"What d'you think of the monitresses?"
"Merle is A1!"
"Yes, I'm taken with Mavis and Merle! Partly because they seem to belong to Chagmouth. They come over nearly every Saturday with Dr. Tremayne."
"Good! Then we shall see something of them. Hello! What's this car trying to pass us? Babbie Williams! I'd forgotten for the moment she lives at Chagmouth too."
It was Babbie, driving in solitary state, who flew by in the big motor, which turned up the side road that led to The Warren. She gave a friendly nod as she passed, and the six 'sardines' smiled in return.
"It's a case of 'we are seven' from Chagmouth," commented Fay. "If we include Mavis and Merle that would make nine. I guess we'll get up a set of nature study rambles on Saturday afternoons and all go out together. We'd have some real frolics!"
"Rather! I'm your girl! Romola and I are ready for any fun that's going. That's to say if there's going to be time for any fun. But with all the pile of lessons Miss Mitchell has given us we shall be busy, with our noses at the grindstone. It always takes both of us hours to do our prep!"
The car meanwhile, with Mr. Vicary at the driving-wheel, had run across the moor and down the steep hill, and was jolting over the cobble-stones of the narrow main street of Chagmouth. It stopped outside the Post Office, for the principal reason that if it went any farther it would be impossible for it to turn round, and the girls, dismounting, took their satchels or piles of books, said good-bye to one another, and scattered to their respective homes. Beata and Romola crossed the bridge that spanned the brook, skirted the harbour, climbed a flight of steps cut in the solid rock, and reached a house which stood on the top of a high crag overlooking the sea. It was an ideal spot for an artist to live, and it was chiefly for its glorious view that Mr. Castleton had chosen it. He was intensely sensitive to his surroundings, and preferred a picturesque cottage, however inconvenient, to the comforts of an unaesthetic, bow- windowed, modern, red-brick, suburban residence.
"Romance before everything!" he declared. "It's impossible to paint unless you're in the right atmosphere. English scenery is getting spoilt and vulgarised to such a degree that there'll soon be none of it left to sketch. Where are the beautiful villages of thirty years ago? Gone—most of them! The thatched roofs replaced by corrugated iron, and the hedges clipped close to please the motorists. I defy anybody to make a successful picture out of a clipped hedge! Even the gnarled apple trees are being cut down and replaced by market gardeners' 'choice saplings.' Picturesque England will soon be a thing of the past! I consider Chagmouth one of the last strongholds for an artist, and I'm going to live here as long as it remains unspoilt. There's enough work to keep me busy for several years at any rate."
It is part of an artist's business to move about from place to place in quest of fresh subjects. Mr. Castleton had spent some years at Porthkeverne, and having, from a professional point of view, exhausted that neighbourhood, he had transferred himself and his family to a new horizon. He had a genius for discovering his right niche, and he had been fortunate enough to light upon exactly the place that appealed to him. It would not have suited everybody. It was a long low house, made of three fishermen's cottages thrown into one, built so close to the edge of the cliff that it seemed like a sea-bird's nest, with windows overlooking the channel and the harbour, and a strip of stony garden behind. Inside, the accommodation was somewhat cramped, but the rooms, if small, were quaint, with an old-fashioned air about the panelled parlour and raftered dining- room that suggested bygone days of smugglers and privateers. Below, in a nook of the cliff, stood an old sail-shed, which Mr. Castleton had turned into his studio. The big new skylight had only just been fitted into the roof, and the stove which was to heat it during the winter was still at Durracombe station waiting for the carrier to fetch it, but canvases were already hung round the walls, the throne was erected and the big easel placed in position, and an old fisherman, with weather-beaten countenance and picturesque stained jersey, sat every morning for his portrait.