"Can't you climb up the rope?"
"No, it's just out of reach. If you can lengthen it by any means, I expect we'd manage it, or you could haul us up."
"Right-oh! We'll soon have you out," Pam promised, and her head disappeared from view as she turned to explain what had happened to the alarmed group of girls who clustered round the fence. There was no time to waste wondering how both girls had managed to get themselves into such an extraordinary predicament.
"Off with your girdles," said Deirdre briskly, "and join them together. Somebody pull up that rope. Be careful how you knot the girdles; no grannies, mind!"
In a very short time they had knotted their tunic girdles firmly together and by this means had lengthened the rope. Then, not without a few decidedly difficult moments, they managed to haul the girls safely to the surface.
Both Monica and Nat, though not seriously injured, were white-faced and shaken, their shoes and stockings were caked with mud and their tunics stained and torn. It was not the time for long explanations, as Deirdre saw at once.
"Let us make our way to the high road as quickly as possible," she said decisively. "Then perhaps we can get a lift. I think we ought to get Monica and Nat back to school as soon as we can.
"Well, I suppose the paper-chase is at an end and we must consider ourselves caught," Nat admitted resignedly.
When they arrived at St. Etheldreda's Nat and Monica were handed into the charge of Miss Perkins, the house mistress, Nat to have her many bruises well rubbed with embrocation and her scratches bathed. Strange to say, she appeared to be the better man of the two in spite of her fall and the blow which had temporarily stunned her, and declared that save for a headache and the soreness of her bruises she felt little the worse. At her own request she was allowed to spend the evening in her study, on condition that she rested and did not talk or excite herself too much.
On the other hand Monica, though she managed to keep a firm hold on herself till they reached the school, partially collapsed afterwards from nervous strain, and Miss Perkins put her to bed in the sick-room, declaring that a good rest was probably all she needed and that doubtless she would be herself again in the morning.