The Spanish Chest Part 16

"This seaweed is one of the biggest a.s.sets the farmers have," he said to Roger. "You'll enjoy being here in February when the great vraic harvest comes. The farmers go down to the sh.o.r.e with carts and a sort of sickle. At low tide the southern sh.o.r.e is black with people cutting the seaweed from the rocks. The carts are used to carry it up beyond tide-mark. Men, women and young people all turn out and it's one of the sights of the island. The harvest lasts for several weeks and for the first few days there is a continual picnic with dancing and all sorts of jollifications."

"But I've often seen men gathering seaweed on the beach," said Roger. "It isn't February yet."

"They are gathering the loose weed that is washed ash.o.r.e. Any one may take that between the hours of sunrise and sunset, but he must stop at sound of the sunset gun. The cutting from the rocks is regulated by a hallowed custom. In June there's a second harvest when only the poor people may cut the vraic for a few weeks. After they have had their turn anybody may cut it till the last of August."

As he concluded, Max threw away the seaweed and picked up one of the abundant black flint pebbles. For some moments he amused himself by striking sparks from it with the back of a knife blade.

"I haven't lost the knack," he remarked. "By the way, have you found any flint knives? They turn up occasionally, though more often inland than in a place like this. They are relics of the days when the Druids were in Jersey. You've seen the burial mounds, haven't you,--the Dolmens?"

"I have," said Roger briefly. "In Bill Fish's company. Liked the stones all right enough, but Bill can't talk, you know. He expounds."

Max grinned. "Bad Writ, that," he agreed. "Come along. We can get through now."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY CAME UPON THE LOVELIEST OF LITTLE BEACHES]

Climbing carefully around a slippery projecting rock, its base yet submerged, they came upon the loveliest of lovely little beaches, in shape almost a semi-circle, the water forming the bisector and the frowning red cliffs the arc. Near the centre of the half- circle stood two tall pinnacles of red granite. Behind them yawned an entrance about five feet high and under this Max bent his tall head. Roger followed and uttered a whistle of pleasure and amazement.

They stood in a large cave, floored by fine bright yellow sea sand, broken irregularly by out-croppings of rose-pink rock, sand and rock alike wet and glistening. Away to the back of the cave, Roger saw that the floor rose higher. The roof was iridescent with green and yellow lichens; pebbles of jasper, cornelian and agate strewed the sand.

In the twelve years of his existence, Roger had never seen anything like this and surprise rendered him inarticulate.

"Some cave!" he commented at length. "Look, Mr. Max, what are these?"

"Oh, haven't you met any sea-anemones? The pools are full of them.

Jolly little beggars."

Roger was naturally less enthusiastic over the charming water- gardens than the girls when they chanced upon them, but he was considerably interested in the numerous and varicolored snails, their sh.e.l.ls bright green or delicate pink, truly entrancing to pick up and examine. By the time Roger finished a somewhat minute inspection his companion was out of sight.

"h.e.l.lo!" he shouted in some concern.

"Right-oh!" came a quiet reply.

Bather abashed by the startling echoes he had evoked, Roger climbed over fallen rocks to the back of the cave. There the floor rose sharply, affording a level apparently beyond reach of the tide, for some tiny land plants had found a lodging, ferns waved from the crannied vault and there was no sign of any marine growth.

"This used to be a favorite resort of mine," said Max, who was sitting on the high ledge, some five feet wide. Beyond, the cave ended in a ma.s.s of stone and rubble.

Roger's eyes grew wide. "What a dandy place!" he exclaimed.

"Not much compared with the Plemont caves," replied his companion.

"You'll probably go there before leaving the island. There are five or six of them and one has a waterfall dividing it into two distinct caves. Plemont is the spot where the cable comes in from England, crawls out of the ocean like a great dripping h.o.a.ry old sea-serpent to trail through a cleft to the station on the cliff above. This is a rat-hole beside those caves."

"I'll take steps to go there," said Roger earnestly. "Say, does the water ever come up here?"

"I don't think so. Even at the spring tides, it would probably not reach within two feet of this ledge. Only a rip-snorter of a tempest could endanger goods stored here, or even anybody who chose this cave to hide in."

"Some hiding-place," admitted Roger.

"So I've found it. When I was about your age, I came down here because I was annoyed with the world in general and stopped between two tides."

"Really?" gasped Roger. "Did you get wet?"

"Not a bit. I'll admit that things seemed spooky when I'd waited so long that I couldn't get out. I took solid comfort in the ferns and in a sea pink that had put out a scared little blossom right where we are sitting. I was shut in the better part of six hours and time proved a bit slow. I remember coming to the conclusion that perhaps the people I'd left behind weren't so utterly unreasonable after all. I fancy it's a rather sure sign that when you can't rub along with anybody, the trouble isn't altogether with them."

Roger looked at him suspiciously but Max's gaze was bent on the cave entrance, arching over a wonderful view of blue sea.

"Do you like to live in Paris?" he asked hastily.

"I'd rather stop in Rome where my father is," Max replied, suppressing a smile over the sudden change of subject. "But Dad runs up occasionally. I feel as though I'd be more use in Rome because there I know everybody who is anybody, you see, and it would be a help to the Emba.s.sy. Dad thinks I may be able to work a transfer after a year or so. If the Amba.s.sador to Italy remarks to the State Department at Was.h.i.+ngton that Maxfield Hamilton seems a likely young chap with both eyes open and that he wouldn't mind having him on his staff, why Max may receive a doc.u.ment telling him to pack his little box and attach his person to the Emba.s.sy at Rome."

Roger laughed. "Then you don't like Paris?"

"Oh, yes," said Max thoughtfully. "I've had a jolly time socially.

I can't imagine anybody in my circ.u.mstances not enjoying himself.

But it's not where I most want to be. It's up to me to make good so emphatically that they'll hand me on to Rome with a word in my favor."

"I expect they will," said Roger.

"Not if I don't buckle down," said Max half to himself. "Something happened last October that gave me a jolt and it has been hard to stick to work. I came over here for the holidays determined to get myself in hand again. I think I've succeeded, old chap, so I'd better go back and dig in. A man mustn't whine, you know, if it looks jolly final that he isn't going to have everything he wants.

I've wasted time enough. I must go back to Paris now and keep my mind on my job."

"I bunked Bill Fish this afternoon," admitted Roger suddenly.

"No doubt he was a frightful bore," commented Max without showing the least surprise. "Probably I'd have done the same in your place. The only disadvantage about shying at disagreeable things like tutors is that one hardly ever gets rid of them after all.

I'm becoming convinced that the only way to get round a difficulty is to hit it in the head and walk over its flattened corpse."

Roger grinned. "Shall I bat Bill Fish?" he asked.

"Bill Fish might be worse. Don't blame you for feeling him a freak, but the schools in Jersey are footy affairs. If you want a fair sample of a school you'd have to try England proper. We've messed about here long enough. Let's take a swim."

"Does the cave end here?" asked Roger, looking at the pile of broken stone beyond the shelf.

"I suppose so. It's the only one on the Manor lands so Connie and I liked to come. Uncle d.i.c.k wouldn't permit it unless a grown person was with us to watch the tide. How about a dip? No one can see us."

Max left the ridge to saunter toward the entrance, stopping to investigate more than one pool of anemones. "By the way," he added, "I wouldn't tell the girls of this cave. They'll be keen on searching for it afternoons when they are free and you aren't, and may get into a mess with the tides. Really it's not quite safe."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLeMONT IS THE SPOT WHERE THE CABLE COMES IN FROM ENGLAND]

"All right," agreed Roger, sliding from the shelf. As he did so, a sudden current of warm air struck him, quite unlike the rather damp, salty atmosphere of the cave. His curiosity was sufficiently aroused to cause him to stop and look back, but Max had already begun to undress and there seemed no possible place for a sweet land breeze to find entrance.

CHAPTER XII

WIN VISITS THE LIBRARY

Max's abrupt departure two days later was a great disappointment to Win, who admired him greatly and coveted a closer acquaintance.

That he should cut short his stay on the plea of work to be done seemed reasonable to the others but his going quite upset Win. Nor was this disappointment lightened by a period of semi-invalidism when all exertion was difficult and patience very far to seek. Not for some weeks after Max left was Win able to take advantage of the Colonel's prized invitation to use the Manor library.