear to hear him do it!"

"You mean when he says 'Oh Lord!' and 'May the devil take me.' He doesn't mean anything by it, he only rattles the words off in his stories—"

"Puff will be copying him," I said. "He always copies big boys."

"Then we must give Puff a whacking if he does, and stop it," said Lynette.

Nothing ever troubles Lynette.

* * * * *

To-day is Sunday. It hasn't been at all a nice day. To begin with, it has been a regular wet day. Aunt Isobel said we couldn't any of us go to church, and that seemed to turn it into a week-day. She told us we must stay quietly in the schoolroom, and that of course brought difficulties at once. First we were all quiet. I got Puff into a corner, and began to read him some of "The Pilgrim's Progress," and the boys and Lynette got some books from the book-case.

But about eleven o'clock Pat hobbled in and took possession of the sofa, and then there was no more quiet. Puff first began to humbug about the room and throw cushions, and then Pat said he would show us some conjuring tricks, and they were so interesting that I forgot it was Sunday, and enjoyed them as much as the others. Then he brought out of his pocket a rather dirty pack of cards, and said we must have a game. I said at once we never played cards, but the boys looked uncomfortable. Pat laughed. He has a very wheedling way with him, and when I added hastily:

"It's Sunday," he laughed all the more.

"You're not one of these sour-faced Scotchies, Grisel," he said. "What's a poor invalid to do if you can't amuse him? Doesn't it say in the Bible you must give a leg up to any poor ass who's down in his luck? But girls are all the same. Now you shut those grey eyes of yours, and go on reading your Sabbath book. And we'll have our quiet game without interfering with you."

Then I turned and looked at the boys.

"Hold fast!" I said, and then I ran out of the room.

I felt miserable when I got to my bedroom. I'm a regular out-and-out coward. I couldn't stay in the room to be laughed at, and so I came away, and I left them, and knew that perhaps they would all be breaking Sunday, and playing cards. I looked out of the window, and began to wish we had never come here. There seemed nobody to help us do right, and it was so easy to do wrong. And then I remembered that God was with us just the same, so I knelt down and asked Him to make the boys hold fast, and remember father's teaching. And I felt a little better when I got up from my knees, and a little braver too.

So presently I crept back to the schoolroom. There was the most awful noise going on, but they weren't playing cards, they were acting stories out of the Bible and making Pat guess what they were. I found Lynette rolling and shrieking on the floor, and Puff and Aylwin were gambolling about her on all fours, and Denys was standing on the mantelpiece looking on.

I heard in a minute or two that Lynette and Denys had both stood on the mantelpiece, and that she was Jezebel. And Puff had come by riding on Aylwin and said, "Throw her down," and that Denys had pushed her down, and then Aylwin and Puff pretended to be the dogs devouring her, and Lynette showed me afterwards huge bruises on her elbows and knees where she fell. Pat was in fits of laughter. And I didn't know what to say or do.

"We've been so good," he said to me; "we've postponed our game of 'Nap' till to-morrow."

He pulled hold of me and made me sit on a chair close to him.

"I really don't know whether this is any better," I said in despair. "We've never spent a Sunday like this before."

Lynette got up, rubbing her elbows dolefully.

"We've never been kept in from church," said Denys, a little defiantly. "Aunt Isobel treats us as if we're china under glass!"

I gave a big sigh, and Pat mimicked me at once.

"Old mother Grisel!" he said. "Do you always try to be good? Or do you only keep it for Sundays?"

I looked at him. Somehow, though his voice and words are teasing, I never feel afraid of Pat. I think it is his bright soft blue eyes.

"Oh, Pat!" I said. "If you had just lost your father whom you adored, wouldn't you try to do what he would wish?"

"He won't know anything," said Pat reflectively.

"Oh, I hope he doesn't know what we're doing to-day," I said, feeling a great lump rising in my throat. "It would break his heart if he knew you were going to make the boys play cards and gamble. I heard you talking of halfpenny points!"

Pat laughed.

"Don't you worry, little mother. Your boys can look after themselves. Why did you call out 'Hold fast' when you ran away?"

"It was father's charge to me," I said firmly. "He told me before he died to tell the boys to hold fast, and I shall always say it to them when they forget. I say it to myself every morning. I forget quite as much as they do."

"Hold fast to what?"

"We looked it up in the Bible. Father didn't finish his sentence, but I'm sure he meant to what he taught us, and to what God says we're to do in the Bible."

"Oh, sakes alive! Sure, if we're to do all the Bible tells us, we'd better quit the earth straight away."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because nobody could live on Bible lines. Now doesn't it tell you to give to every one who wants to borrow? We have some awful wandering beggars over here. Supposing if everybody gave them everything they asked for, why, like cormorants, they'd swallow our all!"

"You need not pick out the unlikely kinds of things to do," I said.

Then Denys came over to us. He was smoothing down the back of his head with his hand—a little trick of his when he's not quite sure of himself.

"Well, Grizzy," he said, "how are we going to get through this wet Sunday? I'll never stand another like this—never!"

"I think, if you were to read the lessons to us, Denys, and a collect or two, it would be a kind of church at home, and we could sing the chants and a hymn or two."

I was rather nervous as I spoke, because of Pat, but, to my relief, he said:

"It'll be a thundering good idea, and then all the wrinkles will go, little mother, won't they?"

In a moment, they all took it up. Lynette and Aylwin made a kind of reading-desk and some pews, and the only thing Denys would not do was to put on the nightdress Lynette brought him for a surplice.

"I'm not a parson," he said, "and I won't ape one."

We all settled down; even Puff got grave and quiet, and Pat lay quite still till we began to sing, and then he joined in with such a lovely voice that I almost held my breath to listen to him.

And then we sang ever so many hymns one after another, and when our church was over, it was dinner-time. I felt quite happy again, and I know Denys was too, he pulled hold of me in the passage as he was going to his room to wash his hands.

"Grisel, we nearly let go this morning, didn't we?"

I nodded.

"And next time," he added quickly, "I hope I shall be the one to call out 'Hold fast.'"

We didn't say any more.

The afternoon was quite fine, and we all went for a long walk along the cliffs, for the tide was in. Aunt Isobel sat with Pat to cheer him up, she said. But I think he cheered her up, for he talked and she listened, and there's nobody that can talk like Pat. He simply makes you die with laughing every minute.

It seems that in this part of Scotland the church that Aunt Isobel goes to is only held once a day, in the morning. And nobody thinks of going anywhere else. As it was fine, several visitors came to see Aunt Isobel, and some who arrived in a motor stayed to dinner. They sounded very jolly downstairs, and Lynette was very cross at Peggy telling us we were to stay quietly in the schoolroom, as there was company.

"We might as well be in jail," she said.

"Oh," I said, "I'm thankful we can be here by ourselves."

After tea, we got round the fire, and then somehow we began to tell Pat about our Empire League. He was awfully interested.

"I'm half inclined to be a soldier myself," he said, "but I'm all for old Oireland. I don't know that I have a passion for England."

"Oh, but you must," I cried. "We are all bound up together. You're a loyal Irishman, aren't you?"

Pat half winked his eye at me.

"I don't mean to know or like any men, when I grow up," I said stoutly, "who aren't loyal subjects to their King and country."

"And," burst out Lynette, "Grisel and I have quite made up our minds not to marry anybody but soldiers."

"How many for each of you?" said Aylwin, with his funny chuckle.

"Sure," said Pat, "with that shining prospect before me of weddin' either of you, or both, I'll enlist as a drummer-boy right away!"

"Don't joke," I said. "Aren't you fond of and proud of our British Empire, Pat?"

"I'll be so, if you'll teach me," he said, folding his hands and casting his eyes up to the ceiling till we could only see the whites of them.

And then I gave up talking, for I saw he wouldn't be serious, but I hoped he would listen another day.

And now I've been writing in this diary, and we're just off to bed. This has been a dreadfully long Sunday; I do hope we shall never stay home from church again.

Oh dear, oh dear! I did hope we had got through the day all right. But there's the most awful row going on, and we're all in it, and it has all happened in the last half-hour, and Aunt Isobel is furious. But I must write about it to-morrow.