She liked the solitude of the moors, which were covered only with short grass and low whinberry bushes; there was no sound except the occasional bleat of a sheep or the cry of a curlew, and no human being in sight but themselves, though one or two small whitewashed farms, at long distances apart, gave evidence of life by their smoking chimneys. Not very far away they came upon the Druids' circle, a ring of tall upright stones, so ancient that all tradition of them had long been lost, though Miss Kaye explained to the girls that they had probably been used as a kind of temple for sun worship by the early tribes who lived there, long before the Romans discovered Britain.
"I wish they could speak and tell us their story," she said. "They would have strange tales about the rough skinclad men who reared them, and the priests who stood watching amongst them for the first glimpse of the sun on Midsummer morning. Who knows but that they may have witnessed human sacrifices, and at any rate there must have been wolves, and cave bears, and hyenas, and many wild animals prowling about which are extinct in Wales now. We can tell that, because the bones and teeth of these creatures have been found in a cave at Llandudno. Some day I may perhaps take you to see it. The skeletons of a man and a woman were found there embedded in the rock, and round their throats were necklaces made of bears' teeth. We can hardly imagine what life was like in those early times."
The girls always found Miss Kaye's talks interesting, but the healthy mountain air had so sharpened their appetites that they turned readily from ancient stones to modern lunch, and, sitting down inside the famous circle, drew out the packets of sandwiches and oranges which they had brought with them. Everything seemed to taste particularly good, and everybody could have eaten a little more, but the very last crumb of biscuit had been consumed, and they were obliged to remain content until teatime. Miss Kaye made the girls gather up their pieces of orange peel, wrap them in their sandwich papers, and poke them away under a boulder.
"Nothing is so horrible," she declared, "as to leave traces of one's picnic about to spoil the place for the next people who come. If everyone would do the same, there would be few complaints that tourists ruin the scenery."
After lunch the girls were allowed to ramble on the moors as they liked, with an injunction not to go too far, and to return to the Druids' circle when Miss Kaye blew a whistle. It was hardly possible to get lost, because, as Linda said, they could see all round for miles, and unless you hid yourself under a bush, someone would be sure to find you. The members of the third class went off together, racing over the springy grass with as much agility as the small Welsh sheep that seemed capable of climbing the stones like goats, to judge by the achievement of an old ewe, which ran up a loose-built wall as easily as a kitten, and led its lamb after it.
In a hollow at the farther side of the circle the children found a sheet of shallow water evidently formed by the February rains and melting snow. At one end was a rough raft and a long pole, with which some boy had no doubt been amusing himself. The temptation was too great to be resisted. In three seconds Connie, Brenda, and Sylvia were making a trial trip, the last two squatting close together in the middle to balance the raft, while Connie pushed off with the pole, and punted them out into the middle of the pond. It was a most delightful sensation. The water was clear, and they could see down several feet where there were green weeds growing at the bottom, and great floating masses of some jellylike substance, that Connie declared was frog spawn.
"I'm going to get a lump of it," she cried, "and take it back to school and put it in a basin; then we can watch the tadpoles hatch out and grow into little frogs. I'll run the raft against this island. There seems to be a heap of it here."
Though the trio nearly upset their craft in their efforts, they found it very difficult to get hold of any of the spawn; it was as transparent and slimy as the white of an egg, and kept slipping through their fingers as fast as they touched it. Connie managed at last to secure a small piece by holding her handkerchief under it in the water; then she tied the four corners tightly together, and put the wet messy bundle into her pocket.
"Ugh! How can you!" exclaimed Sylvia. "Suppose they hatch on the way?"
"That's not very likely," replied Connie; "but I don't mind if they do. I'm fond of tadpoles."