"Ah, I only wish it were mine! You bet I wouldn't be an absentee landlord," broke out Bevis bitterly. "It seems to me the limit that people should own things and care nothing about them. The old General hasn't been at Chagmouth for fifteen years. I don't suppose he remembers there's such a beauty spot as this where we're sitting now, even if he ever saw it. He's turned the property over to the Glyn Williams, and all the value _they'd_ put on this scrap of hill-side would be its worth for the shooting. It's hard that things should go so unequally. There's a lot of injustice in this world. The people who care for the things ought to own them." "Don't you think in a sense they do?" Mavis spoke slowly and hesitatingly. "What I mean is that all beautiful things belong in a way to the people who love them: old castles, and pictures, and landscapes, and everything of that sort. If you appreciate them they're yours, and nothing can ever take them away from you. This little quarry, and the sloe blossom, and the primroses, and the view over the water, are ours. They can't belong to people who've never seen them. I'm going to call it 'Blackthorn Bower', and take possession. I feel as if we'd a right to it." "Cheerio! Here are your title deeds, 'Lady of the Bower'!" laughed Bevis, peeling a piece of bark off a tree and handing it to her as if it had been a manuscript, "if there's any dispute with the old General we'll go to law about it, and prove that we're the lineal descendants of the mound dwellers or the cave folk, and have a prior claim on the property." "The land for the people," quoted Merle. "This patch of land certainly. The Lady of the Bower has proved it's ours. She's a regular Portia at arguing, and there isn't a Shylock who could stand against her." "It's our joint estate then, and belongs to us three. We'll call ourselves The Triumvirate!" proclaimed Mavis. "Have you a penny in your pocket, Bevis? Merle, give me one too! Now, we'll bury these three pennies in the ground, like the Romans used to do before they began a building, and that'll mark the spot ours for ever more." "I wish we _had_ a building here," said Merle, producing her penny. "Oh, so do I! A sort of ancient British hut, made of boughs and turf. Wouldn't it be priceless? We could almost imagine ourselves mound dwellers, and feel as if we were living in the Bronze Age." "Would you really like it?" asked Bevis quickly. "Rather!" "Well, we'll see what can be done. No, I can't exactly promise anything; but look here! if you care to come here again next Saturday afternoon perhaps I might have a surprise ready for you. No, I shan't tell you anything about it, or it wouldn't be a surprise. You must wait and see!" "Do whisper just a teeny-weeny hint," begged Mavis coaxingly, but Bevis was adamant. "I don't know myself yet! Wait till next Saturday. Give me your pennies, and I'll dig a hole. Here's a foundation at any rate. Good luck to Blackthorn Bower."