Bertie drew his breath hard. This was indeed freedom! Milly would have loved to join the party, but desisted from motives of propriety. She had not brought her bathing dress, and, indeed, she was hardly ever allowed to use it at any time. So she went off to explore the wonders of the island, leaving the boys to enjoy their bath and dry themselves in the hot sunshine afterwards.
"I wish I were a boy too," she said to herself; "but anyhow I won't be a little cockney, even if I am a girl."
Certainly the island was a most entrancing place. There were pools where sea-anemones displayed their flower-like beauty, and others lined with green seaweed that looked like moss, where little fishes swam about, and shrimps turned somersaults, and limpets stuck tight to the side, as though a part of the solid rock. Then on the top of the island, where the water never came, a coarse kind of grass grew, and some little flowers and sea-poppies; and Milly found many treasures in the way of tiny shells, which would make lovely decorations for the doll's house at home.
She could have enjoyed herself for hours like this; but the boys turned up before very long, rosy and wet-headed from their bath, and declared they must have something to eat quick, and that they must make a fire and boil their very tiny kettle, just for the sake of feeling that they really were castaways upon a desert island.
"I've found some water that isn't salt!" cried Milly; "it's in a deep pool above high-water mark. It must be rain-water, I suppose; but it's quite nice, for I drank some." And Pickle gave a shout of joy, for the boys were terribly thirsty, and though they had provided themselves with a kettle and some tea, they had never thought of bringing water. Puck said that sea-water boiled would be sure to be quite nice, for boiling was sure to take the salt out of it somehow.
Milly, however, knew better, and was proud of her find; and she and Puck ran off to fill the kettle, whilst Pickle and Bertie set to gathering dry seaweed, and putting it in a hole in the rocks which was rather like a fire-grate, and over which they could easily put on the kettle to boil.
It was tremendously exciting and interesting work—the sort of play the rectory children had never indulged in before, though they had secretly longed after it.
"Pickle soon had a merry little fire burning."—Page [95].
Esther's Charge.