Schoolgirls -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- England -- Juvenile fiction
Mavis and Merle were delighted with the structure raised in their
honour. They had been keen on history at Whinburn High School, and had
studied the Stone and Bronze Ages under an interesting teacher, so that
it was particularly fascinating to find what seemed as good as a real
live specimen of a house of the period actually before their eyes. They
went inside at once and took possession. There were some logs for seats,
and a big stone for a table placed in the middle of the hut. While they
were examining these, Bevis slung his shooting-bag carefully from his
shoulder and began to unpack it. Then he produced what he evidently
considered his masterpiece.
There was a small quarry near Chagmouth whence China clay was shipped.
He had begged a big lump of this, kneaded it and moulded it into
handleless cups, and had baked them in the oven at the farm. They were,
of course, roughly made, but they much resembled prehistoric pottery,
even to the willow-withe markings which he had put on them. They were
stained on the outside, one red, one blue, and one yellow.
"So that we shall each know our own," he explained, handing the blue to
Mavis and the red to Merle.
It was undoubtedly an anachronism that Bevis had brought a thermos flask
in his shooting-bag, and offered his friends tea in their home-baked
cups, but they were not disposed to quarrel with such a mixture of
ancient and modern. They sat on their log seats, eating cake and sipping
the modern beverage in defiance of historic accuracy.
"I feel as if the Bronze Age people who were buried in the mound ought
to rise up and come and turn us out and say it was their shanty,"
laughed Merle.
"What did they do with the skeletons that were found there?" asked Mavis
suddenly.
"Took them to the County Museum," answered Bevis. "I didn't like the
idea myself. I think it was hateful to put the poor things' bones in a
glass case. They ought to have left them where they were buried, with
their hands still clasped and the little baby in the woman's arm. They
must have been fond of each other thousands of years ago."
"Perhaps he built her a hut like this and made her clay pottery,"
speculated Mavis.
"I've no doubt he did."
"But she didn't drink tea out of it anyway," snorted Merle. "Don't be
sentimental over the Bronze Age people, you two. I'd rather call the
tumulus a pixie mound, and imagine the wee folk coming tumbling out of
it some moonlight night, and dancing on the grass. Don't Chagmouth
people tell any stories about pixies?"
"They wouldn't be Devon folk unless they did. Yes, there are heaps of
pixie tales. They say an old man from Groves Cottage was once pixie-led
on the moor. He wandered round and round in a circle, and couldn't find
his way home till he turned his coat inside out, and that broke the
spell. There was an old woman over by Tangoran who used to tell a
wonderful tale about a fairy."
"Oh, what was that?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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