Sally Cocksure

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

A NIGHT ADVENTURE

It was Wednesday evening. Sally Brendan lay in her bed, with her eyes closed, and the sheet drawn up almost to her nose. Yet she was very far from being asleep; and had anyone turned back the clothes they would have seen that, instead of a nightdress, she wore gym. knickers, and a jersey that belonged to one of her brothers, which she had insisted on packing in a corner of her trunk because it was certain to come in useful.

She giggled softly to herself, as she thought of her appearance, and Peter's last whispered instructions as they came out of Chapel:

"For Heaven's sake, child, remember that whatever you wear, it must be something that doesn't give us away! I don't want anybody at the Fair saying that you came from Seascape House."

"Right oh! Old Cocaine herself would hardly know me," she had whispered back, and hurried off, for fear her friend should question her further and raise objections: she might even at the last minute refuse to take her.

Trina Morrison had been in a very uncertain mood since the scene between them on the cricket field; for the most part, irritable and impatient. Several times she had hinted that, on reflection, she felt sure it would be wiser for Sally not to come; and when that young lady had maintained, "But I am going anyhow—it's no use trying to stop me now," she had warned her that she might have to return alone.

"You see, you are much too juvenile for this sort of a dance, really, and I can't be bothered to act nursemaid. Why, I never meant to bring you into the show at all, until that ass Violet Tremson began to threaten me, and then I felt I must—just to annoy her."

"To threaten you with what?"

"Why, expulsion, of course. She said if I didn't reform my ways, especially with regard to you, she would expound my sins to Old Cocaine."

"What a sneaking cad she is!"

In her heart Sally Brendan found it difficult to apply this description to Violet Tremson, but she was still sore and angry with her. It is said that any stick is good enough with which to beat a dog: besides, it seemed to mollify Peter.

"I dare say you wouldn't be happy here with this crowd when I am gone, and that's a matter of two terms more at most," she had said, in a more friendly tone; and Sally had answered:

"Of course not—I have told you so. I always meant to get expelled, from that first day on the beach."

If not strictly true, the sentiment sounded well, and allowed Trina to put away, with a shrug of her shoulders, any responsibility she might ever have felt.

"All right, then—9.45 sharp—at the landing window; and remember, I shan't hang about for you."

It was for the clock to strike 9.30 that the girl now anxiously waited.

Seascape House went to bed early. The Matron had made her last round of the passages, and Decima Pillditch was snoring heavily, when Sally at last stole out of bed. By pulling to one side the curtain of her cubicle, she could focus the moonlight full on her looking-glass; and without delay she started on the final stage in her make-up.

It was quick and drastic: nothing less than the hacking off of the red curls that had made a fuzzy halo round her small freckled face. When it was completed, she was no longer bobbed, but shorn, and in her costume of knickers and jersey presented a very good picture of a street Arab of eleven or twelve.

The effect was magnificent, but something of a shock in its transformation—even to Sally herself; and she began to wonder how Peter would approve of the disguise—completed by a large hole in the back of her stocking, which she suddenly discovered, and had no time to draw together.

"I will keep on my cap and coat until we leave the garden," she told herself, rather guiltily; and thus wrapped up, opened the door, stole along the passage, and down the back stairs to the landing window.

It was open, and at first she thought that her friend had gone without her; but as she peered out, she heard a voice whisper:

"Come! Do be quick."

And climbing through the opening, she found herself alongside Trina, on the flat roof of the corridor, that ran round three sides of the gymnasium.

Without looking at her, Trina inserted a large wedge of wood between the window and the sash, then pulled the lower pane down to meet it.

"No one is likely to notice that, and we shall be able to lift it all right when we return," she whispered. "But now, follow me and be quiet. We have to crawl along just below the mistresses' windows, stooping, in case they are there—but I think they are all in the sitting-room at this hour. When we come to Miss Castle's, there's a pipe down to the ground, and two bricks out in the wall, where one can put one's feet."

She started off, pulling her dark coat tight round her, and Sally followed, her eyes dancing with excitement. Most of the mistresses' windows were shut, but Miss Castle's was half open, with a curtain blowing slightly in the wind, though there was no light showing.

Trina made a grimace at the blank space, and shook her fist playfully; then began to lower herself over the edge of the roof. Her feet scraped along the pipe before they found their foothold, and Sally, at the noise, caught her breath; but there was no sound from the room above.

"She is not in there yet," the girl decided; and seeing the light in Miss Cockran's study at the end of the passage, wondered idly if she had gone along there.

"Jawing about us in our little beds to Old Cocaine," she said, and giggled as she began her own descent. It was hastened by a sudden flash of electric light in Miss Castle's room, just as she found her first foothold, and thereupon she lowered herself with a rapidity that nearly sent Trina Morrison, just below her, backwards into a flower bed.

"Young ass!" whispered Trina. "You will make me dirty my evening dress."

"'Ware Castle!" Sally returned, and they flattened themselves against the wall in the shadows, as they heard a voice from above call sharply,

"Who's there?"

Again the question was repeated, and as if in response two cats emerged from a bush and fled across the grass, one of them miawing loudly.

This seemed to satisfy Miss Castle, for she partially closed her window, and they heard the curtain drawn across. Keeping to the shadows, they crept along the flower beds till they turned the corner of the house, and came out on the grass of the tennis lawns, from whence they made their way into the shrubberies. No word was said until they had climbed into the tree, with branches overhanging the wall, that Sally knew from her previous adventure.

"I'd better leave my things here, hadn't I?" she whispered. "It's frightfully warm, and my overcoat is a school one"; but the elder girl, without answering beyond a nod of agreement, was already scrambling down the rough stonework, with the aid of a rope she had pulled out of the trunk and hung over a strong branch.

Sally followed her as quickly as she could, but with her shorter legs the drop was not so easy to manage, and Trina was walking rapidly down the road by the time she reached the ground.

"Are you going at that pace all the way to Parchester?" she panted, as she caught her up. "Anyhow, it's no good—we shan't be there before midnight."

"No, silly! The Fair is on the heath, on this side of the town, and anyhow, I have ordered a car at the Black Cull."

There was something very impressive to Sally's ears in the carelessness of her companion's tone, and as she undid her coat in the warm night air, and it fell back, revealing a pretty silk dress, the younger girl gave a gasp of admiration and distress.

"Why, you are most frightfully smart," she said. "I don't know whatever you will think of me."

"Good Golliwogs!"

Trina had turned her round towards the moon, and was staring at her, her own face in the shadows, so that Sally could not tell what she felt.

"You told me to disguise myself," she said half defiantly, expecting anger or scorn—anything but her companion's sudden outburst of laughter.

"My good child! Well, you have cut the painter—you are done for now with Old Cocaine."

"Lost by a narrow shave, instead of escaped by it," said Sally, greatly relieved. "Anyhow, no one at the Fair could possibly recognise me, could they?"

"I should say your own mother wouldn't—when you are returned to her, to-morrow."

Sally's rising spirits received a dash of cold water at the rejoinder. In a flash she suddenly remembered how Mrs. Brendan had begged her not to get expelled, and how she had promised she would try to stop at school. Standing outside the private door of the Black Bull, while Trina Morrison hammered with the knocker, she shuffled her feet uncomfortably, and tried to put out of her mind her mother's eyes, and her consciousness of the furious superior glance that Cecilia would give her, when she turned up once more like a bad penny. After all, she decided, there was no need for them to be caught. Peter had done this kind of thing before, quite safely, and cutting off one's hair was not an unpardonable crime, taken by itself.

"Oh, shut up shuffling, do," she heard the elder girl say. "I want to listen. They are all asleep, or I shall have to go to the public bar, and find someone. It's perfectly disgusting."

At this moment the door flew open, and a man with a red face appeared. He was in his shirt sleeves, with a coat over his arm, which he began to put on while he spoke—leering at them with a disagreeably familiar smile.

"All right, Missie. I booked the order true enough, but I tell you straight I don't fancy it. Thinking it over, after the young gentleman had bin here, I says to myself, 'It will as good as get me sacked, it will, if I'm found out—and that's not exactly a cheering sort of notion for a poor man.'"

"My cousin arranged with you to drive me to the opening of the Fair for ten shillings—an order is an order, isn't it?"

"That's what he said, Miss, and I'm never one to overcharge, especially a young lady like yourself; but it's so risky, I don't see as how I can, for the money. 'Don't you have nothing to do with it,' says my wife, 'or that there female up at the school-house will get you sacked.'"

"Nonsense!" said Trina angrily. "Why, it is ridiculous to talk of 'sacking.' How could Miss Cockran do it? She has never employed your cars for years—said you were impudent, or something—so you won't even lose her custom."

The man's smile was not so affable now, and there was an angry glint in his eyes, though his tone was still oily.

"You seem to know the ways of my business better than I do, Missie—leastways, it's the first I've ever heard of being impudent—but just you think of this now; I ain't out skylarking like you and that young boy, if he belongs to your party, but earning of my living—and I don't take no risks."

"How much do you want, and are you prepared to start at once? I must be there by 10.15."

Trina looked impatiently at her wrist-watch in the moonlight, and the man continued to smile, but with his hand half over his mouth, as though to conceal what was almost a grin.

"Not to disappoint a young lady, Missie, I'd go at—say, thirty shillings, I would."

They fixed it finally at a pound—Trina stamping angrily on the step as she concluded, saying:

"Well, be quick, can't you? I don't want to waste the whole evening."

He vanished, and as her glance fell on Sally, she frowned—no longer amused by her companion's ragamuffin appearance.

"Why, you look worse and worse," she said petulantly. "You ought to be picking up pennies on a London kerb."

"I shall do all right for a Fair, then, shan't I?"

"Yes—but not for a dance—and that's what I'm really going to."

"Well, I'm not. I expect I'll trot back, after I have had enough of the Fair. I said I probably should, so you needn't worry."

Sally saw the elder girl was ashamed of her, and felt hot and angry—especially at the look of relief with which her suggestion was received.

"I daresay that would be best. You'll be able to get up the wall by the rope, and the rest is quite easy."

At this moment the car rattled into view. It was very dusty and smelly, and took a great deal of winding up before it consented to crawl away along the road towards the heath. By the time it arrived, Trina, who glanced at her wrist-watch whenever a patch of moonlight allowed, was in a state of exasperated nerves with both driver and car, while Sally was secretly wishing herself back in bed.

This was not at all the joyous adventure she had imagined as she lay waiting for the clock to strike.

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

SALLY AT THE FAIR

The taxi pulled up on the outskirts of a large crowd, chiefly composed of men and boys. Sally, as she put her head out of the window, could see their dark figures outlined against a row of flaring lights.

The Fair was held in a field, surrounded on three sides by a thick hedge, on the other, by a canvas wall, eight or nine feet high. From inside rose the droning jangle of merry-go-rounds and the raucous voices of showmen and hawkers.

"Walk up, ladies! Walk up, gentlemen! Don't miss the most celebrated moving picture of the age," etc., etc.

Entranced by the interest of the scene before her, the girl stood as she had alighted from the car, and did not even notice it drive off, nor that her companion, after calling to her sharply, had moved away alone. When the jerk of someone's elbow in her ribs woke her at last from her dream of contemplation, it was to find herself engulfed in a group of Parchester rowdies, who were fighting their way towards the turnstile. Here, a negro with a red nose, and spots of white paint on his cheeks and forehead, stood beating a drum.

Nearly swept off her feet, Sally was thankful when she arrived inside; but her heart sank, as she saw no sign of Trina Morrison, who, she had fully imagined, would be waiting for her there.

"She knows I can take care of myself—and, of course, I can."

This was the first explanation she offered herself, cleverly turning neglect into a compliment; but it did not completely satisfy her judgment all the same. Rather a voice in another part of her brain kept whispering:

"It was beastly of her not to wait—I shall tell her so." But when, after a few minutes' desultory staring at the booths, she came upon Trina and her friends, she did not do so. Instead, she hung back in the shadow of a tent, overcome by shame as she realised the contrast between herself and this group of civilised merry-makers.

Girls in evening dresses, with light cloaks trimmed with fur; young men in black suits, with starched white shirt-fronts, and shining hair plastered across their foreheads—such were Trina's friends: while she, shock-headed and freckled, in her rough jersey, gym. knickers and torn stockings, belonged obviously to the little group of ragamuffin boys who were trying to insert their heads under the flaps of tents, or secure a ride on the merry-go-rounds for nothing.

At school, Sally had thought her costume a joke. Peter had laughed at it too, when she first saw her in the road, though later, when waiting outside the Black Bull, she had frowned—Peter's moods were dreadfully uncertain. It would be horrible if she, Sally, were to step out and join the group, and then her friend were merely to stare at her, and say something uncomfortable in her cool drawl, that would make them all laugh.

"Stuck-up toads! I hate the lot of them!" the girl muttered, clenching her fists as she watched them throwing Houp-la rings. It seemed to her that Austin, as he handed the rings to his cousin, was staring beyond her mockingly, recognising the unwanted guest, but determined to cut such a disreputable-looking waif, at all costs.

In reality, Sally knew that he could not possibly distinguish her, at the distance she stood, from amongst the boys who leaped and screamed around her, in and out of the shadows made by the tents and booths; but the true soreness lay in the thought that Peter had probably forgotten to mention her at all, so that none of her companions was prepared either to welcome or to scorn her.

"I don't care—not a scrap!"

With the shrug of her shoulders that had often exasperated Mrs. Musgrave as the answer to a snub, Sally strolled away from the Houp-la. It was a silly game, she decided, that only won for the successful hideous china vases and trumpery brooches; she would go, instead, to a moving picture show.

The flaring lights on the platform outside one large tent showed parties of Japanese contortionists, black cats, and men struggling in mines, while a hideous bat, of monster size, flapped over their heads.

Sally was so thrilled by the bat that, for the moment, she forgot Trina, and even the school. It was fun to be a boy out on an adventure, and to wriggle her way through the crowd, with exasperated women tapping her on the head for her impudence, and old men abusing her as she trod on their toes. It was not such fun, however, when, nearing the entrance, she became wedged, just below the platform, between a very stout woman and a bony soldier, who dug his elbows almost into the back of her neck.

The soldier's companion had a blue and yellow tickler, and thought it a great joke that the little crop-headed boy in front objected to having his face washed with it, and lost his temper when she persisted.

"Shut up!" said Sally fiercely.

To which the woman replied with a cheerful wink at her neighbours:

"None of your lip, Charlie, my boy, or my pal there will fetch you one on the mug—see if he don't."

"S'truth I will," said the soldier, with an air of great ferocity. "I'll spoil your beauty for you—there's not a few noses as I've laid flat with their faces, in my time."

And he dug with his elbows so sharply into Sally's neck that she became alarmed. After this, she endured the tickler in silence until they reached the foot of the steps up to the platform. It was as she struggled up there towards the tent doorway, past the man with the drum, that she discovered she had no money: someone in the crowd had picked her pocket.

"Pocket picked, you young varmint? You mean you'd like to wriggle in for nothing—I know your kind," said the man at the door, scowling, as a wave of people threw Sally almost on top of him, and he rose and thrust her roughly back.

Had not a clown, who had been turning somersaults on the platform to the accompaniment of the drum, caught her arm and pulled her into safety beside him, she would have fallen backwards down the steps, and probably have been trodden underfoot by those still fighting their way up.

The very thought made Sally feel sick, but it evidently struck the clown as a good joke, for he asked her loudly if she knew what happened to the grasshopper who chose to cross the road in front of a steam engine.

"It's not my fault—let me go," she said angrily. "I'm off home."

The clown, instead, picked her up and swung her to and fro in the air while he executed a clog dance.

"By, Baby Bunting," he chanted, while the man with the drum, and the Columbine, who stood on either side of him, laughed at this unrehearsed exhibition till the tears ran down their faces.

The humiliation was dreadful. Sally could not imagine how she would ever survive it if Trina and her party were to recognise her in such a position; but when at last the stream of people entering the tent had ceased, she was thankful, as she tore herself from the clown's grasp, that there was at least no sign of them.

Her one desire now was to get back to the school as quickly as she could. Keeping to the shadows, she made her way to the entrance, and with a sigh of relief found herself in a few minutes on the patch of heath outside.

Here, as she paused, uncertain in the darkness which way to turn, she was startled by a yelp of pain, and a puppy came running towards her. It was a mongrel, mainly rough-haired terrier, with ridiculously long ears and a tufted tail. One of the ears was bloodstained, and the tail had a can tied to it, filled with stones.

"You poor little thing," said Sally, who loved animals; and she drew it close, while she bent down and began to untie the string.

"Garn!—leave it alone, can't yer? We are going a-hunting with it"—broke in an angry voice, and a big lad of fifteen, followed by a lot of smaller boys, crowded round her threateningly.

Sally finished untying the string, and looked up. She was trembling nearly as much as the dog, but she said quietly:

"No—you shan't do it any more. He is only a puppy—how can you be so cruel?"

"Quite the little gentleman," sneered one of them, in mock admiration of Sally's voice; while a boy about her own age came up to her, and, doubling his fists, brought one nearly under her nose.

"Cruel! What d' yer mean? 'e's my pup. Can't I drown 'im or tease 'im, if I likes?"

The others laughed and jeered, as, involuntarily, the girl drew back. There were shouts of:

"Go it, Stan!—You're the bruiser. Give the little cad a black eye."

Sally went very pale. She had boxed a little with her brothers, but this was quite a different proposition.

"Let him go, please," she faltered. "He is so frightened."

"Scared as you," retorted Stan briefly. "I'll tie the can on to you as well as 'im, if you don't clear off." And he bent to seize the puppy by its rope collar.

Sally could feel the terrier tremble against her legs, and as she heard it yelp in sudden pain, her fear vanished, and only burning anger remained. Leaning across the dog, she hit Stan hard on his nose, sending him reeling backwards in surprise.

"Take that, you cowardly brute," she said.

In an instant a ring was formed, and Sally found she had partisans as well as enemies. There was an encouraging shout of "Go it, Carrots!" as she warded off a slashing blow from Stan and landed one herself on his jaw; but this was the utmost of her triumph. What the girl knew of boxing was not enough to defend her from a windmill attack of arms and legs that admitted kicking and stamping amongst its tactics.

But for the timely appearance of a policeman, attracted from the gateway by the noise, she would have fared badly indeed. As it was, when the rest had fled, and he laid his hand on her shoulder, one eye was already closed, while she stood trying to stem with bleeding knuckles the tears that flowed from the other.

"Silly young hass, to start fighting at your age," said the policeman reprovingly, but with good-natured sympathy.

"'Ome you go now, sonny, and tell your ma to put raw beef on it. That's the stuff."

"The puppy?" gasped Sally, between her tears. "I tried to save him—the brutes were hurting him."

"There weren't no sign of a puppy as I came up, so I guess he legged it all right," said the man, glancing at her curiously; then:

"Where's your 'ome, sonny?"

Sally's voice was strangely unlike that of the other urchins, whose pranks had made his evening duty at the Fair a burden; and a suspicion began to dawn that she might belong to a preparatory school in Parchester. This was more than confirmed, when "sonny," twisting out of his grasp, made off without returning any answer.

The policeman pursued for a few yards, but he was "fat and scant of breath," the heath had numberless gorse bushes to act as cover and the night was very dark.

"Drat the young brute!" he muttered at last, and stalked back towards the entrance of the Fair, with an air of dignified contempt, as though the quarry he had pursued was quite beneath his notice.

In the meantime "the young brute," bleeding from her eye and knuckles, lay and panted between two bushes, stifling her sobs as well as she could, until she was sure that the search after her had ceased. Ignominious as it must be in any case to return to Seascape House a figure of dirt and fun, it would have been beyond all words of horror to arrive in charge of a policeman. Cecilia had prophesied that her career would end in a reformatory; and Sally had a secret dread that this might indeed be her fate if once the police began to take an interest in her adventures.

For the moment, as the constable's broad back disappeared into the darkness, this immediate danger was removed; and Sally wept unrestrainedly, almost as much with relief as with pain.

Her head ached and her body felt a mass of bruises, but at least she was free, and had, as her brothers would have called it, "kept her end up," in the matter of the puppy. Their approving eyes seemed to rest upon her as at last she stifled her sobs and, pulling herself stiffly to her feet, began to look around her.

The moon was behind the clouds, and in both directions the road lay like a white ribbon, cutting the darkness of the heath, save where the flaring gas-jets of the Fair flamed across it in a yellow patch. As she peered one way she saw a halo of light edging the horizon, and knew that this was Parchester and that she must turn her back on it to reach Seascape House.

Utter blackness, but for the ribbon of road, lay the other way, and with a little shiver at the prospect, Sally, skirting the furze bushes and digging her hands deep into her pockets, began to run across the heath parallel with the road along which she and Trina had so lately driven.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

"JUST SILLINESS"

The road across the heath, when Sally joined it, lay white and clear for about half-a-mile; then scattered firs—wind-blown and bitten—began to appear, and after these a series of pine plantations that as the moon peeped from behind clouds threw their shadows across the sky like the vaulting in some great church.

So far, since she left the neighbourhood of the Fair, the girl had met no one save a solitary car that passed her with blinding lights; but it seemed to her that the wood was alive with strange night birds that brushed the branches above her head, or beasts that ran scurrying through the undergrowth. It was this feeling of being watched, while she could not see, that kept her, in spite of her bruises, running at almost breathless speed; but, exhausted at last, she sank down on a bank beside a ditch, where the road lay open and clear between two clumps of pines.

At once she became conscious of how much her eye had swollen, and putting her poor bruised hands together over it, she sat huddled up, with her elbows resting on her knees. How long she remained there she did not know; but suddenly she rose to her feet and screamed—something had touched her, something soft and wet.

She looked down, and saw it was the mongrel dog, to whose rescue she had come at the Fair. Now, almost as frightened as she had been, he crouched at her feet, slowly wagging his tufted tail, and begging with abject eyes that she would not kick him or send him away. He had lovely brown eyes (mongrels often have) and Sally, forgetting her own hurts, drew him up into her arms, and began to kiss him, while he responded with frantic licks and little whines of satisfaction.

"I love you, puppy, I love you," she whispered, and became indifferent to the loneliness of her surroundings. With what was almost a swagger she put him down at last, and continued her homeward road—this time at a pleasant stroll. She even found courage to laugh at the predicament in which she had landed herself—made worse as it was by this new witness to her naughtiness.

"Friend pup," she said, as he ran joyously beside her, leaping occasionally to lick her hand—"Friend pup, I very much fear that I am in the soup, and you will put the lid on that soup. Never mind, life is no longer dull, and we shall make a fine exit from Seascape House together."

This boast brought her thoughts back with a jerk to Trina Morrison and her friends. How long had she herself lain among the gorse bushes? Perhaps the dance was over, and Austin having already dropped his cousin at the school wall, she was safe in her bed.

If so, would she think of Sally and wonder what had become of her and whether she had also returned in safety?

It was a difficult question to answer, and the girl shuffled over facing it. In her heart, she knew it was quite possible Peter would continue to forget her if it was inconvenient to remember; but she pushed that thought away with a sop to her vanity.

"Anyhow, she knew I was the kind of person who could take care of myself; besides, she warned me of all the risks, so it's not her fault, whatever may happen to me."

This seemed the best conclusion of the matter. If you are faintly conscious that your idol's feet are clay, it is best to leave them decently covered; so Sally gave up speculating about Trina, and began to wonder instead, as she drew near Seascape House, how she should make her entrance, and explain either her own appearance, or the dog. She did not look forward to a cross-examination on how she had spent the evening, by Old Cocaine.

Turning down the lane, she stood for a few minutes gazing irresolutely at the high wall, under the hanging tree. There was the rope that would help her up—within reach, if she jumped—but she knew that her bruises would not let her do this, even if she could solve the problem of how afterwards to lift up the dog.

No, she must turn back, and enter boldly by the front avenue, as though that were the way by which she had left; and thus, when stopped (as she surely would be, and questioned), she would not be in danger of betraying Trina's secret.

This decision made, she called to the puppy, and returned once more to the high road, where a few yards' further walking revealed a new obstacle. The gates were locked, and their iron spikes rose mockingly above her, as she gazed through the bars at the drive.

"I suppose it will be a case of waking 'Ma Jakes' at the lodge," she muttered; but at this minute the puppy, who quite realised his new mistress's desire to enter the forbidden garden, discovered a way in for himself by a ditch at the side of the raised drive. That it was not a large enough opening for Sally, he, however, failed to grasp, and began to whine and bark encouragingly from the other side, only raising his voice a little louder when she whispered to him to be quiet.

"That settles it," said the girl, and with a sudden impulse not to be caught begging for an entrance, began to climb the iron-work; but the exertion was so great that by the time she had pulled herself over the spikes, the sweat was running down her face. Trembling all over at the strain, she rested before she began the descent, and suddenly heard the dog growl.

As she looked over her shoulder, she saw a light approaching down the drive.

With a little cry of panic, she hastened her movements, caught her foot between the bars, released it, and then fell to the ground, doubling it beneath her. The pain this time was far worse than her swollen eye, or any of her bruises; and as the puppy ran to lick her face, she pushed him away—moaning a little.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Why—it is a boy and a dog."

Sally opened the eye that was not swollen, and saw by the light of an electric torch, Miss Castle, her Form mistress, bending over her. In a flash she remembered the open window as they climbed down from the roof, and a voice calling out to them. It was evident they had aroused Miss Castle's suspicions, and that at the sound of a dog barking she had come out to see what was wrong.

"Oh, I'm so glad it is you," the girl whispered. "You won't be angry with the puppy, will you? It is not his fault."

The other stared at her, at first blankly amazed, and then with dawning surprise and horror.

"Sally!" she said. "Sally Brendan?" And then—"Oh, my poor child, what has happened to you?"

"My foot ... the pain...."

Sally tried to move as she spoke, and fainted. When she was able to realise her surroundings again, she was lying on two chairs in the lodge kitchen; and "Ma Jakes," a fat woman with her hair in curlers, was trying to blow the embers into a blaze. Miss Castle was writing a note at the table.

"Take this to the sanatorium at once," she said as she finished to a man in the doorway, who, Sally knew, must be Jakes, the gardener—only he looked so odd in a shabby dressing-gown, with the legs of his pyjamas falling over his boots, and his matted hair standing wildly on end.

"Where is the puppy?" asked Sally, as Miss Castle came towards her, and at this minute he made his presence known by a yelp, as he retreated under the table before a large angry cat.

"Eating the poor thing's supper, 'e was," said Mrs. Jakes resentfully; "'e ought to be drowned, 'e ought."

She was angry at being dragged out of her bed, "because," so she put it to herself, "of the mischieviousness of one of them dratted noosances of girls."

"It's just—he's so terribly hungry," said Sally. And her voice trembled because her foot hurt her so much, and her swollen eye nearly as badly.

"I ... fought a boy to save him from being hurt, and I don't want him scolded or drowned."

She looked entreatingly at Miss Castle, who seemed to understand, for she drew the dog over and patted him gently.

"All right, Sally—he shan't be hurt, and I will get him some food myself. Don't try to talk any more, child."

She slipped her arm behind the cushion on which the girl's head was resting and raised her a little. Sally lay quite still, and gazed at the tin canister on the mantel-piece in which Mrs. Jakes kept her tea. She found herself concentrating on its shininess, and wondering how it had got its two dents, because she knew she must think of something, or the pain would become unendurable, and she would cry like a baby. It was no use at all to consider explanations or what it was best to say to Miss Cockran, for her head was altogether too stupid to form a connected story.

When at last she did see the Headmistress, it was only for a minute, in what afterwards seemed a kind of dream, with a white-capped nurse standing in the background.

Sally found herself saying, "I'm sorry," as she met the searching grey eyes, and though they did not smile they were quite kind as they gazed down at her.

"That's right. I am glad you are sorry," Miss Cockran said. "But I don't want you to talk now, just to try to sleep. Later on you shall tell me everything."

She was turning away when Sally clutched at her arm.

"Miss Cockran," she said; "Please ... the puppy ... he is such a darling, and it's not his fault—you will be kind to him?"

This time the Headmistress smiled.

"He has just had a large bowl of bread and milk, and Miss Castle and Nurse Baker are putting some ointment on his ear. He is quite happy; so lie quiet, child, and don't worry any more about him."

Sally tried to lie quiet, but her foot was very painful, and her whole body ached. Even when she fell asleep she did not seem able to forget the pain; but woke up in a panic, dreaming that boys were pelting her with stones.

"You have had a slight touch of fever, but you will be all right now, if you are good," the white-capped nurse told her some days later, but when Sally demanded leave to get up she shook her head.

"Why, you will have to keep that sprained ankle of yours up for some time—there's a nasty swelling."

Sally had very rarely been "laid up." On the few occasions when it did occur, the whole of her family had combined to amuse her and keep her quiet; because her mother said it would be bad to allow her to become over-excited. Even so, she had been peevish and not particularly grateful.

Now, convalescence took on a very different note. For some days Sally saw no one but the Matron of the sanatorium, her nurse, and the old doctor who came to look at her ankle. Occasionally she could hear the voices of those recovering from measles; but they were in another passage, and all communication with them was forbidden. Sally did not even know if they were aware of her presence in the building.

It was obvious that she was in disgrace—"a leper"—as she told herself bitterly, turning the pages of some magazines, which, with some Patience cards, were almost her sole means of passing the time. Occasionally Matron read to her; but her choice of books bored the girl, and she refused to be drawn on to school topics.

"Miss Cockran will tell you anything she wishes, when she has time to see you," was her final answer to Sally's frequent entreaties, and the girl's heart sank.

Left to herself, she lay and brooded over Trina Morrison's remark that, were they to run away and be caught, they would not be allowed to provide the school with even a few minutes' peep-show.

"I suppose it means expulsion," she told herself—and longed to know if Peter had escaped detection. It was maddening to think that when she did see Miss Cockran she could not inquire after her for fear of arousing suspicion.

It was a very sulky girl, outwardly calm, but really a good deal shaken, who faced her interview with the Headmistress. The account she gave of her adventures was of the barest.

"I heard there was a Fair—and I wanted to go. So I got out of the house and went: and as I was coming away, some boys were illtreating the puppy—and afterwards he followed me."

"Haven't you missed out that you fought the boys?" asked Miss Cockran quietly.

Sally flushed. Something had kept her from her usual boasting: indeed, when she remembered the fight, her feeling was rather of shame than pride.

"I put up a simply rotten show," she muttered.

"You fought pluckily, at any rate—and in a good cause. I am proud of that."

The girl found the tears rising to her eyes at this praise, and her sullenness began to vanish.

"I ... I'm sorry about the rest now—I wasn't before ... but ... it's been horrible at school, and I didn't care——"

"You wanted to be expelled, you mean?"

Sally crumpled the edge of the counterpane between her hot hands.

"I did at one time. I'm not doing any good here that I can see."

"You have a good form record—top every week, I think. On the other hand, I hear you are untidy in the dormitory, and often rude to Matron, and Decima Pillditch."

There was no answer for some minutes, and then the girl said:

"I like the class work—it's interesting—I could do stiffer stuff."

"I know. You would have been moved up next term."

Sally's heart sank at that "would have been."

"Are you going to expel me?" she demanded suddenly.

Miss Cockran had been sitting very still on her chair beside the bed; but now she rose, and after looking down at the girl with her clear grey eyes for a few seconds, turned and paced the room.

"I don't know, Sally," she said, stopping at last. "Frankly, I can't decide. I hate expelling girls. It means such a stain on their career for always, and you are so young to start with that. Yet what you have done is quite impossible, and fully deserves the worst punishment school life knows."

Sally had begun to grow sulky again, and almost involuntarily her usual formula of disdain sprang to her lips:

"I don't care——"

The Headmistress had walked to the window, and was looking out, but she wheeled sharply as she caught the words.

"Do you mean it, child? If so, there is, of course, nothing more to be said—you will leave directly your foot is well enough, and not come back here. But have you thought what expulsion stands for?"

"I've only been here one term, and..."

"Yes—one term—and that will be the end of your school life, at any rate, in England, I fear. Other schools will not be anxious to take you. Is it because you preferred home work so much, and living with your family, that you have done this reckless thing?"

There was so much real anxiety in Miss Cockran's voice as she asked the question, and her eyes, though grave, were so kind, that Sally felt the last of her outposts of defiance break down. At the same moment, she caught a vision of the schoolroom at home, and the boredom of lessons alone there, for all the years, until she grew up.

"It wasn't true, what I said just now," she burst out suddenly. "I do care—the other girls are hateful to me, and I'm very unpopular; but I like the work and the games, when I'm given a chance at them. I'd like to get a scholarship, and go on to College—Oxford—I know I could do it."

Miss Cockran nodded as if she understood.

"Then why ... why this mad escapade?" she said at last; "I don't understand."

Sally flushed a deep red. It seemed as if Trina Morrison's share in the adventure was not known, and she, at least, had come back all right, undetected. Her spirits rose at the thought.

"It was just ... just silliness——" she said at last. "I do mad things sometimes."

"Ah," said the Headmistress, "just silliness, ... and it might have wrecked your life. If I had thought it deliberate naughtiness, and not, well—just silliness—I would have had no hesitation in thinking it my duty to expel you. A school cannot be run without discipline, any more than a ship."

Sally shifted her bad foot uncomfortably. She hated apologies, and usually skimmed over them as airily as possible; but something told her that nothing but complete submission would be of any use on this occasion. With a great effort, she forced herself to look Miss Cockran in the face as she spoke.

"I ... I'm really sorry, and would like to stay, if you'll have me—and I'll try to keep straight—keep the rules, I mean—in future. And ... and I don't think it will do the discipline any harm if I stop, because everyone hates me so much that I couldn't have persuaded them to go to the Fair with me, even if I had wanted to—I mean, I'm not a bad influence—I'm just no influence at all."

In spite of herself, the Headmistress smiled at the last part of this confession.

"Poor Sally," she said. "There's a lot to learn at school besides lessons, isn't there?"

"No one gives me a chance ... they all hate me ... and——"

Miss Cockran put up her hand.

"Hush, Sally—think very carefully before you speak when you begin to say anything like that. Just remember this—that I am going to give you a chance now—suppose you give the others a chance next term."

She bent, kissed the girl and went quickly from the room.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

AUTOLYCUS

Sally Brendan saw no one belonging to the school during the remainder of her convalescence except Miss Cockran occasionally, and once Miss Castle, who came to tea with her. It was a red-letter afternoon, for Sally had been allowed up for the first time, with a crutch under her arm, to take the weight off her injured foot, and was able to establish herself in a cosy armchair in the window, from which she could command a view of the distant lodge and drive.

Down below, she could see some of the convalescents from measles walking arm in arm, or playing crazy croquet, on a lawn that was all bumps and slopes. The sound of good-natured squabbling, interspersed with many giggles and shouts, rose continuously; but though bored by her own society, the girl made no attempt to follow what was happening, or to attract attention. Rather, she pulled the curtain slightly forward so as to leave herself in the shadow.

A glance had told her that Peter, at any rate, had not found her way to the sanatorium group, and there was no one else in the school in whom she took the faintest interest: besides, when she hobbled across the room, she had passed a looking-glass, and, though vanity formed no part of Sally's conceit, the sight had given her something of a shock.

Her head might speak to a phrenologist in bumps of brains and determination, but to the ordinary observer it was, at the present moment, frankly ugly, with the short hair, that should have crowned it in curls, cut roughly, in odd, shaggy lengths. The injured eye was no longer swollen, but still rainbow-coloured; in fact, as Sally honestly told herself, she was a figure of fun, and when Miss Castle entered the room she looked up anxiously to detect a smile.

The smile was there; but it was friendly—not malicious—and Sally quickly forgot all about her own appearance when she saw the second visitor. For the moment she scarcely recognised the dirty cowering mongrel she had rescued in the well-brushed, rather self-assertive puppy who hurled himself on her knee and began frantically to lick her face.

"Why, he's quite handsome," she said, and Miss Castle laughed.

"I've told them so in the Common Room, but they won't believe me—except Miss Cockran—and she quotes, 'handsome is as handsome does,' because he caught a rat in the cellar last night."

"Oh, did he?—the angel! He is an angel dog, isn't he, Miss Castle?"

"I haven't found his wings yet—I fear he is a thief and a rascal—but he is a very attractive rascal, and has made me take more exercise in the last few days than in all the rest of the term, Sally."

Sally looked up quickly: she was amusing the puppy with the end of her dressing-gown tassel, and as she tried to prevent him from barking she said anxiously:

"Miss Castle, what is going to happen to him? I have not been allowed to get letters, or write home, but I know I can make Mother keep him, if I take him back with me; though if I ask her through the post my sister Cecilia will tell her to say 'No.' You see we have two dogs already."

"I sympathise with Cecilia, three dogs are too many in most houses."

"Well, you see, there are the boys and I who can always exercise them."

"Perhaps—in the holidays—but what about term time?"

Sally looked a little sulky. People always saw Cecilia's point of view: she was so dreadfully reasonable.

"Still, I shall take him home, all the same," she said obstinately. "When you rescue someone like that you can't just shut him out of your life, and forget him, as if he came to you in an ordinary way."

"No—I see that."

Miss Castle was sitting in the window seat and had drawn the puppy down on her knee, with her hand over his nose to make him be quiet.

"What do you say to his stopping here?" she added.

"Oh, Miss Castle! ... What, in school?"

"No, Sally, I don't mean that. Why, if one girl started a pet we should have a menagerie—cats, rabbits, tortoises and monkeys—Oh, Heaven forbid!"

Sally laughed, in spite of her anxiety.

"Well, I don't understand, then. Matron wouldn't have him in the san.: she's much too particular. The other day she told me cats were nasty dirty things that carried infection."

"I expect Miss Cockran would keep him, if you liked to give him to her."

"Miss Cockran?"

Miss Castle threw back her head and laughed at the open-eyed astonishment with which her suggestion was received.

"Oh, Sally, you girls are funny sometimes. Do you think mistresses are a race apart with no ordinary affections and weaknesses?"

The girl got very red.

"No, of course not—at least, I suppose not. You are quite different, at any rate. But Miss Cockran looks ... oh, and Miss Cheeseman, you know ... well, not silly, like us."

As she floundered, trying to find the words she wanted, Miss Castle, bending to kiss the puppy, who lay sprawled across her knee, examined her with twinkling eyes.

"I'm glad I'm silly," she said at last; and then as the girl began to expostulate indignantly that she hadn't meant that, of course, the other stopped her:

"I know what you mean, so don't apologise or explain—just remember it's not always safe to judge people by their appearances—Autolycus, for instance...."

"Auto!—what? Do you mean the puppy?"

"Yes—I have christened him that because he was picked up at a Fair, and there's no doubt he's a rascal—Shakespeare met, or invented, a gentleman of that name who was a pedlar, habitually attending Fairs. Anyhow, we'll call him 'Tolly' for short, except at School Commemoration."

"And Miss Cockran says he may stay here?"

"Yes—she is even prepared to adopt him, if you will pass on the ownership. You see, about a year ago she had a Yorkshire terrier, 'Gyp,' whom she loved very much, and he was lost down a rabbit burrow. She says she never meant to have another dog, because she suffered so much when 'Gyp' disappeared; but 'Tolly' seems to have been sent to her, and he's very fond of her already."

"How splendid!"

"Yes—we are all fond of him. Even Miss Cheeseman will be converted to him in time, I hope, though she doesn't really care about animals."

"She wouldn't," muttered Sally, who disliked the thin, dark, rather precise little mistress, who was second in command at Seascape House, and took her Form in English Composition.

Miss Castle appeared not to hear this remark, unless the slight puckering of her brows showed she was displeased at it.

"I'm going to take Tolly away now," she said, "or he will begin to eat the cushions; but I will come back for some tea in about half-an-hour."

"Oh, thank you, Miss Castle—it's awfully decent of you."

They had a very jolly tea, and discussed everything except Seascape House: such topics as County Cricket, Napoleon's character, haunted houses, and even how to make stick-jaw toffee.

"I think I'll have a toffee party next term," said Miss Castle as she rose to go; "and you shall come and be kitchen-maid."

"May I be taster-in-chief as well, please?"

"Ah, I don't know about that. There will be so much competition for the office, I shall have to hold an examination, I expect, and charge an entrance fee."

She bent and kissed Sally as she spoke, and stood looking down at her for a minute, before she went.

"You will try to make friends here next term, won't you, child? It's the great thing that comes out of school life, I always think."

"But I have friends here," said the girl; "one at least and she is splendid."

After Miss Castle had gone she pulled out a pencil and block from under her pillow, and went on with the long letter she had been writing to Trina Morrison ever since her eye had been well enough to let her look continuously at the paper.

She intended to post this as soon as she had left Seascape House; not before—since she was afraid of drawing attention to any connection between herself and the elder girl which might involve the latter in her disgrace. To some nine or ten pages written earlier in the week she now added five or six more in praise of Miss Castle, and, more doubtfully, of Miss Cockran.

Peter had not admired Old Cocaine. She said she was stuffy and inhuman, like a mummy in the British Museum, that had dried up years ago, and ought to be kept on a shelf.

"But you see she is human, after all," wrote Sally, as she told about the Yorkshire terrier and the adoption of Autolycus.

In the end, the letter was so long that Sally had to ask Matron for a large envelope, pretending that she wanted it to hold part of a story that she was writing; and when she had got this, she addressed it to Trina at her uncle's house, with "Please Forward" in the corner.

It was very nearly holiday time now, and all who had had measles before, and seemed in no danger of getting it again, were sent home early, along with the convalescents.

Seascape House became quieter and quieter, save for the barking of Autolycus, who nearly wore himself out chasing sea-gulls, or hunting wildly for rabbits, amongst the furze bushes along the top of the cliff. He had to be washed twice a week by the indignant Jakes, who pretended that he would like to put a rope round his neck, attached to a big boulder, and sink him in the sea.

"He won't be allowed to do it, will he?" said Sally anxiously to Miss Cockran, when she went to say good-bye, just before starting for home.

"Certainly not! Autolycus is the school watch-dog. I am going to trust him to see no one comes in or out after dark."

Was there a twinkle in the grey eyes? Sally was not sure, and felt uncomfortable under their scrutiny.

"Good-bye," she said gruffly. "And ... and I'm sorry, you know, about it all——"

"That's all right. We start fresh next term, child— Don't think of what's behind you, but of what's in front. And for goodness' sake, don't go and play tennis on that foot of yours, or do anything foolish for the next six weeks."

She shook hands briskly, and Sally hobbled out to the taxi in which Matron was taking her to the station. Her first term at Seascape House was over.

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH

WILL SHE COME?

"Sally has improved in many ways—and I don't think, Cecilia, you are being quite fair to her when you complain she is so troublesome."

Mrs. Brendan spoke plaintively. Like many another mother, she wished her daughters agreed better, but did not know how to make them do so. During the term, Cecilia had been sweet-tempered and apparently happy; now, since Sally's return, she was continually ruffled and even snappy—so that the atmosphere of the house had become quite tense.

"There is nothing much to choose between Sally and the boys," went on their mother. "They all expect to do exactly what they like, in the holidays," and she sighed for the selfishness of youth.

"Oh, the boys!" broke in Cecilia impatiently; "that's quite different."

She did not explain, perhaps she did not realise, that the difference lay in her own attitude towards them. She had long ago ceased to try to control her brothers, but Sally's case was another matter. Cecilia felt she should behave at home like a junior at school in the presence of a senior, and if Seascape House could not teach her this elementary piece of manners in the course of a term it had certainly failed in its task.

"I expect the school is not what it used to be when I was there," she continued, jumping from the subject of the boys to what was chiefly occupying her mind, and heedless of the fact that schools, like newspapers, never are what they used to be.

"Why, in my time, no kid of Sally's age would think of cheeking an elder girl, or of speaking to her in the way she does to me."

"You continually find fault with her, Cecilia."

"It would be continuous, if I were to point out even half her sins. That foot of hers, she was told to rest—what care does she take of it? Miss Cockran ordered her to avoid tennis, and all she says is, 'Well, I am doing that,' and then goes and rushes madly round at 'Bumble-Puppy' with Roger."

"She is very fond of Roger."

"She is even fonder of herself, little wretch! ... I suppose she had a shocking report? We have never heard exactly what she did to twist her ankle; but it was over some piece of mischief."

"It was not a very good report, I fear, except for her work—but Miss Cockran says she has promised to do better next term, and that other mistress she likes—Miss Castle—writes that her behaviour was good in form."

Cecilia snorted. "It's my belief, from what she has let drop, that she was very nearly expelled."

At this moment Roger appeared with rather an anxious expression on his round and usually cheerful face.

"Sally has gone and jammed her foot again. She says it's nothing, but even leaning on my arm, I could hardly get her into the drawing room."

"I told you so," said Cecilia triumphantly, as Mrs. Brendan rose from her chair and hastened to the house.

"And you are jolly glad she has done it, aren't you?" said Roger, in an angry voice, as he turned to go. "You've changed into a nice sort of cad since you stuck your hair up, Cissy."

He flew off, leaving Cecilia with the tears smarting in her eyes—tears of self-pity at the way in which she was misunderstood.

"Mother has no idea how trying Sally can be," she told herself, and perhaps Mrs. Brendan had not. What she realised was that Sally had altered very considerably during the weeks she had been at school. She was distinctly less cocksure and talkative—restless, in a nervous, rather than an energetic sense—and with little of her old careless joy in the mere fact of being alive.

It was as if she were on the defensive the whole time against criticism she dreaded, whereas criticism before had made little or no lasting impression.

In those days, her frequent "I don't care!" had rung true, while now, it was obviously bravado.

"She is unhappy," said the mother to herself, but Sally was in no mood to make confidences. She felt it would be impossible to tell anyone, even Roger or Miss Castle, how Trina Morrison's silence had hurt her. Surely she could have sent a line—even a mere note—to say she was sorry about the sprained ankle, and that she was looking forward to next term?

"Rotten luck!" said Roger sympathetically, as he caught sight of his sister's expression. They were seated in the schoolroom, to whose couch Sally had been banished, to rest the ankle, swollen again after its new twist. For the moment, as their eyes met, she thought of confiding in him what was really paining her.

He knew a little about Peter's adventures, and had condescended to be quite thrilled over their daring; but when it came to the point, she could not bring herself to do it. Roger could understand a damaged foot, but the idea of a broken heart, as Sally conceived her own to be at the moment, would seem to him mere "girl's gush."

"Yes—it is rotten," she said. "But, of course, I shouldn't have played 'Bumble-Puppy.' I never meant to—only Cecilia went on at me so about our hopping race on the lawn before breakfast, and then I felt I must do something worse."

Roger nodded.

"Cissy is a grandmother, but you do rag her rather a lot, you know. If I cheeked Bob like that he'd black my eye."

"Oh, shut up about Cissy, can't you?"

Sally was furious in a minute at the implied reproof, and Roger, with a noble effort at keeping the peace, walked to the window with his hands in his pockets and stared out in silence.

"What shall we do this afternoon, Sal?" he said, at last. "Look here, I'll go to the village and get some grub, and we'll have a brew of toffee on my Tommy cooker."

Sally shook her head.

"It's the Cartwrights' tennis party, and Cissy is driving the motor over."

"Well, Bob and Fraser can go—I don't want to, a bit. There'll probably be tons of grown-ups and nothing for us to do."

(Fraser was a school friend of the elder brother, stopping with the Brendans for part of his holidays.)

Sally's heart warmed to Roger in a sudden glow of affection. He had just bought a new tennis racquet, and she knew he was secretly longing to use it.

Hadn't Fraser, who was nearly seventeen, and quite "hot stuff" in the tennis line, said he had improved a lot lately?

"Nonsense!" she said sharply. "Of course you'll go. Why, I have all the new library books—and writing of my own to do too. I am always so thankful I can amuse myself."

"Honest Injun—do you mean it?"

Roger's expression was very doubtful. Condemned to half-an-hour of his own society, he would have welcomed a little conversation, even with the vicar, on cuneiform writing. On the other hand, he did want to play tennis at the Cartwrights' very badly. They had three courts, and, apart from the tennis, their teas were good, while the people they collected were usually an amusing crowd. It was bad luck for Sally not being able to go, of course, but if she didn't really mind being left, he would enjoy it.

His eyes told his sister what was passing in his thoughts, and she laughed as she said:

"No—I don't really mind a bit—in fact, your staying here would only make my foot feel worse; so don't be an ass, but go, and when you come back I'll want to know all about everybody."

"Rather—and I'll bring you an ice in my pocket."

He grinned cheerfully, and hurried off to change into his flannels.

Sally tried her best not to mind, as, her lunch over, she watched the motor disappear down the drive, with Roger waving his racquet in farewell from the dicky.

"After all, as Cecilia says, it's my own fault," she muttered with a grimace, and read novels until she fell asleep, to dream that she was riding Autolycus on a merry-go-round, with a clown pulling at her foot to make her pay sixpence.