"Why, you've never looked inside the envelopes! How can you tell whether they've crests?"
"Oh, never mind! It doesn't matter!" Gerda was on the floor, searching among some opened and torn sheets that lay on the mouldering straw.
"Look here! We can't stay all day while you read old Forster's correspondence! We've got enough! Come along!"
"One minute! Oh, do wait for me a second! I'll come! Yes, I'll come in half a jiffy!"
"We'll go without you, then you'll soon trot after us," said Deirdre, who had filled her satchel. She and Annie clattered downstairs again, looked into the empty kitchen, and dared each other to peep into the dark hall cupboard. They had hardly waited more than a minute in the dining-room when Gerda joined them.
"Well, have you found the orthodox long-lost will?" mocked Annie.
"I've got enough scent to take us back to Pontperran, and that's what I wanted," retorted Gerda, with a light in her eyes that seemed almost more than the occasion justified.
No more time must be lost if they did not want to be run to earth by the hounds, so returning to the windmill steps they tore up their fresh supply of paper, taking bites of their sandwiches while they did so. A loud "Cuckoo!" in the distance caused all three to start to their feet in alarm, and leaving a trail behind the broken sail, they scrambled over a fence, and dived down through a coppice which led to the stream. They followed the bank for some distance before they judged it safe once more to take to a foot-path, then doubling round the hill on which the windmill stood, they tacked off in the direction of Kergoff.
The hounds reached the Dower House at five o'clock, exactly half an hour after the hares, and over a combined luncheon-tea discussed the run, and universally agreed that the day had been "ripping".
The Sixth and Va, rather puffed up with their archæological researches, tried to be superior and instructive, and to give their juniors a digest of what they had learnt at the abbey. But at this Vb rebelled.