"I heard about it down on the quay," he said. "I came up at once. I'll soon show you what it is!"
He was buckling climbing-irons on to his legs while he spoke, and with the aid of these he rapidly mounted the elm tree to where the boughs forked, put his hand into a hollow, and drew out a wooden box, which he brought down with him.
"It's nothing at all ghostly," he explained. "The fact is I'm fearfully keen on photographing birds, and I've just got a cinema camera. There's a sparrow-hawk's nest in the next tree, and I want to take pictures of it; only I knew the clicking of the cinema business would scare them away probably for hours, so I made a little mechanical contrivance that would go on clicking and let them get used to the noise, so that they'd take no notice when I really went to work. You can look at it if you want to."
It was such a simple explanation that those among the neighbours who had most loudly expressed superstitious fears looked rather foolish, and the crowd began to melt away.
"Why didn't you tell us about it, Bevis?" asked Merle in private.
"Well, Soeurette, the fact is the birds are so shy that the fewer people who go and watch them the better for the success of a photograph. I'm afraid this will have sent them off altogether. Annoying, isn't it? Can't be helped, though, now. It's a good dodge all the same, and I shall try it again in some other tree when I can find a nest I want to take. Better luck next time, I hope!"
CHAPTER XV
Leave-takings
The precious delightful holidays at Chagmouth seemed to be flying only too fast. All the various young people were busy with their several hobbies, but they liked to meet and compare notes about them, and took a keen interest in one another's achievements. Bevis's bird-photography, and especially his cinema camera, was highly appreciated, particularly by the younger members of the party, who persistently tried to track him and follow him, greatly to his embarrassment, for their presence frightened the birds away and defeated the very object for which he had gone out. Mavis had struck up a friendship with Miss Lindsay and Lorraine Forrester, and often went to see them at the studio which they had temporarily hired. Lorraine's principal branch of art was sculpture, and she was modelling a bust of Morland, who came readily for sittings, though he had refused point-blank to act model for his father.
The two were on terms of what Lorraine called "sensible friendship," which Mavis suspected might mean a good deal more some day, if Morland stopped merely drifting and put his shoulder in dead earnest to the wheel of life. Lorraine was much the stronger character of the two, and could generally wind up Morland's ambition while he was with her, though it often came down again with a run as soon as her influence was removed. Whether or no her feelings went deeper than she would at present allow, she was a loyal chum to him, and almost the only person who could really persuade him to work. To Claudia also Lorraine was a splendid friend. The girls lived together at a Students' Hostel in London, and shared all their jaunts and pleasures. Claudia held a scholarship at a college of music, and was training for grand opera. With her talent and lovely face she had good prospects before her, but the Castleton strain was strong in her, as also in Morland, and it needed Lorraine's insistent urging to make her realise that it does not do only to dream your ideals, that you must toil at them with strong hands and earth-stained fingers, and that on this physical plane no success can ever be achieved without hard work.