As they ran down the pa.s.sage, Ulyth, relinquishing her hunt for the missing shoes, rose to her feet.
"There"s one here who didn"t know," she chuckled. "This is a most important piece of information. Immediately, by the lower pool, is it?
Well, I must go and find Lizzie. What are those precious juniors up to, I wonder?"
Lizzie was taking her racket for a game of tennis, but she readily gave up her place to Merle Denham at a hint from Ulyth.
"I told you they vanished after tea," she said, as the two girls sauntered into the glen. "We"ll track them this time. Don"t on any account look as if you were going anywhere. Sit down here and give them a few minutes" grace, in case stragglers come up. They probably won"t begin punctually. I"ll time it by my watch."
When five minutes had elapsed there was not a solitary junior to be seen in the glade, and Ulyth and Lizzie, deeming themselves safe, set out in the direction of the lower pool.
This was a part of the stream at the very verge of the grounds belonging to The Woodlands; indeed, the greater portion of it lay in the land of a neighbouring farmer, and to reach its pebbly bank meant a scramble round some palings and under a projecting piece of rock.
Ulyth and Lizzie were too wary to follow the juniors by this path, but scaled the palings at another point, and under cover of a thick copse of gorse-bushes approached the pool from the side that lay in the farmer"s field. By most careful scouting they found a spot on the bank where they could see and hear without being seen.
Below them, seated on the rocks by the edge of the water, were practically almost the whole of the Lower School. They cuddled close, with their arms round each other, and to judge from their repressed giggles they appeared to be enjoying themselves. Tootie Phillips, a long-legged, excitable girl of thirteen, mounted upon a boulder, was addressing them with much fervour. Ulyth and Lizzie missed the beginning of her remarks, but when they came within earshot they realized that she was in the midst of a vigorous harangue against the seniors.
"Are we to be trodden down just because we"re a little younger than they are?" urged Tootie. "Why should they lord it over us, I should like to know? They were juniors themselves only a year or two ago. I tell you the worm will turn."
"It"s turned pretty considerably," guffawed Cissie Newall.
"It knows which side its bread"s b.u.t.tered," cackled Irene Scott.
"b.u.t.tered! You mean sugared, don"t you?"
At this sally the whole party broke into a shout of laughter.
"Good for you, Ciss!"
"Sugared! Ra--ther!"
"Shut up, you sillies! Someone will hear us," commanded Tootie. "I was saying before, we"re not going to be sat upon, either by teachers or monitresses or seniors. We"ll take our own way."
"A sugary way," chirped Ethel Jephson.
The girls hinnied again. There was evidently something underlying the joke.
"When perfectly ridiculous rules are made, that never ought to have been made," continued Tootie, "then we"ve a right to take the law into our own hands and do as we please."
"Our pocket money"s our own," grumbled a discontented spirit from the back.
"Of course it is, and we ought to be able to do what we like with it."
"And so are our brooches, if we want to----"
"Sh--sh!"
"Shut up, stupid!"
"Well, we all know."
"No need to blare it out, if we do."
"I wasn"t blaring."
"Violet Robertson, remember your oath," commanded Tootie. "If you let a word of--we know what--leak out, you"re sent to Coventry for the rest of the term. Yes. Not a single one of us will speak one single word to you.
Not even your own room-mates. So there!"
"Well, you needn"t make such a precious fuss. I"m sure I wasn"t letting out secrets," retorted Violet sulkily. "But I think there ought to be some rate of value. My brooch was a far better one than Mollie"s."
"Right you are, my hearty, and I"m going to speak about it. We mustn"t let ourselves be done, even by--you know who!"
"And she"s sharp."
"She"s getting too sharp. We must stop it, even if we have to break off for a whole week."
"No, no!"
"Oh, not that anyhow!"
"Well, look here, if you"re such sillies, you deserve----"
But at this most interesting point the loud clanging of the preparation-bell put a stop to any further argument. With one accord the girls jumped up, and fled back as fast as they could run in the direction of the school. Ulyth and Lizzie, at the risk of being late for evening call-over, gave the conspirators time to get well away before they ventured to follow.
"What"s the meaning of all this?" queried Lizzie, as they scouted cautiously through the glade.
"I can"t imagine. They"re evidently doing something they oughtn"t to, the young wretches! But they"re keeping it very dark."
"We shall have to watch them."
"We must indeed," sighed Ulyth. "Lizzie, I loathe eavesdropping and anything that savours of underhand work, but what are we to do?
Something is going wrong among the juniors, and for the sake of the school we"ve got to put it right if we possibly can. It"s no use asking them their sweet secret, for they wouldn"t tell us; and I"m afraid setting the monitresses on the track would only make things worse. If we can find out what they"re doing, then we shall know our ground. I"m a Torch-bearer and you"re a Fire-maker, and we must appeal to them to keep their Camp-fire vows. But we can"t do that till we"ve some idea of which rule they"re breaking. How can we say to them: "I strongly suspect you"re not being trustworthy"? We"ve got to prove our words."
"Prove them we will. We"ll dodge about till we catch them in the act,"
agreed Lizzie.
To both the girls it was uncongenial though necessary work. As seniors and League officers they felt they owed a duty to the school, but that it would be far wiser to appeal privately to the juniors" sense of honour, and win them back to straight paths of their own free will, than to carry the matter to head-quarters. For the present, patience and tact must be their watchwords.
Several days went by, and nothing particular occurred. Either the younger girls were on their guard or they had suspended their activities. On Friday evening, however, as Ulyth was coming along the pa.s.sage from practising, she accidentally cannonaded into half a dozen members of IV B who were standing near the boot cupboard. She evidently surprised them, for one and all they hastily popped their hands into their pockets. It was promptly done, but not so quickly as to prevent Ulyth from seeing that they were eating something.
"It"s all right," gasped Bertha Halliwell, with apparent unconcern, in reply to Ulyth"s apologies. "You nearly upset me, but I"m not fractured."
"I wish you"d take care, though," grumbled Etta Jessop, surrept.i.tiously wiping a decidedly sticky mouth; "no one likes being tumbled over."
Ulyth pa.s.sed on thoughtfully. What had they all been munching, and where did they get it from? Private supplies of cakes and sweets were utterly forbidden at The Woodlands. Their prohibition was one of the strictest rules of the school, to break which would be to incur a very severe penalty from Miss Teddington. Was this the explanation of Tootie"s rather enigmatical remarks down by the stream?
"If that"s their precious secret, and they"re just being greedy, I"m too disgusted with them for words!" commented Lizzie, when informed of the discovery.
Sat.u.r.day and Monday pa.s.sed with quite exemplary behaviour on the part of the juniors. The keenest vigilance could discover nothing. But on Tuesday Lizzie came across another clue. She had been monitress for the afternoon in the drawing-cla.s.s, and after the girls had left she stayed behind to put away various articles that had been used and to tidy the room.