"Look here, don't be absurd," urged Merle. "We want to see the Bower again, and we're going there this afternoon. You can please yourself whether you come with us or not."
"But I don't think we quite remember the way," added Mavis artfully. "It would be so very tiresome if we were to lose ourselves."
Of course that settled it. Bevis was bound to offer himself as guide, and by the time they started he appeared to be in a smoother temper. He whistled quite cheerily as he slung a shooting-bag over his back. He gave the girls three guesses each as to its contents, but would not tell them whether they were right or wrong.
"You'll see when you get there," he replied, and went on whistling softly to himself.
By mutual but unacknowledged consent they walked by an upper way across the fields. It was a little longer, but it avoided all possibility of meeting the Glyn Williams anywhere in the village. To run up against them would have been most embarrassing. As it was, nobody mentioned even their names. The girls, having once "put their foot in it", were cautious, and avoided all reference to The Warren.
Fortunately their backs were turned in that direction, as they walked towards the headland.
When they reached Blackthorn Bower they found an immense surprise awaiting them. Bevis must have been very busy during the time which had intervened since their last visit. He had taken some of the stones from the old wall, and some sods and some branches, and had constructed a kind of beehive hut, such as must have been used by the primitive dwellers in these islands.
"It's just the sort of thing they lived in in the Bronze Age," he explained. "I borrowed one of Mr. Barnes's books, Antiquities of Devonshire, and it gave a fancy picture of what some of the prehistoric villages probably looked like. The only bit I altered was the doorway. I made it big, so that we could see out of it; and of course they had low holes that they crawled through, and blocked with a stone."
Mavis and Merle were delighted with the structure raised in their honour. They had been keen on history at Whinburn High School, and had studied the Stone and Bronze Ages under an interesting teacher, so that it was particularly fascinating to find what seemed as good as a real live specimen of a house of the period actually before their eyes. They went inside at once and took possession. There were some logs for seats, and a big stone for a table placed in the middle of the hut. While they were examining these, Bevis slung his shooting-bag carefully from his shoulder and began to unpack it. Then he produced what he evidently considered his masterpiece.
There was a small quarry near Chagmouth whence China clay was shipped. He had begged a big lump of this, kneaded it and moulded it into handleless cups, and had baked them in the oven at the farm. They were, of course, roughly made, but they much resembled prehistoric pottery, even to the willow-withe markings which he had put on them. They were stained on the outside, one red, one blue, and one yellow.