“I didn’t know,” said Babe carelessly, striding through the bushes. “Anyhow, I’m mighty glad we’re off. We shall never find your castle at this rate.”
“Do you know,” said Betty reflectively, “this is a real story-book country that we’re in. Even the cows act as they do in story-books.”
“Well, the roads don’t,” objected Madeline. “This one has come to a plain, unvarnished end, as roads and other things have a way of doing in real life. Why, it’s brought us right down to the sea!”
Sure enough, they had come out on a strip of sandy beach, with a little cluster of bath houses at one end. A girl was standing in the door of one of them.
“Go ask her the way, Madeline,” commanded Babbie. “You’re the only one that can remember the name of my castle.”
So Madeline went, and returned with the news that they had taken the wrong turn at the cemetery and must go back through the pasture to the road on the hill.
“Never,” declared Babe firmly. “That cow would have a chance to say, ‘I told you so.’ She was evidently trying to tell us that we were on the wrong track. Didn’t you say the castle was near the water? If so, why can’t we go to it along the shore? It’s a lot prettier down here.”
So Madeline interviewed the bath-house girl again.
“She was very discouraging about it,” she announced. “She said it was awfully rough, with nothing but sheep-trails to walk on, but we can try it if you all want to.”
It was great fun walking on the sheep-trails close by the edge of the sea, with the gorse and heather that they had always read about under their very feet, and the expectation of seeing the castle as they rounded each headland. But presently they came to a fence—a high, close-meshed wire fence with a strand of barbed wire on top.