Chapter VI: The Hope-Scott Prize

“Are you going to try for the prize, Gretta? And isn’t it a funny one?”

So spoke Sybil, who, trotting by the side of her sister in the middle rank of the long crocodile of girls that was being marshalled by Miss Read for the first walk of the term, looked jolly enough certainly, and anything but home-sick.

“I suppose everybody’ll _try_ for it,” said Gretta slowly, “but I shouldn’t think there’s any chance for _us_; you see we’ve never thought much about being brave, and it seems such a new kind of thing. Did you understand what Miss Slater said about it at Prayers, Sybil?”

“About its being for the girl who did the bravest thing this term?” replied her younger sister. “Why, yes, of course, that much I did. But when she talked about different kinds of brave things, I really didn’t listen much; I was so longing to hear what the prize was going to be. But--a golden _shield_, Gretta--I’d never guessed it would be a thing like that, and with those funny words. And who was Brito---- I’ve forgotten the rest; I wasn’t listening very much just then.”

“Britomart, you mean,” said Gretta. “I hadn’t heard about her before, either. She was a Knight, Sybil, but not quite the same as the ones we know about. She was a Maiden-Knight, you know, of very long ago, and very brave. That’s what the words mean: ‘NE EVILL THING SHE FEARD.’ They were true about her, Miss Slater said, and they’re going to be printed on the bravery-shield.”

“She must have been awfully brave, then. I suppose she didn’t mind the--the dark, or anything, Gretta; but, I say, it was funny spelling, though,” remarked Sybil wisely. “D’you know, when we got back to the class-room, Gretta, Miss Taylor wrote it up on the blackboard--those words, I mean--and she talked about it a lot. But _I_ thought--though I didn’t say it, of course----”

“And a jolly good thing too, Mistress Sybil!” remarked Josy from behind, where she was walking with Stella, and listening to the child’s high-pitched voice.

“Be _quiet_!” flashed Sybil angrily. “I wasn’t talking to _you_, and you don’t even _know me_!”

There was a burst of laughter from the couples immediately before and behind at this retort, and Miss Read called out warningly from the rear. “Girls! Girls! Not so much noise! Sybil, keep in line; you’re continually turning round!”

“It’s not my fault, it’s this girl!” began Sybil plaintively, but as no notice at all was taken of the remark by the mistress-in-charge, and as Gretta, instead of acting comforter, simply jogged her elbow and begged her to “Shut up!” the child relapsed into silence for a time, and walked sulkily along by her sister’s side.

“What kind of lessons did you have to-day, Sybil?” inquired her older sister presently, to change the subject and to relieve the atmosphere a little.

“Oh, ripping!” exclaimed Sybil, at once alert and good-humoured again. “They’re not very easy, though, _although_ I’m in the bottom class. That other new girl, Adela, who’s in my Form, is frightfully clever. She’s had a governess, and she can do fractions like _anything_! Miss Taylor said that I should have to work hard because I was behind the others, but I just said that _you’d_ been teaching me, so it wasn’t _my_ fault at all!”

“And what did she say when you said that?” inquired Gretta, swallowing a feeling of mortification.

“Oh, nothing. Something about not talking so much, I expect. She’s most frightfully strict. You have to sit still the whole lessons through. There’s no chance of my winning a lesson-prize in _that_ class _I_ know, Gretta, so it’s no use trying for one. And as I told Ann that I should bring one back with me, I think I shall just try for that other one for being the bravest; it’s much more interesting, and might even be fun.”

“You mean the Hope-Scott prize!” questioned Gretta in amazement. “Oh, Sybil, do you think you’re brave enough? Whatever could you do? You’re only twelve.”

“Well, Miss Slater said, for I heard that much, that perhaps even the youngest in the school could get it, and I’m not as young as _that_. Joan Curtis is younger; she’s eleven and a quarter, though she _has_ been here a year. And Margot’s only just a little older than me, and you always say _she’s_ brave.”

“Well, yes,” agreed Gretta, “but then she’s been in Australia, and she’s done brave things there, somehow. Think of riding a horse bareback; and then, that time, you know, when she was lost in the Bush for a whole day. Auntie told us how brave she was in finding her way home and everything. _I_ couldn’t do those things, and I’m fourteen.”

“I think I’d rather _like_ adventures and being brave,” said Sybil carelessly. “I’ve got a thing already that I think of doing, but if I tell you, you won’t let anyone else know, will you?”

“Oh, tell me! _Do!_” called Josy, in mock excitement from behind.

“You’re a silly, horrid, teasing thing,” cried Sybil, whipping round, and addressing the advancing couple; “and I won’t tell anyone--so there!”

“Gretta, bring Sybil to walk in the last rank,” called Miss Read’s voice from behind. “She really _must_ learn to behave in a more orderly way while we’re out.”

“It’s my fault, Miss Read,” exclaimed Josy, in a contrite voice; “I was teasing her.”

“Then you ought to know better, Josy,” said the house-mistress severely. “Talk to your own partner, and don’t be silly.”

The procession moved on again, and the discussion was over for a time, but it came up again in the dormitory that night while the girls were undressing for bed. Everyone in Dormitory 3, as in every other room in the school, was keen on the Hope-Scott prize, and every tongue was wagging over the possibilities of being the winner.

“One thing is, I suppose,” announced Josy, “to think out the very bravest thing you can think of, and then to set to work to do it, however hard it is; but d’you know, I can’t think of anything to do, though I’ve thought and thought. Lessons and things like that bother me most, and, of course, _they_ couldn’t count as braveness, could they? Now, if we were only in King Arthur’s time--we had it in Literature last term, and it was ripping!--things to do would come hopping up every half-hour--questing beasts, and fair maidens in distress, and wounded knights! _Then_ you just had to nip in with a sword and there you were! There was no wondering what to do; adventures just came naturally!”

“Miss Slater said that if we waited and looked out we would be sure to find something brave to do, but we were to be careful not to miss it if it looked small,” said Gretta, who had been bothering over the matter all day. “Of course, I don’t know _school_, but I’ve never done a single brave thing at home, I’m sure.”

“And I’ve been at school for two years and a term, and I’m sure _I_’ve never done anything brave,” added Josy.

“I know a brave _man_,” came in decided tones from Margot’s cubicle. “I’m sure the motto on the shield is true of _him_!”

“What sort of things does he do?” begged everybody, eager for a recipe for bravery.

“Well, for one thing, he met three robbers--bushrangers, you know, and murderers they were really--when he was on horseback all alone, and before they had time to whip out their pistols he held them up with _his_, and made them all walk into the nearest town; ten miles it was, and he knew all the time that his pistol wasn’t loaded.”

“And did _they_?” inquired the others breathlessly.

“Of course not, or they’d have shot him in a minute; they were a desperate gang!”

“What else did he do?” inquired Stella with interest. “That’s not much use to us, I’m afraid, but let’s hear; it might give us ideas.”

“For one thing he spent a night in a cave that was supposed to be haunted--no one would go near it, even in the daytime, because of the stories there were about--and it was while he was in there he found out that the robbers used it as a hiding-place at night. He listened, and heard them say where they had taken some horses that had been stolen from one of the farms. He headed a band next day, and went after the horses, too, and he got them. They were awfully valuable ones; one of them was worth nearly a hundred pounds!”

“I say, what a lark to know such a man,” broke in Josy. “Who is he? Do tell us.”

“He’s a friend of dad’s,” said Margot simply. “When we were out in the Bush he helped with the farms. He was champion sheep-shearer. I told you about him, didn’t I, Gretta?” And she turned to her cousin.

“Is it Long Jake, that you were talking about in the train?” asked Gretta with interest; “that man who gave you lessons in Australia?”

“‘Long Jake!’” echoed the other listeners. “What a funny name, and _how_ ripping he must be to know!”

“If he were in this school,” added Josy, breathing deeply, “wouldn’t I get ideas from him for the prize!”

“He’d win it himself, I should imagine,” corrected the superior Stella. “There wouldn’t be much chance for any of _us_! I’m going to ask dad for ideas at the week-end. If he knows any good ones, I’ll tell you on Monday.”

“Why, it’s the week-end to-morrow,” exclaimed Margot. “Where do you live, Stella? Shall you walk home, or how do you get there?”

“No, the trap comes,” said Stella. “We live off the road that goes to the station. It’s nearly five miles away; you must have passed it as you came, only you wouldn’t see the house, perhaps; it’s behind trees.”

“We saw _one_ house,” broke in Gretta excitedly--“a little house with no windows.”

“Did you notice _that_?” exclaimed Stella with animation. “The ‘Little House’! Oh, what do you think of it?”

“I thought it was the rummiest place I’d ever seen,” declared Margot. “I’ve been longing to ask someone about it ever since we got here. We saw it first from the train, and then we saw it from the trap, and we asked Miss Read about it. Somehow or other she didn’t tell us much: something about an old man, but I thought--didn’t you, Gretta?--that she seemed to try and shut us up rather.”

“_No wonder!_” said Stella, in a hollow tone of mystery.