They only knew that some half-hour later,
with petticoats raised to a height gravely imperilling decency, they
splashed landward across the causeway--now ankle-deep in water--while the
lads congregated before the Inn laughed boisterously, the men turned away
with a guffaw, dogs of disgracefully mixed parentage yelped, and the
elder female members of the Proud and Sclanders families flung phrases
lamentably subversive of gentility after their retreating figures from
the foreshore.
Modesty and mortification alike forbade the outraged ladies reporting the
episode to Dr. Horniblow in extenso. But they succeeded in giving Miss
Bilson a sufficiently lurid account of it to make "the darling little
island," in as far as her charge, Damaris, was concerned, more than ever
taboo. Their request that the story might "go no further" she interpreted
with the elasticity usually accorded to such requests; and proceeded, at
the first opportunity, to retail the whole shocking occurrence to her
pupil as an example of the ingratitude and insubordination of the common
people.
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