Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.Another Discovery.Fred was right; the two elders did soon make it up, and the political ebullition seemed to be forgotten. The boys were soon together again, enjoying their simple country ways as of yore, while the clouds gathering around only looked golden in their sunshiny life.The search for the outlet to the secret passage was renewed without success, and then given up for a time. There was so much to see and do that glorious autumn time when the apples were ripening fast, and hanging in great ropes from the heavily laden trees, beneath whose tangled boughs all was grey and green leaves and gloom, every orchard being an improvised wilderness, which was allowed to bear or be barren according to its will.There was always so much to do. Trout to hunt up the little moorland streams; loaches to impale among the stones of the swift torrents; rides over the long undulating stretches of the moor, from far inland to where it ended abruptly in steep cliffs by the sea.And so life glided on at Manor and Hall. The king and country were not mentioned; Colonel and Mistress Forrester supped at the Hall, and little Lil listened to the sweet old-fashioned ballads the visitor sang. Then the Scarletts spent pleasant evenings at the Manor, and the two fathers discussed the future of their sons, while Dame Markham and Mistress Forrester seemed to be like sisters.But all the while the storm-clouds were gathering, and a distant muttering of thunder told that the tempest threatened to break over the pleasant west-country land.“There’s going to be a big change o’ some kind, Master Scarlett,” said Nat, the gardener; “and if there is, it won’t be any too soon, for it will put my brother Samson in his proper place, and keep him there.”“Yes, Master Fred, I went and had a mug o’ cider down in the village last night, poor winegar wee sort o’ stuff—three apples to a bucket o’ water—such as my brother Nat makes up at the Hall; and there they all were talking about it. People all taking sides all over England. Some’s Cavaliers and some’s Roundheads, so they say, and one party’s for the king, and the other isn’t. Precious awful, aren’t it?”“Perhaps it’s only talk, Samson?”“No, Master Fred, sir, I don’t think it’s all talk; but there is a deal o’ talk.”“Ah, well, it’s nothing to do with us, Samson. Let them quarrel. We’re too busy out here to bother about their quarrels.”“Well, I dunno, sir. I’m not a quarrelsome chap, but I heard things as my brother Nat has said quite bad enough to make me want to go again him, for we two never did agree; and when it comes to your own brother telling downright out-and-out lies about the Manor vegetables and fruit, I think it’s time to speak, don’t you?”“Oh, I wish you and Nat would meet some day, and shake hands, or else fight it out and have done with it; brothers oughtn’t to quarrel.”“I dunno, Master Fred, I dunno.”“Ah, well, I think all quarrels are a bother, whether they’re big ones or whether they’re little ones. They say the king and Parliament have fallen out; well, if I had my way, I’d make the king and Parliament shake hands, just as Scar Markham and I will make you and Nat shake yours.”“Nay, Master Fred, never!”“I’m going to meet him this afternoon, and we’ll talk it over.”Samson shook his head.Home studies were over for the day, and by a natural attraction, Fred started by a short cut to the high point of the moor, just at the same time as Scar Markham left the Hall for the same spot.“He’ll be in some mischief or another before he gets back,” said Samson Dee, as he ceased digging, and rested one foot upon the top of his spade, watching his young master contemplatively as he went along the road for a short distance before leaping up the bank, and beginning to tramp among heath, brake, and furze, over the springy turf.Samson shook his head sadly, and sighed as he watched Fred’s progress, the figure growing smaller and smaller, sometimes disappearing altogether in a hollow, and then bounding into sight again like one of the moorland sheep.“Yes; some mischief!” sighed Samson again, and he watched the lad with the sorrowful expression on the increase, till the object of his consideration was out of sight, when he once more sighed, and recommenced digging. “You don’t catch me, though, making it up.”Oddly enough—perhaps it would be more correct to say naturally enough—Nat Dee ceased digging up in the Hall garden to watch Scarlett Markham, who, after sending his sister Lil back into the house in tears, because he refused to take her with him, started off at a rapid pace.“Wonder what mischief he’s going to be at,” said Nat, half aloud; and he, too, rested a foot on the top of his spade, and contemplated the retiring form.Perhaps, after all, digging is exceedingly hard work, and a break is very welcome; but whether it be so or no, the fact is always evident that a gardener is ready to cease lifting the fat mellow earth of a garden, and stand and think upon the slightest excuse.Nat Dee waited till Scar had disappeared, and then he slowly and sorrowfully resumed his task, and sighed with a feeling of regret for the time when he too was a boy, and indulged in unlimited idleness and endless quarrels with his brother Samson.Fred Forrester whistled as he slowly climbed the hill, which was shaped like a level surfaced mound, and stood right up above the ordinary undulations of the moor, and Scarlett Markham whistled as he slowly climbed the other side, while high overhead, to turn the duet into a trio, there was another whistler in the shape of a speckled lark, soaring round and round as if he were describing the figure of a gigantic corkscrew, whose point was intended to pierce the clouds.There had been a shower earlier in the day, and the earth sent forth a sweet fragrance, which mingled with the soft salt breeze, and sent a thrill of pleasure through the frames of the two lads hastening to their trysting-place. They did not know that their feet crushed the wild thyme, or caused fresh odours to float upon the air, or whether the breeze came from north, south, or west; all that they knew was that they felt very happy, and that they were out on the moor, ready to enjoy themselves by doing something, they knew not what. They did not even know that they were each performing a part in a trio, the little lark being so common an object as to be unnoticed, while the top of the hill divided the two terrestrial whistlers from each other.Fred was at the highest point first, and throwing himself down on the turf, he lay watching the coming figure toiling up, while the grasshopperschizzedand leaped from strand of grass to harebell, and thence to heather, and even on to the figure lying there.The view was grand. Away to right were the undulations of the moor; to the left the high hills which seemed as if cut off short, and descended almost perpendicularly to the sea, and in front of them the sea itself, glistening in the sunshine beyond the cliff, which from the point where Fred lay looked like a lioncouchant, end on to him, and passing out to sea. Here and there some boat’s sail seemed like a speck upon the sea, while going in different directions—seaward and toward Bristol were a couple of what Fred mentally dubbed “king’s ships.” Away as far as eye could reach to right and left lay the softly blue Welsh coast; but Fred’s attention was divided between the lion’s head-like outline of the Rill, and the slowly advancing figure of Scarlett Markham, who finished his ascent by breaking into a trot, and zigzagging up the last steep piece to throw himself down beside his friend.They lay for some few minutes enjoying themselves, their ideas of enjoyment consisting in lying face downward resting upon their crossed arms, which formed a pillow for their chins, and kicking the turf with their toes. Then, as if moved by the same spirit, they leaped to their feet with all a boy’s energy and vital force.“Let’s do something,” exclaimed Scar. “Shall we go to the lake?”“That’s just what I was going to say,” cried Fred; but they did not go far in an aimless way—they began to descend the hill slowly at first, then at a trot, then at headlong speed, till they stopped a part of the way up the next slope, after crossing the bottom of the little coombe between the hills.This second hill looked wearisome after their rapid descent, so they contented themselves with walking along its side parallel with the bottom of the little valley, talking of indifferent matters till they came upon a little flock of grey and white gulls feeding amongst the short herbage, where the rain had brought out various soft-bodied creatures good in a gull’s eyes for food.The beautiful white-breasted creatures rose on their long narrow wings, and flapped and floated away.From force of habit, Fred took up a stone and threw it after the birds, not with any prospect of hitting them, for they were a couple of hundred yards away.“Wish I could fly like that,” said Scarlett. “Look at them; they’re going right over the Rill Head.”The two boys stopped and watched until the birds glided out of sight, beyond the lion-like headland, an object, however, which grew less lion-like the nearer they drew.“What would be the good?” replied Fred. “It would soon be very stupid to go gliding here and there.”“But see how easy it would be to float like that.”“How do you know?” said practical Fred. “I dare say a bird’s wings ache sometimes as much as our legs do with running. I say, Scar.”“Yes.”“Let’s go and have a look at the caves.”“What caves?”“Down below the Rill. Now, only think of it; we were born here, and never went and had a look at them. Samson says that one of them is quite big and runs in ever so far, with a place like a chimney at one end, so that you can get down from the land side.”“And Nat said one day that it was all nonsense; that they were just like so many rabbit-holes—and that’s what he thought they were.”“But our Samson said he had been in them; and if they were no bigger than rabbit-holes, he couldn’t have done that. Let’s go and see.”“Bother! I had enough of poking about in that damp old passage, and all for nothing. I thought we were going to find the way in there.”“Well, so we did.”“But I mean the other end.”“Bother, bother! what’s the good!”“How do I know? It’s very curious. There’s something seems to draw you on when you are underground,” said Scarlett, dreamily.“Hark at the old worm! Why, Scar, I believe you’d like to live underground.”Scarlett shook his head.“I mean to find that way in to our place some day, whether you help me or whether you do not. Never mind what your Samson said about the Rill caves. He don’t know. Let’s go and see.”“What’s the good?”“I don’t know that it will be any good, but let’s see. There may be all kinds of strange things in a cave. I’ve read about wonderful places that went into the earth for a long way.”“Yes; but our Rill cave would not. My father told me one day about two caves he went into in Derbyshire. One had a little river running out of it, and he went in and walked by the side of the water for a long way till he came to a black arch, and there the gentlemen who were with him lit candles and they waded into the water and crept under the dark arch, and then went on and on for a long way through cave after cave, all wet and dripping from the top. Sometimes they were obliged to wade in the stream, and sometimes they walked along the edge.”“And what did they find?”“Mud,” said Fred, laconically.“Nothing else?”“No; only mud, sticky mud, no matter how far they went; and at last they got tired of it, and turned back to find that the water had risen, and was close up to the top of the arch under which they had crept, so that they had to wait half a day before it went down.”“What made the water rise?” asked Scarlett; “the tide?”“No; there were no tides there right in among the hills.”“Then how was it?”“There had been a storm, and the water had run down and filled the little river.”As they chatted, the lads walked steadily on, and began to ascend the long, low eminence, which formed, as it were, the large body of the couchant lion, but which from where they were, seemed like the most ordinary of hills.“There was another cave, too, that my father went into, but that was very different. It was high up in among the hills, and you went down quite a hole to get to it, and then it was just as if the inside of the hill had come full of cracks and splits along which he kept climbing and walking with the two sides just alike, just as if the stone had been broken in two.”“Then this was stone, not mud,” said Scarlett, who was deeply interested.“Yes, solid stone—rock; and every here and there you could see curious shapes, just as if water had been running down, and it had all been turned into stone.”“I should like to go and see a place like that,” said Scarlett.“Yes; I shouldn’t mind seeing a cave like that. Father says it went in for miles, and nobody had ever got to the end of it, for it branched off into narrow slits, and sometimes you were walking on shelves, and you could hold the candle over and look down horrible holes that were nobody knows how deep, and there you could hear the water gurgling at the bottom, and hissing and splashing, and— Oh!”“Scar!” yelled Fred, making a dash at his companion just in time to catch him by the arm as he suddenly dropped down through a narrow opening in the midst of the short green turf over which they were walking.So narrow was the opening, and so nearly hidden by grass and heath, that Scarlett had no difficulty in supporting himself by spreading out his arms, as soon as he had recovered from the first startling effect of his slip.But he did not stop many minutes in this position. Fred hung on to his arm. He threw himself sidewise, grasped tightly hold of a stout branch of heath, and scrambled out.“Who’d have thought of there being a hole like that?” said Scarlett, as soon as he was safe. “But I don’t suppose it’s very deep, after all. Got a stone?”“No. Listen.”Fred had thrown himself upon his breast, and craned his neck over the place, trying to peer down, but only into darkness, the hole evidently not going down straight; it being, in fact, a narrow crack, such as he had described in telling of the Derbyshire cavern.Scarlett, who looked rather white from the shock he had received, joined his companion, and bent down to listen.“Hear that?” said Fred in a whisper.“Yes; water.”“Water! Yes, of course; but listen again.”They kept silence, and there ascended from below, through the almost hidden crevice, a low whisper of an echoing roar, which died away in a peculiar hissing sound that was thrilling in its strange suggestiveness.“There must be a waterfall somewhere below there,” said Scarlett at last.“Why, don’t you know what it is?”“No.”“The sea. Didn’t think it was the end of your passage, did you?”“What there? Nonsense!”“Yes, it’s the cave; and the sea runs right up here.”“It couldn’t; it’s too far away.”“I don’t care; that’s the sea. Now listen again, how regularly it comes. Every wave must be rushing in, and you can hear it go whishing out.”Scarlett and his companion listened for a few minutes.“Yes; it’s the sea, sure enough,” said Scarlett. “Why, Fred, I didn’t think we had such a place here.”“No,” said Fred. “But, then, nobody ever comes up here. Why, it’s quite a discovery, Scar. Let’s get down to the shore, and go in.”“Yes, I’m ready;” and together the two lads made their way to the edge of the slaty cliffs, and then a long way by the edge, before they could find a rift of a sufficient slope to warrant their attempting a descent.Even this selected path looked far more easy than it proved; but by the exercise of a little care they got about half-way down, and then stopped; for it was plain enough to see, from the point of vantage they had gained, that even if they climbed to the narrow line of black slaty shingle between them and the perpendicular rock, they could not reach the face of the Rill Head, which projected, promontory-like, into the sea, and low down in which for certain the cave must be.“What a bother!” exclaimed Fred. “I thought we were going to have a fine bit of adventure, and discover seals, and lobsters, and crabs, and all kinds of things. What shall we do?”“Wait till low water.”“But it’s nearly low water now. Can’t you see?”The marks of the last tide were plainly visible high up on the rugged rock-face, the last tide having left every ledge covered with washed-up fucus and bladder-wrack, speckled with white shells and sandy patches.“Then it must always be deep in water?” said Scarlett.“Well, I tell you what, then, let’s borrow somebody’s boat and try and get right in that way.”“I don’t know who somebody is,” said Scarlett, drily; “and if I did, I don’t suppose he has got a boat.”“Don’t talk like that,” cried Fred. “I say, couldn’t we get a boat?”“There isn’t one for miles. Old Porlett bought one—don’t you recollect?—and the sea knocked it all to pieces in the first storm.”“Yes, I recollect,” said Fred, thoughtfully, “though it was twenty feet up on a broad shelf of rock. Shall we swim to the cave?”Scarlett shook his head. “No,” he said. “It would be too risky.”“What shall we do, then?”“Give it up.”“And I just won’t,” cried Fred, emphatically. “I say, Scar, look here.”“Well?”“If we can’t get in one way, let’s get in the other.”Scarlett stared at him wonderingly, “Let’s go down the same way that you were going, only not in such a hurry,” he added with a gun.“What, climb down the hole?” said Scarlett, thoughtfully, and ignoring the smile. “Yes. Why not?”“Oh yes, we could, with a rope. Drive an iron bar down into the earth, and tie one end of the rope to it, and then go down.”“You would not dare to go down that way.”“Yes, I would,” said Fred, stoutly; “and so would you,” he added.“I don’t know,” said Scarlett, dreamily. “But I do. Shall we do it? I’m ready if you are. Come along, then, back to our place, and let’s make old Samson lend as couple of good ropes.”Scarlett nodded acquiescence, and the two lads, little thinking how their act would be importance in the future, re-climbed the cliff and started toward the Manor at a run.It proved very easy to propose getting a rope, but much harder to get one, for everything in the shape of hempen cord was under the care of Samson Dee, who had to be found, not at all a difficult task, for he was digging—at least, handling a spade—down the garden.Samson greeted the coming of the lads with a smile, for it was another excuse for taking a foot from the ground, and resting it upon the spade. But as soon as he heard the want, the smile faded from his face. “You want a what?” he said. “You know what I said, Samson, so no nonsense. Let us have one directly.”“You want a rope, Master Fred?”“There, I told you that you did hear me. Yes; I want the longest rope about the place directly.”“What yer want it for?”“Never you mind. I tell you I want the rope.”“To make a swing with, of course. Well, then, you can’t have it.”“Can’t I?” said Fred, sharply. “We’ll soon see about that. Come along, Scar. Any one would think the ropes were his.”“Look here, Master Fred, if you—”Samson ceased speaking, for he was wise enough to see that he was wasting words in shouting after the two lads. But he began muttering directly about a “passell o’ boys” coming and bothering him when he hadn’t a moment to spare.“And look here,” he shouted, as he saw his visitors trotting off with a coil of strong new rope belonging to the waggon, “mind you bring that rope back again. Now, I wonder what them two are going to do?” he ended by muttering, and then set to work digging once more, but in so slow and methodical a fashion that the worms had plenty of time to get away from the sharp edge of the spade before it was driven home and cut them in half.“Poor old Samson!” said Fred; “he seems to think that everything belongs to him.”“So does our Nat,” replied Scarlett. “I often fancy he thinks I belong to him as well, from the way he shouts and orders me about.”“But you never do what he tells you.”“Of course not; and— Oh, Fred!”“What’s the matter?”“We’ve got the rope; but what are we going to fasten the end to when we go down?” Fred stopped short, and rubbed one ear.“You hold it while I go down, and I’ll hold it while you go down.”“I shouldn’t like to try that,” said Scarlett. “We’re not strong enough.”“Nonsense! Not if we let the rope bite on the edge of the hole?”“That would not do,” said Scarlett, decisively.“I know, then,” cried Fred. “Come along.”“No. Let’s go back and get an iron bar to drive down in the earth.”“I’ve got a better way than that,” said Fred. “There’s a pole across the opening in that stone wall half-way up the hill. We’ll lay that across, and tie the rope to it.”Scarlett nodded acquiescence, and they trotted on to the rough stone wall, built up of loose fragments piled one on the other, the gateway left for the passage of cattle being closed by a couple of poles laid across like bars, their ends being slipped in holes left for the purpose.The straighter of these two was slipped out by Scarlett and shouldered, and they hastened on, attracted by the discovery they had made, but recalling, as they went on, that they had been told before about the existence of this opening by more than one person, though it had slipped from their memory for the time.“Who’s going down first?” said Fred, as they slowly climbed the last hundred yards of the slope.“I will.”“No; I think I ought to go first.”“Long bent, short bent,” said Scarlett, picking a couple of strands of grass, breaking them off so that one was nearly double the length of the other, and then, after placing two ends level and hiding the others, offering them to his companion to draw one out.Fred drew the shorter, and Scarlett had the right to go down first—a right which but for the look of the thing he would willingly have surrendered. For as they reached the long, narrow, grass-grown crack, the strange whispering and plashing sounds which came from below suggested unknown dangers, which were more repellent than the attractions of the mysterious hole.Fred looked curiously at Scarlett, who noted the look, and tightened himself up, assuming a carelessness he did not feel.“Doesn’t go down quite straight, seemingly,” he said.“All the better. I say, shall I go down first?”“What for? I won the choice, and I’m going,” said Scarlett, sharply, as he took one end of the rope and tied it to the middle of the pole, which proved to be of ample length to go well across the opening.“Tie it tightly, Scar,” cried Fred.“Never fear. Mind the rope is so that it will uncoil easily. There, run it down, and let’s see if it is long enough to get to the bottom.”Fred raised the rings of stiff twisted hemp, and dropped them down out of sight; but it was evident that the rope did not descend very far, the main portion lodging only a little way down; but Fred raised it a yard or two and shook it, with the effect that more fell down and lodged, but only to be shaken loose again and again, showing plainly enough that the hole went down in a sharp slope for a long way, and then that the rope had dropped over a perpendicular part, for as it was drawn up and down it fell heavily now.“There,” said Fred, “that’s it. I dare say that reaches the bottom. If it doesn’t, you must come up again. Ready?”“Yes.”And with all the recklessness of boys who never see the reality of danger until it is there, Scarlett stripped off his jerkin and lowered himself down into the crack, hanging with one arm over the pole for a few moments before seizing the rope, twisting his legs round it, and letting himself slide down.“Keep on calling out what it’s like; and as soon as you get down, sing ‘Bottom!’ and then I’ll come too.”Scarlett nodded, and let himself slide slowly, to find, and call up to his companion, that the hole went down at a slope into the darkness, so that he was not swinging by the rope, but supporting himself thereby, as he glided down over the shaley earth of which the hill was composed, but only to come to a sudden stop as he found that the hole zigzagged back in the opposite direction at a similar angle to that by which he had descended.“Are you right?” cried Fred from above.“Yes.”“Is it easy?”“Yes, quite.”“Then I shall come down now.”“No, no,” cried Scarlett; “the rope is not strong enough for two.”“Make haste, then. I want to see what there is. Found anything good?”“No,” said Scarlett, as he glided slowly down into the darkness, with his companion’s words buzzing in his ears, just as if they were spoken close by, and listening as he descended to the peculiar, trickling, rushing noise of the scraps of disintegrating slate which he dislodged in passing, and which fell rapidly before him.“Keep talking,” said Fred from above.“There’s nothing to talk about,” cried Scarlett. “I’m only sliding down a slope, and—yes, now I’m hanging clear, and turning round. Hold the rope: it’s twisting so.”“I am holding it tight,” came back; “but I can’t help its turning round. What’s it like now?”“Just like day beginning to break, and I can see something shining down below.”“Is it the water?”“Yes, I suppose so. Shall I go down any lower?”“Yes, of course.”“It isn’t water that’s shining,” said Scarlett, after turning slowly round two or three times, as he descended another twenty feet.“What is it, then?—gold or silver?”“It’s only a reflection, I suppose; but I can’t quite see.”“Aren’t you at the bottom yet?” cried Fred, impatiently.“No.”“Make haste, then.”“Yes, I am at the bottom,” cried Scarlett, directly after, as his feet touched firm rock.“Look out, then,” cried Fred. “Down I come.”“No, no; wait a moment,” was the reply. “I want to try and find out what it’s like.”Whirr, whizz!“What’s the matter?” cried Fred, as he heard his companion utter a loud, “Oh!”“Something rushed by me.”“What was it?”“I couldn’t see. Ah! there it is again.”“Hold tight; I’m coming,” cried Fred. “I dare say it was an owl or a bat. Oh my! doesn’t it scrape you?”Scarlett’s response was a sharp ejaculation and a jerk at the rope.“Here, what are you doing?” cried Fred.There was no answer, only a panting noise.“Don’t swing the rope about like that, Scar! Do you hear? I won’t come down, if you don’t leave off.”“Hah! that’s it,” came from below.“What’s the matter? What are you doing?” cried Fred, who had paused at the bottom of the first slope, holding tightly by the rope, which Scarlett seemed to be trying to jerk out of his hand.“It’s all right now,” panted Scarlett. “You sent down a lot of slate and earth, and it came on my head.”“Well, I couldn’t help it. Why didn’t you stand on one side?”“I did,” cried Scarlett, “and stepped back off the edge. Fortunately, I had tight hold of the rope, but slipped down ever so far, and had to climb up again. Come along down, now.”There was a serious sound and a spice of danger in this little recital, which, added to the darkness into which Fred had plunged, made him descend for the rest of the way slowly and very cautiously down the second slope, and then, as he hung perpendicularly, and felt himself slowly turning round, he kept on asking how much farther it was, till his feet touched his companion’s hands, and he stood directly by his side in the faint grey light, which seemed to strike up from below, both clutching the rope tightly in the excitement of the novel position, and trying to pierce the gloom.“Ugh! What’s that?” cried Fred, suddenly, as he kicked against something which made a rattling noise.“I don’t know. Sounds like pieces of wood.”“Ugh!” ejaculated Fred again, “bones! Come away, Scar; it’s a skeleton.”The two boys shrank away in horror, and for some moments neither ventured to speak, while, as they clung together, each could feel his fellow suffering from no little nervous tremor.“Some one must have slipped down the hole and died here of starvation,” whispered Scarlett at last. “You know how dangerous it is.”“Yes,” said Fred, thoughtfully, and with his shrinking feeling on the increase. “No,” he exclaimed directly after, “I don’t think it’s that. I know—at least, I should know if I touched it.”“What do you mean?”“It’s some sheep slipped down when feeding, and never been missed.”“Do you think it’s that?” said Scarlett, eagerly.“I feel sure of it. If it had been a man, he would have found some way of getting out. I say, Scar, will you stoop down and touch it?”“No,” said Scarlett, with a shudder.“Well, I will, then. Yes; I’m right. It is a sheep’s bones.”“How do you know?”“You can feel some wool down here. If it had been a man, it would have been clothes. Well, I am glad.”Scarlett showed his satisfaction by drawing a long breath full of relief, and the spirits of both seemed relieved by the knowledge that the grisly relics told no tale of a human being’s terrible fate.“I dare say there are more bones about, if we were to search,” said Fred. “But what a great gloomy place it is! Who’d have thought that there was such a cave on our shore?”“I can’t see any good, now we have got down in it,” said Scarlett, rather discontentedly. “I don’t suppose we shall find anything.”“Why, we have found something.”“Yes; bones. I wish we had a light.”“Where was it you stepped over?” said Fred, speaking in a whisper now, for the silence and darkness were not without their effect upon him.“There.”“Where’s there? I can’t see which way you mean.”“Exactly behind you,” said Scarlett.Fred made an involuntary movement in the opposite direction, one imitated by Scarlett, with the result that they edged along about a dozen feet before they were stopped by the wall of rock, which sloped away above their heads.“I wish it wasn’t dark,” said Fred. “Now let’s try how far we can get this way.”Still holding on tightly by the rope, they moved in a fresh direction, finding the rock upon which they stood made irregular by the heaps of slate and earth which had crumbled down from above; but over this they cautiously made their way for seven or eight yards, when they were again stopped by the sloping wall of rock.The next investigation suggested itself as being the edge over which Scarlett had stepped, and for the moment they shrank from that, and made their way cautiously back, keeping close to the wall.“Let’s see how far it goes in that direction,” whispered Scarlett. “I fancy that’s where the light comes from.”Fred acquiesced, and the little mounds of slate were crossed, and the way followed till they had nearly reached the limit of the line, when, low down before them, they made out a dark, rough-looking edge, black upon the very pale light which struck into the cave.“Why, that’s the edge of the rough shelf we are standing on,” said Scarlett. “Now, let’s get close to the line there, and look over.”“Shall we?”“Yes; why not? I don’t feel half so frightened now I’ve got over that fall.”“I never felt frightened at all,” said Fred.“Oh?”“Well, not much. Come along.”They approached cautiously, finding that the shelf grew narrower, and evidently ended in a point.“Mind!”“Mind what?”“I’ve got to the end of the rope.”“Well, let’s leave go, and creep to the edge without it.”“No,” said Fred, who felt that the rope was like a hand connecting them with the upper surface. “Perhaps it has caught somewhere, and we haven’t got it all loose. Wait till I give it a jerk. Here, leave go for a moment.”Scarlett loosened his hold, and Fred stepped back a foot or two before sending a wave along the cord, which was followed by a rattling noise, as if a quantity of the shale and earth had been set at liberty, and was falling in a shower upon the rocky floor.“There, I told you so,” cried Fred. “I can draw yards and yards in, and yards and—”He was suiting the action to the word, hauling more and more of the rope towards him, when there was an end to the rattling sound, and one dull flap.“What is it, Fred?”“I—I’m not sure.”“I am,” cried Scarlett, in agony. “Why, you’ve dragged at the rope till it has come untied.”“I’m afraid so,” faltered Fred, in a husky voice.“And nobody saw us come here,” cried Scarlett. “Oh, Fred, Fred, we shall be buried alive!”

Fred was right; the two elders did soon make it up, and the political ebullition seemed to be forgotten. The boys were soon together again, enjoying their simple country ways as of yore, while the clouds gathering around only looked golden in their sunshiny life.

The search for the outlet to the secret passage was renewed without success, and then given up for a time. There was so much to see and do that glorious autumn time when the apples were ripening fast, and hanging in great ropes from the heavily laden trees, beneath whose tangled boughs all was grey and green leaves and gloom, every orchard being an improvised wilderness, which was allowed to bear or be barren according to its will.

There was always so much to do. Trout to hunt up the little moorland streams; loaches to impale among the stones of the swift torrents; rides over the long undulating stretches of the moor, from far inland to where it ended abruptly in steep cliffs by the sea.

And so life glided on at Manor and Hall. The king and country were not mentioned; Colonel and Mistress Forrester supped at the Hall, and little Lil listened to the sweet old-fashioned ballads the visitor sang. Then the Scarletts spent pleasant evenings at the Manor, and the two fathers discussed the future of their sons, while Dame Markham and Mistress Forrester seemed to be like sisters.

But all the while the storm-clouds were gathering, and a distant muttering of thunder told that the tempest threatened to break over the pleasant west-country land.

“There’s going to be a big change o’ some kind, Master Scarlett,” said Nat, the gardener; “and if there is, it won’t be any too soon, for it will put my brother Samson in his proper place, and keep him there.”

“Yes, Master Fred, I went and had a mug o’ cider down in the village last night, poor winegar wee sort o’ stuff—three apples to a bucket o’ water—such as my brother Nat makes up at the Hall; and there they all were talking about it. People all taking sides all over England. Some’s Cavaliers and some’s Roundheads, so they say, and one party’s for the king, and the other isn’t. Precious awful, aren’t it?”

“Perhaps it’s only talk, Samson?”

“No, Master Fred, sir, I don’t think it’s all talk; but there is a deal o’ talk.”

“Ah, well, it’s nothing to do with us, Samson. Let them quarrel. We’re too busy out here to bother about their quarrels.”

“Well, I dunno, sir. I’m not a quarrelsome chap, but I heard things as my brother Nat has said quite bad enough to make me want to go again him, for we two never did agree; and when it comes to your own brother telling downright out-and-out lies about the Manor vegetables and fruit, I think it’s time to speak, don’t you?”

“Oh, I wish you and Nat would meet some day, and shake hands, or else fight it out and have done with it; brothers oughtn’t to quarrel.”

“I dunno, Master Fred, I dunno.”

“Ah, well, I think all quarrels are a bother, whether they’re big ones or whether they’re little ones. They say the king and Parliament have fallen out; well, if I had my way, I’d make the king and Parliament shake hands, just as Scar Markham and I will make you and Nat shake yours.”

“Nay, Master Fred, never!”

“I’m going to meet him this afternoon, and we’ll talk it over.”

Samson shook his head.

Home studies were over for the day, and by a natural attraction, Fred started by a short cut to the high point of the moor, just at the same time as Scar Markham left the Hall for the same spot.

“He’ll be in some mischief or another before he gets back,” said Samson Dee, as he ceased digging, and rested one foot upon the top of his spade, watching his young master contemplatively as he went along the road for a short distance before leaping up the bank, and beginning to tramp among heath, brake, and furze, over the springy turf.

Samson shook his head sadly, and sighed as he watched Fred’s progress, the figure growing smaller and smaller, sometimes disappearing altogether in a hollow, and then bounding into sight again like one of the moorland sheep.

“Yes; some mischief!” sighed Samson again, and he watched the lad with the sorrowful expression on the increase, till the object of his consideration was out of sight, when he once more sighed, and recommenced digging. “You don’t catch me, though, making it up.”

Oddly enough—perhaps it would be more correct to say naturally enough—Nat Dee ceased digging up in the Hall garden to watch Scarlett Markham, who, after sending his sister Lil back into the house in tears, because he refused to take her with him, started off at a rapid pace.

“Wonder what mischief he’s going to be at,” said Nat, half aloud; and he, too, rested a foot on the top of his spade, and contemplated the retiring form.

Perhaps, after all, digging is exceedingly hard work, and a break is very welcome; but whether it be so or no, the fact is always evident that a gardener is ready to cease lifting the fat mellow earth of a garden, and stand and think upon the slightest excuse.

Nat Dee waited till Scar had disappeared, and then he slowly and sorrowfully resumed his task, and sighed with a feeling of regret for the time when he too was a boy, and indulged in unlimited idleness and endless quarrels with his brother Samson.

Fred Forrester whistled as he slowly climbed the hill, which was shaped like a level surfaced mound, and stood right up above the ordinary undulations of the moor, and Scarlett Markham whistled as he slowly climbed the other side, while high overhead, to turn the duet into a trio, there was another whistler in the shape of a speckled lark, soaring round and round as if he were describing the figure of a gigantic corkscrew, whose point was intended to pierce the clouds.

There had been a shower earlier in the day, and the earth sent forth a sweet fragrance, which mingled with the soft salt breeze, and sent a thrill of pleasure through the frames of the two lads hastening to their trysting-place. They did not know that their feet crushed the wild thyme, or caused fresh odours to float upon the air, or whether the breeze came from north, south, or west; all that they knew was that they felt very happy, and that they were out on the moor, ready to enjoy themselves by doing something, they knew not what. They did not even know that they were each performing a part in a trio, the little lark being so common an object as to be unnoticed, while the top of the hill divided the two terrestrial whistlers from each other.

Fred was at the highest point first, and throwing himself down on the turf, he lay watching the coming figure toiling up, while the grasshopperschizzedand leaped from strand of grass to harebell, and thence to heather, and even on to the figure lying there.

The view was grand. Away to right were the undulations of the moor; to the left the high hills which seemed as if cut off short, and descended almost perpendicularly to the sea, and in front of them the sea itself, glistening in the sunshine beyond the cliff, which from the point where Fred lay looked like a lioncouchant, end on to him, and passing out to sea. Here and there some boat’s sail seemed like a speck upon the sea, while going in different directions—seaward and toward Bristol were a couple of what Fred mentally dubbed “king’s ships.” Away as far as eye could reach to right and left lay the softly blue Welsh coast; but Fred’s attention was divided between the lion’s head-like outline of the Rill, and the slowly advancing figure of Scarlett Markham, who finished his ascent by breaking into a trot, and zigzagging up the last steep piece to throw himself down beside his friend.

They lay for some few minutes enjoying themselves, their ideas of enjoyment consisting in lying face downward resting upon their crossed arms, which formed a pillow for their chins, and kicking the turf with their toes. Then, as if moved by the same spirit, they leaped to their feet with all a boy’s energy and vital force.

“Let’s do something,” exclaimed Scar. “Shall we go to the lake?”

“That’s just what I was going to say,” cried Fred; but they did not go far in an aimless way—they began to descend the hill slowly at first, then at a trot, then at headlong speed, till they stopped a part of the way up the next slope, after crossing the bottom of the little coombe between the hills.

This second hill looked wearisome after their rapid descent, so they contented themselves with walking along its side parallel with the bottom of the little valley, talking of indifferent matters till they came upon a little flock of grey and white gulls feeding amongst the short herbage, where the rain had brought out various soft-bodied creatures good in a gull’s eyes for food.

The beautiful white-breasted creatures rose on their long narrow wings, and flapped and floated away.

From force of habit, Fred took up a stone and threw it after the birds, not with any prospect of hitting them, for they were a couple of hundred yards away.

“Wish I could fly like that,” said Scarlett. “Look at them; they’re going right over the Rill Head.”

The two boys stopped and watched until the birds glided out of sight, beyond the lion-like headland, an object, however, which grew less lion-like the nearer they drew.

“What would be the good?” replied Fred. “It would soon be very stupid to go gliding here and there.”

“But see how easy it would be to float like that.”

“How do you know?” said practical Fred. “I dare say a bird’s wings ache sometimes as much as our legs do with running. I say, Scar.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go and have a look at the caves.”

“What caves?”

“Down below the Rill. Now, only think of it; we were born here, and never went and had a look at them. Samson says that one of them is quite big and runs in ever so far, with a place like a chimney at one end, so that you can get down from the land side.”

“And Nat said one day that it was all nonsense; that they were just like so many rabbit-holes—and that’s what he thought they were.”

“But our Samson said he had been in them; and if they were no bigger than rabbit-holes, he couldn’t have done that. Let’s go and see.”

“Bother! I had enough of poking about in that damp old passage, and all for nothing. I thought we were going to find the way in there.”

“Well, so we did.”

“But I mean the other end.”

“Bother, bother! what’s the good!”

“How do I know? It’s very curious. There’s something seems to draw you on when you are underground,” said Scarlett, dreamily.

“Hark at the old worm! Why, Scar, I believe you’d like to live underground.”

Scarlett shook his head.

“I mean to find that way in to our place some day, whether you help me or whether you do not. Never mind what your Samson said about the Rill caves. He don’t know. Let’s go and see.”

“What’s the good?”

“I don’t know that it will be any good, but let’s see. There may be all kinds of strange things in a cave. I’ve read about wonderful places that went into the earth for a long way.”

“Yes; but our Rill cave would not. My father told me one day about two caves he went into in Derbyshire. One had a little river running out of it, and he went in and walked by the side of the water for a long way till he came to a black arch, and there the gentlemen who were with him lit candles and they waded into the water and crept under the dark arch, and then went on and on for a long way through cave after cave, all wet and dripping from the top. Sometimes they were obliged to wade in the stream, and sometimes they walked along the edge.”

“And what did they find?”

“Mud,” said Fred, laconically.

“Nothing else?”

“No; only mud, sticky mud, no matter how far they went; and at last they got tired of it, and turned back to find that the water had risen, and was close up to the top of the arch under which they had crept, so that they had to wait half a day before it went down.”

“What made the water rise?” asked Scarlett; “the tide?”

“No; there were no tides there right in among the hills.”

“Then how was it?”

“There had been a storm, and the water had run down and filled the little river.”

As they chatted, the lads walked steadily on, and began to ascend the long, low eminence, which formed, as it were, the large body of the couchant lion, but which from where they were, seemed like the most ordinary of hills.

“There was another cave, too, that my father went into, but that was very different. It was high up in among the hills, and you went down quite a hole to get to it, and then it was just as if the inside of the hill had come full of cracks and splits along which he kept climbing and walking with the two sides just alike, just as if the stone had been broken in two.”

“Then this was stone, not mud,” said Scarlett, who was deeply interested.

“Yes, solid stone—rock; and every here and there you could see curious shapes, just as if water had been running down, and it had all been turned into stone.”

“I should like to go and see a place like that,” said Scarlett.

“Yes; I shouldn’t mind seeing a cave like that. Father says it went in for miles, and nobody had ever got to the end of it, for it branched off into narrow slits, and sometimes you were walking on shelves, and you could hold the candle over and look down horrible holes that were nobody knows how deep, and there you could hear the water gurgling at the bottom, and hissing and splashing, and— Oh!”

“Scar!” yelled Fred, making a dash at his companion just in time to catch him by the arm as he suddenly dropped down through a narrow opening in the midst of the short green turf over which they were walking.

So narrow was the opening, and so nearly hidden by grass and heath, that Scarlett had no difficulty in supporting himself by spreading out his arms, as soon as he had recovered from the first startling effect of his slip.

But he did not stop many minutes in this position. Fred hung on to his arm. He threw himself sidewise, grasped tightly hold of a stout branch of heath, and scrambled out.

“Who’d have thought of there being a hole like that?” said Scarlett, as soon as he was safe. “But I don’t suppose it’s very deep, after all. Got a stone?”

“No. Listen.”

Fred had thrown himself upon his breast, and craned his neck over the place, trying to peer down, but only into darkness, the hole evidently not going down straight; it being, in fact, a narrow crack, such as he had described in telling of the Derbyshire cavern.

Scarlett, who looked rather white from the shock he had received, joined his companion, and bent down to listen.

“Hear that?” said Fred in a whisper.

“Yes; water.”

“Water! Yes, of course; but listen again.”

They kept silence, and there ascended from below, through the almost hidden crevice, a low whisper of an echoing roar, which died away in a peculiar hissing sound that was thrilling in its strange suggestiveness.

“There must be a waterfall somewhere below there,” said Scarlett at last.

“Why, don’t you know what it is?”

“No.”

“The sea. Didn’t think it was the end of your passage, did you?”

“What there? Nonsense!”

“Yes, it’s the cave; and the sea runs right up here.”

“It couldn’t; it’s too far away.”

“I don’t care; that’s the sea. Now listen again, how regularly it comes. Every wave must be rushing in, and you can hear it go whishing out.”

Scarlett and his companion listened for a few minutes.

“Yes; it’s the sea, sure enough,” said Scarlett. “Why, Fred, I didn’t think we had such a place here.”

“No,” said Fred. “But, then, nobody ever comes up here. Why, it’s quite a discovery, Scar. Let’s get down to the shore, and go in.”

“Yes, I’m ready;” and together the two lads made their way to the edge of the slaty cliffs, and then a long way by the edge, before they could find a rift of a sufficient slope to warrant their attempting a descent.

Even this selected path looked far more easy than it proved; but by the exercise of a little care they got about half-way down, and then stopped; for it was plain enough to see, from the point of vantage they had gained, that even if they climbed to the narrow line of black slaty shingle between them and the perpendicular rock, they could not reach the face of the Rill Head, which projected, promontory-like, into the sea, and low down in which for certain the cave must be.

“What a bother!” exclaimed Fred. “I thought we were going to have a fine bit of adventure, and discover seals, and lobsters, and crabs, and all kinds of things. What shall we do?”

“Wait till low water.”

“But it’s nearly low water now. Can’t you see?”

The marks of the last tide were plainly visible high up on the rugged rock-face, the last tide having left every ledge covered with washed-up fucus and bladder-wrack, speckled with white shells and sandy patches.

“Then it must always be deep in water?” said Scarlett.

“Well, I tell you what, then, let’s borrow somebody’s boat and try and get right in that way.”

“I don’t know who somebody is,” said Scarlett, drily; “and if I did, I don’t suppose he has got a boat.”

“Don’t talk like that,” cried Fred. “I say, couldn’t we get a boat?”

“There isn’t one for miles. Old Porlett bought one—don’t you recollect?—and the sea knocked it all to pieces in the first storm.”

“Yes, I recollect,” said Fred, thoughtfully, “though it was twenty feet up on a broad shelf of rock. Shall we swim to the cave?”

Scarlett shook his head. “No,” he said. “It would be too risky.”

“What shall we do, then?”

“Give it up.”

“And I just won’t,” cried Fred, emphatically. “I say, Scar, look here.”

“Well?”

“If we can’t get in one way, let’s get in the other.”

Scarlett stared at him wonderingly, “Let’s go down the same way that you were going, only not in such a hurry,” he added with a gun.

“What, climb down the hole?” said Scarlett, thoughtfully, and ignoring the smile. “Yes. Why not?”

“Oh yes, we could, with a rope. Drive an iron bar down into the earth, and tie one end of the rope to it, and then go down.”

“You would not dare to go down that way.”

“Yes, I would,” said Fred, stoutly; “and so would you,” he added.

“I don’t know,” said Scarlett, dreamily. “But I do. Shall we do it? I’m ready if you are. Come along, then, back to our place, and let’s make old Samson lend as couple of good ropes.”

Scarlett nodded acquiescence, and the two lads, little thinking how their act would be importance in the future, re-climbed the cliff and started toward the Manor at a run.

It proved very easy to propose getting a rope, but much harder to get one, for everything in the shape of hempen cord was under the care of Samson Dee, who had to be found, not at all a difficult task, for he was digging—at least, handling a spade—down the garden.

Samson greeted the coming of the lads with a smile, for it was another excuse for taking a foot from the ground, and resting it upon the spade. But as soon as he heard the want, the smile faded from his face. “You want a what?” he said. “You know what I said, Samson, so no nonsense. Let us have one directly.”

“You want a rope, Master Fred?”

“There, I told you that you did hear me. Yes; I want the longest rope about the place directly.”

“What yer want it for?”

“Never you mind. I tell you I want the rope.”

“To make a swing with, of course. Well, then, you can’t have it.”

“Can’t I?” said Fred, sharply. “We’ll soon see about that. Come along, Scar. Any one would think the ropes were his.”

“Look here, Master Fred, if you—”

Samson ceased speaking, for he was wise enough to see that he was wasting words in shouting after the two lads. But he began muttering directly about a “passell o’ boys” coming and bothering him when he hadn’t a moment to spare.

“And look here,” he shouted, as he saw his visitors trotting off with a coil of strong new rope belonging to the waggon, “mind you bring that rope back again. Now, I wonder what them two are going to do?” he ended by muttering, and then set to work digging once more, but in so slow and methodical a fashion that the worms had plenty of time to get away from the sharp edge of the spade before it was driven home and cut them in half.

“Poor old Samson!” said Fred; “he seems to think that everything belongs to him.”

“So does our Nat,” replied Scarlett. “I often fancy he thinks I belong to him as well, from the way he shouts and orders me about.”

“But you never do what he tells you.”

“Of course not; and— Oh, Fred!”

“What’s the matter?”

“We’ve got the rope; but what are we going to fasten the end to when we go down?” Fred stopped short, and rubbed one ear.

“You hold it while I go down, and I’ll hold it while you go down.”

“I shouldn’t like to try that,” said Scarlett. “We’re not strong enough.”

“Nonsense! Not if we let the rope bite on the edge of the hole?”

“That would not do,” said Scarlett, decisively.

“I know, then,” cried Fred. “Come along.”

“No. Let’s go back and get an iron bar to drive down in the earth.”

“I’ve got a better way than that,” said Fred. “There’s a pole across the opening in that stone wall half-way up the hill. We’ll lay that across, and tie the rope to it.”

Scarlett nodded acquiescence, and they trotted on to the rough stone wall, built up of loose fragments piled one on the other, the gateway left for the passage of cattle being closed by a couple of poles laid across like bars, their ends being slipped in holes left for the purpose.

The straighter of these two was slipped out by Scarlett and shouldered, and they hastened on, attracted by the discovery they had made, but recalling, as they went on, that they had been told before about the existence of this opening by more than one person, though it had slipped from their memory for the time.

“Who’s going down first?” said Fred, as they slowly climbed the last hundred yards of the slope.

“I will.”

“No; I think I ought to go first.”

“Long bent, short bent,” said Scarlett, picking a couple of strands of grass, breaking them off so that one was nearly double the length of the other, and then, after placing two ends level and hiding the others, offering them to his companion to draw one out.

Fred drew the shorter, and Scarlett had the right to go down first—a right which but for the look of the thing he would willingly have surrendered. For as they reached the long, narrow, grass-grown crack, the strange whispering and plashing sounds which came from below suggested unknown dangers, which were more repellent than the attractions of the mysterious hole.

Fred looked curiously at Scarlett, who noted the look, and tightened himself up, assuming a carelessness he did not feel.

“Doesn’t go down quite straight, seemingly,” he said.

“All the better. I say, shall I go down first?”

“What for? I won the choice, and I’m going,” said Scarlett, sharply, as he took one end of the rope and tied it to the middle of the pole, which proved to be of ample length to go well across the opening.

“Tie it tightly, Scar,” cried Fred.

“Never fear. Mind the rope is so that it will uncoil easily. There, run it down, and let’s see if it is long enough to get to the bottom.”

Fred raised the rings of stiff twisted hemp, and dropped them down out of sight; but it was evident that the rope did not descend very far, the main portion lodging only a little way down; but Fred raised it a yard or two and shook it, with the effect that more fell down and lodged, but only to be shaken loose again and again, showing plainly enough that the hole went down in a sharp slope for a long way, and then that the rope had dropped over a perpendicular part, for as it was drawn up and down it fell heavily now.

“There,” said Fred, “that’s it. I dare say that reaches the bottom. If it doesn’t, you must come up again. Ready?”

“Yes.”

And with all the recklessness of boys who never see the reality of danger until it is there, Scarlett stripped off his jerkin and lowered himself down into the crack, hanging with one arm over the pole for a few moments before seizing the rope, twisting his legs round it, and letting himself slide down.

“Keep on calling out what it’s like; and as soon as you get down, sing ‘Bottom!’ and then I’ll come too.”

Scarlett nodded, and let himself slide slowly, to find, and call up to his companion, that the hole went down at a slope into the darkness, so that he was not swinging by the rope, but supporting himself thereby, as he glided down over the shaley earth of which the hill was composed, but only to come to a sudden stop as he found that the hole zigzagged back in the opposite direction at a similar angle to that by which he had descended.

“Are you right?” cried Fred from above.

“Yes.”

“Is it easy?”

“Yes, quite.”

“Then I shall come down now.”

“No, no,” cried Scarlett; “the rope is not strong enough for two.”

“Make haste, then. I want to see what there is. Found anything good?”

“No,” said Scarlett, as he glided slowly down into the darkness, with his companion’s words buzzing in his ears, just as if they were spoken close by, and listening as he descended to the peculiar, trickling, rushing noise of the scraps of disintegrating slate which he dislodged in passing, and which fell rapidly before him.

“Keep talking,” said Fred from above.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” cried Scarlett. “I’m only sliding down a slope, and—yes, now I’m hanging clear, and turning round. Hold the rope: it’s twisting so.”

“I am holding it tight,” came back; “but I can’t help its turning round. What’s it like now?”

“Just like day beginning to break, and I can see something shining down below.”

“Is it the water?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Shall I go down any lower?”

“Yes, of course.”

“It isn’t water that’s shining,” said Scarlett, after turning slowly round two or three times, as he descended another twenty feet.

“What is it, then?—gold or silver?”

“It’s only a reflection, I suppose; but I can’t quite see.”

“Aren’t you at the bottom yet?” cried Fred, impatiently.

“No.”

“Make haste, then.”

“Yes, I am at the bottom,” cried Scarlett, directly after, as his feet touched firm rock.

“Look out, then,” cried Fred. “Down I come.”

“No, no; wait a moment,” was the reply. “I want to try and find out what it’s like.”

Whirr, whizz!

“What’s the matter?” cried Fred, as he heard his companion utter a loud, “Oh!”

“Something rushed by me.”

“What was it?”

“I couldn’t see. Ah! there it is again.”

“Hold tight; I’m coming,” cried Fred. “I dare say it was an owl or a bat. Oh my! doesn’t it scrape you?”

Scarlett’s response was a sharp ejaculation and a jerk at the rope.

“Here, what are you doing?” cried Fred.

There was no answer, only a panting noise.

“Don’t swing the rope about like that, Scar! Do you hear? I won’t come down, if you don’t leave off.”

“Hah! that’s it,” came from below.

“What’s the matter? What are you doing?” cried Fred, who had paused at the bottom of the first slope, holding tightly by the rope, which Scarlett seemed to be trying to jerk out of his hand.

“It’s all right now,” panted Scarlett. “You sent down a lot of slate and earth, and it came on my head.”

“Well, I couldn’t help it. Why didn’t you stand on one side?”

“I did,” cried Scarlett, “and stepped back off the edge. Fortunately, I had tight hold of the rope, but slipped down ever so far, and had to climb up again. Come along down, now.”

There was a serious sound and a spice of danger in this little recital, which, added to the darkness into which Fred had plunged, made him descend for the rest of the way slowly and very cautiously down the second slope, and then, as he hung perpendicularly, and felt himself slowly turning round, he kept on asking how much farther it was, till his feet touched his companion’s hands, and he stood directly by his side in the faint grey light, which seemed to strike up from below, both clutching the rope tightly in the excitement of the novel position, and trying to pierce the gloom.

“Ugh! What’s that?” cried Fred, suddenly, as he kicked against something which made a rattling noise.

“I don’t know. Sounds like pieces of wood.”

“Ugh!” ejaculated Fred again, “bones! Come away, Scar; it’s a skeleton.”

The two boys shrank away in horror, and for some moments neither ventured to speak, while, as they clung together, each could feel his fellow suffering from no little nervous tremor.

“Some one must have slipped down the hole and died here of starvation,” whispered Scarlett at last. “You know how dangerous it is.”

“Yes,” said Fred, thoughtfully, and with his shrinking feeling on the increase. “No,” he exclaimed directly after, “I don’t think it’s that. I know—at least, I should know if I touched it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s some sheep slipped down when feeding, and never been missed.”

“Do you think it’s that?” said Scarlett, eagerly.

“I feel sure of it. If it had been a man, he would have found some way of getting out. I say, Scar, will you stoop down and touch it?”

“No,” said Scarlett, with a shudder.

“Well, I will, then. Yes; I’m right. It is a sheep’s bones.”

“How do you know?”

“You can feel some wool down here. If it had been a man, it would have been clothes. Well, I am glad.”

Scarlett showed his satisfaction by drawing a long breath full of relief, and the spirits of both seemed relieved by the knowledge that the grisly relics told no tale of a human being’s terrible fate.

“I dare say there are more bones about, if we were to search,” said Fred. “But what a great gloomy place it is! Who’d have thought that there was such a cave on our shore?”

“I can’t see any good, now we have got down in it,” said Scarlett, rather discontentedly. “I don’t suppose we shall find anything.”

“Why, we have found something.”

“Yes; bones. I wish we had a light.”

“Where was it you stepped over?” said Fred, speaking in a whisper now, for the silence and darkness were not without their effect upon him.

“There.”

“Where’s there? I can’t see which way you mean.”

“Exactly behind you,” said Scarlett.

Fred made an involuntary movement in the opposite direction, one imitated by Scarlett, with the result that they edged along about a dozen feet before they were stopped by the wall of rock, which sloped away above their heads.

“I wish it wasn’t dark,” said Fred. “Now let’s try how far we can get this way.”

Still holding on tightly by the rope, they moved in a fresh direction, finding the rock upon which they stood made irregular by the heaps of slate and earth which had crumbled down from above; but over this they cautiously made their way for seven or eight yards, when they were again stopped by the sloping wall of rock.

The next investigation suggested itself as being the edge over which Scarlett had stepped, and for the moment they shrank from that, and made their way cautiously back, keeping close to the wall.

“Let’s see how far it goes in that direction,” whispered Scarlett. “I fancy that’s where the light comes from.”

Fred acquiesced, and the little mounds of slate were crossed, and the way followed till they had nearly reached the limit of the line, when, low down before them, they made out a dark, rough-looking edge, black upon the very pale light which struck into the cave.

“Why, that’s the edge of the rough shelf we are standing on,” said Scarlett. “Now, let’s get close to the line there, and look over.”

“Shall we?”

“Yes; why not? I don’t feel half so frightened now I’ve got over that fall.”

“I never felt frightened at all,” said Fred.

“Oh?”

“Well, not much. Come along.”

They approached cautiously, finding that the shelf grew narrower, and evidently ended in a point.

“Mind!”

“Mind what?”

“I’ve got to the end of the rope.”

“Well, let’s leave go, and creep to the edge without it.”

“No,” said Fred, who felt that the rope was like a hand connecting them with the upper surface. “Perhaps it has caught somewhere, and we haven’t got it all loose. Wait till I give it a jerk. Here, leave go for a moment.”

Scarlett loosened his hold, and Fred stepped back a foot or two before sending a wave along the cord, which was followed by a rattling noise, as if a quantity of the shale and earth had been set at liberty, and was falling in a shower upon the rocky floor.

“There, I told you so,” cried Fred. “I can draw yards and yards in, and yards and—”

He was suiting the action to the word, hauling more and more of the rope towards him, when there was an end to the rattling sound, and one dull flap.

“What is it, Fred?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“I am,” cried Scarlett, in agony. “Why, you’ve dragged at the rope till it has come untied.”

“I’m afraid so,” faltered Fred, in a husky voice.

“And nobody saw us come here,” cried Scarlett. “Oh, Fred, Fred, we shall be buried alive!”

Chapter Six.Unexpected Aid.For a few minutes the two lads were so overcome by the horror of their position that they stood there in silence, afraid to move. Then Scarlett recovered himself a little, and said huskily—“Pull the rope again, and make sure.”“I’m sure enough,” said Fred, sulkily. “It’s all down here. How could you have tied it so badly?”“I don’t know. I thought it was tight. Ah! there it is again.”There was a whizzing, whirring sound heard above the plash and whisper of the water down below, and for a few moments the boys remained perfectly still.“Why, I know what that is,” cried Fred. “Pigeons. I’ve often seen them fly into the holes of the rocks. They build in these places, and roost here of a night.”“Wish I was a pigeon,” said Scarlett, sadly. “We shall never be able to climb up that hole.”“We shall have to try,” said Fred, “unless we can find a way down. Here, let’s creep to the edge and look.”Scarlett hesitated for the moment, but it was a work, of stern necessity; and together, using the greatest caution the while, they crept on hands and knees to the edge of the great shelf, and looked over to see that the light came in from some opening away to the right, to be reflected from the wall of rock opposite, and shed sufficiently strong a dawn to let them see fifty feet below them the creamy foaming water which flowed in and then ran back.“Don’t see any way down,” said Fred, rather despondently. “This place sticks right out over everything.”“But we can get down by fixing the rope up here, and sliding down.”“I’d forgotten the rope,” said Fred, with a deep sigh. “But suppose we do get down. What then?”“Why, we can find our way to the mouth of the cave, and look out and shout at the first boat that comes by.”Fred brightened up.“I say, Scar,” he said cheerfully, “what a clever fellow you are! Let’s try at once.”“Hadn’t we better try first whether we can climb up the hole?”The suggestion was so good that it was at once tried, but without effect; for a very few minutes’ search proved that there was a perpendicular face of rock to scale, and, unless they cut steps with their knives, ascent in that way was impossible.“It’s of no use, Scar,” said Fred, “unless we can get away by the mouth. I say, is it as dark as it was when we first came down?”“Our eyes are getting used to it,” said Scarlett, as they both stood gazing across the opening at the black-looking rock-face before them, and, gaining courage from familiarity, they once more approached the edge of the shelf, and felt their way about, seeking vainly for the means of descent.“I’m afraid it’s of no use, Fred. The only way is for one of us to let the other down with the rope, and the one who goes down to call for help.”“But why not both go down?”“Because there is nowhere to fasten the rope; and, after it slipped as it did just now, I should not like to venture.”“That was with your tying. You wait till I’ve found a place.”There did not seem much risk of a fall after Fred’s securing of the rope, for the simple reason that he was not likely to tie it. Everywhere, as they searched, they found smooth rock without a projection, or shivering shaley slate, which crumbled down at a touch, and, at last, Fred gave up with a sigh of despair.“It’s of no use,” he said. “One of us must go down and try the mouth of the cave. I don’t want to, but I will go if you’ll hold the rope.”“I feel so much afraid of not being strong enough, that I ought to go, and let you.”“Let’s have a look, and see if we can make out what it’s like first,” said Fred; and, creeping cautiously to the edge, he lay down, and peered over, Scarlett following his example, and looking into the gloom beneath from close by his side.“Looks very horrible,” said Fred; “but I suppose it’s because it’s so dark. I don’t believe it would be anything to mind, if it was so light we could see clearly.”“Perhaps not,” replied Scarlett, gloomily; “but then, it is dark; and how dreadful the water sounds as it rushes into the mouth of the cave!”“Oh, it always does; but there’s nothing to mind.”“But suppose one of us did get down and found the mouth?”“Well, we must find the mouth, because that’s where the light and water come in.”“But if we did, the water’s deep outside, and we should have to swim round to somewhere and land.”“Seems to me very stupid that we know so little about the shore under the rocks,” said Fred, as he tried to pierce the pale grey light below. “Seems a stupid sort of shore, all steep cliff, and nowhere hardly to get down. Well, what shall we do? Will you go down, or shall I?”“I’d rather trust to your holding the rope than mine.”“That’s just how I feel,” cried Fred. “But you went down first, and now it’s my turn, so here goes. Now then, let’s gather the rope into a coil, and throw one end down. Then you sit flat here on the ledge, with your legs stretched out, hold tight by the rope with both hands, and then let it hang between your legs and over the edge. It won’t be hard to hold.”“I’ll try,” said Scarlett, nervously; “but I hardly like doing it.”“And I don’t like going down, but it has got to be done, and the more fuss we make over it, the worse it will be. When you’ve got to take physic, down with it at once.”“Yes,” said Scarlett, drily, “that’s the best way, but the best way is often the hardest.”Fred had gathered the rope into rings, and was taking a final glance down at what seemed to be an uglier descent the more it was inspected, and but for very shame he would have given up. He set his teeth, though, and handed one end of the rope to his companion.“Catch hold—tight,” he said in a low voice. “If you let that go we’re done. Now then—one, two—”He did not say three, for at that moment a gruff, husky voice came rumbling and echoing down toward them with the cheery hail of—“Anybody at home?”“Now, I wonder what them boys are going to do,” said Samson, over and over again, and each time that he said so he sighed and rubbed his back, and ended by resting upon the handle of his spade.“No good, I’m sure,” he muttered. “Yes,” he added, after a thoughtful pause, “that’s it—going to let one another down over the cliffs so as to break their necks; and if they do, a nice mess I shall be in, for the colonel ’ll say it was all my fault for letting them have the rope.”Samson turned over a couple of spadefuls of earth, and then drove the tool in with a fierce stab, leaving it sticking up in the ground.“Here, I can’t go on digging and knowing all the time as them lads is breaking their necks over the cliff side. Never was in such a muddle as this before. Why didn’t they say what they were going to do?”“Here, this must be stopped—this must be stopped!” he cried, with a display of energy such as he had not before shown that day; and, snatching up his jacket, he started off in the direction taken by the lads, he having had no difficulty in seeing that their aim was the mass of slaty rock, rounded and covered with short green turf, known as the Rill Head, up which he climbed just in time to shout down the grassy crevice the words which sent joy into the boys’ hearts.“Hurrah! There’s help!” cried Scarlett, starting up.“Mind! you nearly knocked me over.”“I could not help it, Fred. Here, hi!”“Anybody at home? Where are you?”“Why, it’s old Samson,” cried Fred, groping his way to where he believed the bottom of the crack by which they had descended to be. “Hi! Samson!”“Hullo!” came back. “Where are you? What are you doing?”Fred hastily explained their plight.“Serve you both right,” cried Samson; and his voice, as it rumbled down the hole into the cavern, sounded, as Scarlett thought, like the voice of a giant. “Well, what are you going to do? Live there?”“No; you must help us out.”“Help you out?”“Yes. How did you know we were here?”“How did I know you were there, indeed!” growled Samson, with aggravating repetition of the other’s words. “Why, I knowed you’d be in some mischief as soon as I saw you both go by with that rope.”“But you didn’t see us come down here.”“No; but I see your clothes lying aside the hole. What did you want here? Somebody’s sheep tumbled down again?”“Hear that?” whispered Fred. “No, Samson; but don’t stand there talking. Did you bring a rope?”“How could I bring the rope, when you’d got it?”“Go and fetch another.”“There isn’t one that’ll bear you. Can’t you throw up the end of that one?”“Impossible! You must fetch another.”“And who’s to do my gardening while I’m hunting all over Coombeland for ropes as nobody won’t lend?”“Look here, Samson,” cried Scarlett. “Go up to the Hall, and ask Nat to lend you one of ours.”“Go up and ask my brother Nat to lend me a rope?”“Yes.”“I’d sooner go and jump off the cliff. There!”“Well, you must do something, and pray make haste.”“What am I to do?”“I know,” cried Fred. “Go and get your garden line.”“Why, that wouldn’t bear a cat, let alone a boy like you.”“You do as I tell you, and bring a big round stone, too, one that you can tie to one end of the line. Be quick.”“Oh, I’ll go,” said Samson; “but mind you, I warn you it won’t bear.”“You do as I tell you,” cried Fred, again; “and don’t tell my mother where we are.”“I may tell the colonel, I suppose?” said Samson, with a laugh to himself.“No, no, no!” cried Fred; but the words were not heard, for Samson had set off down the hill at a trot.“I say, what a pair of stupids we are,” said Fred, after trying two or three times over to find out whether Samson was still there.“Don’t talk,” replied Scarlett. “Let’s listen for his coming back.”“But he must be half an hour, at least; and we know we are all right now. I say, Scar, I’ve a good mind to go down lower, and see if there’s a way to the sea.”“No, you will not,” said Scarlett, rather gruffly. “Let’s sit down and think.”“It’s too dark to think,” cried Fred, petulantly. “I wonder how this place came. Think it was made by the hill cracking, or by the sea washing it out?”“I don’t know. But shall we come again, and bring a lanthorn?”“Yes, and regularly examine the place. We will some day. I wonder whether we’re the first people who ever came down into it? I mean,” said Fred, “the first people who were not sheep. Here, hi! Scar! what are you thinking about?”“I was thinking what a hiding-place it would make for anybody who did not want to be found.”“Do for smugglers. Wonder whether any smugglers ever knew of it?”“No; if they had there would have been some way down to the mouth.”“And perhaps there is, only it’s too dark for us to see where it is.”Then the conversation languished, and they sat on the rough shaley earth, trying to pierce the gloom, and listening with quite a start from time to time to the sharp whirr of the pigeons’ wings as they darted in and out.At last, just when they were beginning to think it a terribly long time, Samson’s voice was heard.“Here you are! I’ve brought my line.”“And a big stone?”“Yes, Master Fred; eight or nine pounder. But I warn you once more that line won’t bear you boys.”“You do as I tell you. Now tie the stone to the line.”There was a few moments’ pause, during which they seemed to see the red-faced gardener as he busied himself over his task, and then down came the words—“All right.”“Lower it down.”“What?—the stone?”“Yes. Quick.”Directly after, there was a rattling and falling of tiny bits of shale, which went on as Samson shouted—“She won’t come no farther.”“Draw the line and start it again.”Samson started the stone after hauling it up a bit, and this time it glided out of the angle in which it had rested, increased its speed, bringing down quite a shower of shale, and then there was a dull thud.“That’s it, Samson. I’ve got it.”“Good job, for there ain’t much more.”“There’s quite enough,” cried Fred, as he rapidly set the stone loose, and tied the line to the rope’s end. “Now, then, haul away.”“No, no, my lad; I tell you it won’t bear you. You’d only have a nasty tumble.”“Haul!”“And I shall be blamed.”“Will you haul? Oh, only wait till I come up!”Samson gave quite a snatch at the line, and drew it up rapidly, while the boys waited to hear what he would say when he found their meaning.“Why couldn’t you have said as you meanted that!” he grumbled. “I see now. Want me to make this here fast to the pole.”“Yes, of course; then we can climb up.”“To be sure you can. I see now.”“Make it quite fast, Samson.”“I will, sir. And try it, too,” he added under his breath, as he knotted the rope fast, seized and drew it tight, and then lowering himself into the crevice, he began to glide down rapidly, sending a tremendous shower of shale on to Fred’s head, and making him start away just as he had drawn the rope tight ready to ascend.“Why, what are you doing?” he shouted.“Coming down, sir,” panted Samson; and the next minute he was on the broad shelf in company with nearly enough disintegrated rock to bury the skeleton of the sheep.“Well, ’pon my word, young gentlemen,” cried the gardener, “you’ve got rum sort of ideas. Wouldn’t no other place please you for a game but this?”“We wanted to explore it,” exclaimed Fred; “to see if there’s a way down to the shore.”“Well, you can hear there is, lads. But why didn’t you bring a lanthorn?”“I wish we had.”“Wish again,” said Samson, with a chuckle.“What for?”“Because then you’ll get one,” said the gardener, laughing.“Why, Samson, what do you mean?” cried Scarlett.“This here!”There was a rattling sound, a clicking noise of flint upon steel, and soon after a glowing spark appeared, then a blue flame, a splint burst into a blaze, and directly after Samson’s red and shining features could be seen by the light of the candle he had lit inside a lanthorn.“There, lads,” he said, closing the door with a snap; “you didn’t think to tell me to bring that, but I thought of it, and there we are. Now we can see what we’re about,” he continued, as he swung the lanthorn above his head; “and not much to see nayther. Only an ’ole. Yes, of course. There you are. Sheep’s bones. Dessay many a one’s tumbled down here. Hole don’t go up very high,” he added, once more raising the lanthorn above his head; “but it goes down to the sea for sartain.”“Oh, Samson, and you’ve left the line up above. If we had it here, we might have swung the lanthorn down and seen how deep it was.”“That’s just like you, Master Fred,” said Samson. “You always think other folk will do what you’d do. You’d ha’ left the line up at the top, same as you did your clothes, but being only a gardener, and a very bad one, as my brother Nat says, I put that there line in my pocket, and here it is.”Fred’s answer was a slap on Samson’s hard broad back, as he tied one end of the line to the lanthorn-ring, swung it over the edge of the shelf, and they watched it go down sixty or seventy feet, feebly illumining the sides of the cave, and as it grew lower an additional radiance was displayed by the light striking on the bottom, which proved to be full of water kept slightly in motion by the influx of the waves outside.“Not much to see, my lads,” said Samson. “No gold, nor silver, nor nothing. Shouldn’t wonder if there’s pigeons’ nesties, though, only you couldn’t get at ’em without a ladder. There! seen enough?”“No; I want to see whether there is any way down,” said Fred.“Any way down?” said Samson, swinging the lanthorn to and fro. “No, my lad—yes, there is. Easily get down at that corner. Slide down or slip down. See!”“Yes,” said the lads in a breath; and long afterwards they recalled their eagerness to know about a means of descent from that shelf.“Yes,” said Samson; “you might make a short cut down to the sea this way if you wanted to. But you don’t want to, and it wouldn’t be any good if you did, because you’d be obliged to have a boat outside; and if the boat wasn’t well-minded, it would soon be banged to matchwood among the rocks. There, my bit o’ ground’s waiting to be dug, and I’ve got you two out of your hobble, so here goes back.”As he spoke, he rapidly hauled up the lanthorn, forming the line into rings, untying the end from the ring, and, after giving it a twist, thrusting it back into his pocket, while he undid the strap he wore about his waist, thrust an end through the lanthorn-ring, and buckled it on once more.“Will you go first, Samson?” said Fred.“No; I mean to go last. I don’t leave here till I see you both safe. What should I have said to your mothers if you’d been lost and not found for a hundred years? Nice state of affairs that would ha’ been.”“Go on first, Scar,” said Fred; “we’ll hold the rope tight, so that it will be easy.”Scarlett reached up, seized the rope, and began to climb, getting the thick cord well round his legs, as he struggled up for nearly twenty feet, and then he slipped down again.“Can’t we go down the other way, and climb the cliff?”“No, you can’t,” said Samson, gruffly. “You’ve got to go up as you come down. Here, Master Fred, show him the way.”Fred seized the rope, and began to climb, but with no better success; and he, too, glided down again after a severe struggle.“The rope’s so slippery,” he said angrily.“And you call yourselves young gentlemen!” grunted Samson. “Why, you’d ha’ been just as badly off if your rope hadn’t slipped. Here, give us hold.”Samson seized the rope, and they heard him grunt and pant and cease his struggle, and then begin to grunt and pant again for quite ten minutes, when, just as they rather maliciously hoped that he would prove as awkward as themselves, they heard the lanthorn bang against the rock, a shower of shale fell as it was kicked off, and Samson’s voice came down—“Line is a bit slithery,” he said; “but I’m all right now.”They could not see, but they in imagination felt that he had reached the first slope, up which he was climbing, and then felt when he passed up the second, showers of shale and earth following every moment, till, all at once, there was a cessation of noise, and of the shower, and Samson’s bluff voice exclaimed—“Up a top! Now, then, lay hold, and I’ll have you up to where you can climb.”“Go on, Scar.”“Go on, Fred.”The boys spoke together, and, after a little argument, Scarlett seized the rope, felt himself hoisted up, and, once up at the slope, he soon reached daylight, Fred following in the same way, to stand in the sunshine, gazing at his companions, who, like himself, were covered with perspiration and dust.“You look nice ones, you do,” said Samson, grinning; “and all that there trouble for nothing.”But Samson was a very ignorant man, who knew a great deal about gardening, but knew nothing whatever about the future, though in that instance his want of knowledge was shared by Fred and Scarlett, who, after resuming their jerkins, took, one the pole, the other the coil of neatly ringed rope, and trudged back to the Manor with Samson, who delivered quite a discourse upon waste of time; but he did not return to his digging, contenting himself with extracting his spade from the ground, wiping it carefully, and hanging it up in his tool-house, close to the lanthorn.“Going home, Master Scarlett?” said Samson.“Yes, directly.”“Won’t have a mug o’ cider, I suppose?”“No, thank ye, Samson.”“Because I thought Master Fred was going to fetch some out, and you could have a drop too.”“Hark at him, Scar! There never was such a fellow for cider.”“Oh yes, there was; but I’ve yearned it anyhow to-day.”“So you have, and I’ll fetch you a mug,” said Fred, darting off.“Ah, that’s better,” grunted Samson. “Never such a fellow for cider! Why, my brother’s a deal worse than I am, and you wouldn’t ketch him leaving his work to take all the trouble I did to-day, Master Scarlett. Hah! here he comes back. Thank ye, Master Fred, lad. Hah! what good cider. Puzzle your Nat to make such stuff as that.”“He says ours is better,” said Scarlett.“Let him, sir; but that don’t make it better.”“Bother the old cider! Who cares?” cried Fred. “Look here, Samson, don’t say a word to anybody about our having found that hole.”“No, sir; not I.”“Why did you tell him that!” said Scarlett, as they walked away.“I don’t know,” said Fred, starting.“Perhaps I thought we ought not to tell, in case we wanted to hide some day.”“Hide! What from whom from!”“I don’t know,” said Fred again, as he looked in a puzzled way at his companion; and then they parted. Fred felt that he should have liked to have told his friend why he wished the discovery to be kept a secret, but the puzzled feeling grew more intense, and when at last he dismissed it, he was obliged to own that he did not know himself any more than when he spoke.

For a few minutes the two lads were so overcome by the horror of their position that they stood there in silence, afraid to move. Then Scarlett recovered himself a little, and said huskily—

“Pull the rope again, and make sure.”

“I’m sure enough,” said Fred, sulkily. “It’s all down here. How could you have tied it so badly?”

“I don’t know. I thought it was tight. Ah! there it is again.”

There was a whizzing, whirring sound heard above the plash and whisper of the water down below, and for a few moments the boys remained perfectly still.

“Why, I know what that is,” cried Fred. “Pigeons. I’ve often seen them fly into the holes of the rocks. They build in these places, and roost here of a night.”

“Wish I was a pigeon,” said Scarlett, sadly. “We shall never be able to climb up that hole.”

“We shall have to try,” said Fred, “unless we can find a way down. Here, let’s creep to the edge and look.”

Scarlett hesitated for the moment, but it was a work, of stern necessity; and together, using the greatest caution the while, they crept on hands and knees to the edge of the great shelf, and looked over to see that the light came in from some opening away to the right, to be reflected from the wall of rock opposite, and shed sufficiently strong a dawn to let them see fifty feet below them the creamy foaming water which flowed in and then ran back.

“Don’t see any way down,” said Fred, rather despondently. “This place sticks right out over everything.”

“But we can get down by fixing the rope up here, and sliding down.”

“I’d forgotten the rope,” said Fred, with a deep sigh. “But suppose we do get down. What then?”

“Why, we can find our way to the mouth of the cave, and look out and shout at the first boat that comes by.”

Fred brightened up.

“I say, Scar,” he said cheerfully, “what a clever fellow you are! Let’s try at once.”

“Hadn’t we better try first whether we can climb up the hole?”

The suggestion was so good that it was at once tried, but without effect; for a very few minutes’ search proved that there was a perpendicular face of rock to scale, and, unless they cut steps with their knives, ascent in that way was impossible.

“It’s of no use, Scar,” said Fred, “unless we can get away by the mouth. I say, is it as dark as it was when we first came down?”

“Our eyes are getting used to it,” said Scarlett, as they both stood gazing across the opening at the black-looking rock-face before them, and, gaining courage from familiarity, they once more approached the edge of the shelf, and felt their way about, seeking vainly for the means of descent.

“I’m afraid it’s of no use, Fred. The only way is for one of us to let the other down with the rope, and the one who goes down to call for help.”

“But why not both go down?”

“Because there is nowhere to fasten the rope; and, after it slipped as it did just now, I should not like to venture.”

“That was with your tying. You wait till I’ve found a place.”

There did not seem much risk of a fall after Fred’s securing of the rope, for the simple reason that he was not likely to tie it. Everywhere, as they searched, they found smooth rock without a projection, or shivering shaley slate, which crumbled down at a touch, and, at last, Fred gave up with a sigh of despair.

“It’s of no use,” he said. “One of us must go down and try the mouth of the cave. I don’t want to, but I will go if you’ll hold the rope.”

“I feel so much afraid of not being strong enough, that I ought to go, and let you.”

“Let’s have a look, and see if we can make out what it’s like first,” said Fred; and, creeping cautiously to the edge, he lay down, and peered over, Scarlett following his example, and looking into the gloom beneath from close by his side.

“Looks very horrible,” said Fred; “but I suppose it’s because it’s so dark. I don’t believe it would be anything to mind, if it was so light we could see clearly.”

“Perhaps not,” replied Scarlett, gloomily; “but then, it is dark; and how dreadful the water sounds as it rushes into the mouth of the cave!”

“Oh, it always does; but there’s nothing to mind.”

“But suppose one of us did get down and found the mouth?”

“Well, we must find the mouth, because that’s where the light and water come in.”

“But if we did, the water’s deep outside, and we should have to swim round to somewhere and land.”

“Seems to me very stupid that we know so little about the shore under the rocks,” said Fred, as he tried to pierce the pale grey light below. “Seems a stupid sort of shore, all steep cliff, and nowhere hardly to get down. Well, what shall we do? Will you go down, or shall I?”

“I’d rather trust to your holding the rope than mine.”

“That’s just how I feel,” cried Fred. “But you went down first, and now it’s my turn, so here goes. Now then, let’s gather the rope into a coil, and throw one end down. Then you sit flat here on the ledge, with your legs stretched out, hold tight by the rope with both hands, and then let it hang between your legs and over the edge. It won’t be hard to hold.”

“I’ll try,” said Scarlett, nervously; “but I hardly like doing it.”

“And I don’t like going down, but it has got to be done, and the more fuss we make over it, the worse it will be. When you’ve got to take physic, down with it at once.”

“Yes,” said Scarlett, drily, “that’s the best way, but the best way is often the hardest.”

Fred had gathered the rope into rings, and was taking a final glance down at what seemed to be an uglier descent the more it was inspected, and but for very shame he would have given up. He set his teeth, though, and handed one end of the rope to his companion.

“Catch hold—tight,” he said in a low voice. “If you let that go we’re done. Now then—one, two—”

He did not say three, for at that moment a gruff, husky voice came rumbling and echoing down toward them with the cheery hail of—

“Anybody at home?”

“Now, I wonder what them boys are going to do,” said Samson, over and over again, and each time that he said so he sighed and rubbed his back, and ended by resting upon the handle of his spade.

“No good, I’m sure,” he muttered. “Yes,” he added, after a thoughtful pause, “that’s it—going to let one another down over the cliffs so as to break their necks; and if they do, a nice mess I shall be in, for the colonel ’ll say it was all my fault for letting them have the rope.”

Samson turned over a couple of spadefuls of earth, and then drove the tool in with a fierce stab, leaving it sticking up in the ground.

“Here, I can’t go on digging and knowing all the time as them lads is breaking their necks over the cliff side. Never was in such a muddle as this before. Why didn’t they say what they were going to do?”

“Here, this must be stopped—this must be stopped!” he cried, with a display of energy such as he had not before shown that day; and, snatching up his jacket, he started off in the direction taken by the lads, he having had no difficulty in seeing that their aim was the mass of slaty rock, rounded and covered with short green turf, known as the Rill Head, up which he climbed just in time to shout down the grassy crevice the words which sent joy into the boys’ hearts.

“Hurrah! There’s help!” cried Scarlett, starting up.

“Mind! you nearly knocked me over.”

“I could not help it, Fred. Here, hi!”

“Anybody at home? Where are you?”

“Why, it’s old Samson,” cried Fred, groping his way to where he believed the bottom of the crack by which they had descended to be. “Hi! Samson!”

“Hullo!” came back. “Where are you? What are you doing?”

Fred hastily explained their plight.

“Serve you both right,” cried Samson; and his voice, as it rumbled down the hole into the cavern, sounded, as Scarlett thought, like the voice of a giant. “Well, what are you going to do? Live there?”

“No; you must help us out.”

“Help you out?”

“Yes. How did you know we were here?”

“How did I know you were there, indeed!” growled Samson, with aggravating repetition of the other’s words. “Why, I knowed you’d be in some mischief as soon as I saw you both go by with that rope.”

“But you didn’t see us come down here.”

“No; but I see your clothes lying aside the hole. What did you want here? Somebody’s sheep tumbled down again?”

“Hear that?” whispered Fred. “No, Samson; but don’t stand there talking. Did you bring a rope?”

“How could I bring the rope, when you’d got it?”

“Go and fetch another.”

“There isn’t one that’ll bear you. Can’t you throw up the end of that one?”

“Impossible! You must fetch another.”

“And who’s to do my gardening while I’m hunting all over Coombeland for ropes as nobody won’t lend?”

“Look here, Samson,” cried Scarlett. “Go up to the Hall, and ask Nat to lend you one of ours.”

“Go up and ask my brother Nat to lend me a rope?”

“Yes.”

“I’d sooner go and jump off the cliff. There!”

“Well, you must do something, and pray make haste.”

“What am I to do?”

“I know,” cried Fred. “Go and get your garden line.”

“Why, that wouldn’t bear a cat, let alone a boy like you.”

“You do as I tell you, and bring a big round stone, too, one that you can tie to one end of the line. Be quick.”

“Oh, I’ll go,” said Samson; “but mind you, I warn you it won’t bear.”

“You do as I tell you,” cried Fred, again; “and don’t tell my mother where we are.”

“I may tell the colonel, I suppose?” said Samson, with a laugh to himself.

“No, no, no!” cried Fred; but the words were not heard, for Samson had set off down the hill at a trot.

“I say, what a pair of stupids we are,” said Fred, after trying two or three times over to find out whether Samson was still there.

“Don’t talk,” replied Scarlett. “Let’s listen for his coming back.”

“But he must be half an hour, at least; and we know we are all right now. I say, Scar, I’ve a good mind to go down lower, and see if there’s a way to the sea.”

“No, you will not,” said Scarlett, rather gruffly. “Let’s sit down and think.”

“It’s too dark to think,” cried Fred, petulantly. “I wonder how this place came. Think it was made by the hill cracking, or by the sea washing it out?”

“I don’t know. But shall we come again, and bring a lanthorn?”

“Yes, and regularly examine the place. We will some day. I wonder whether we’re the first people who ever came down into it? I mean,” said Fred, “the first people who were not sheep. Here, hi! Scar! what are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking what a hiding-place it would make for anybody who did not want to be found.”

“Do for smugglers. Wonder whether any smugglers ever knew of it?”

“No; if they had there would have been some way down to the mouth.”

“And perhaps there is, only it’s too dark for us to see where it is.”

Then the conversation languished, and they sat on the rough shaley earth, trying to pierce the gloom, and listening with quite a start from time to time to the sharp whirr of the pigeons’ wings as they darted in and out.

At last, just when they were beginning to think it a terribly long time, Samson’s voice was heard.

“Here you are! I’ve brought my line.”

“And a big stone?”

“Yes, Master Fred; eight or nine pounder. But I warn you once more that line won’t bear you boys.”

“You do as I tell you. Now tie the stone to the line.”

There was a few moments’ pause, during which they seemed to see the red-faced gardener as he busied himself over his task, and then down came the words—

“All right.”

“Lower it down.”

“What?—the stone?”

“Yes. Quick.”

Directly after, there was a rattling and falling of tiny bits of shale, which went on as Samson shouted—

“She won’t come no farther.”

“Draw the line and start it again.”

Samson started the stone after hauling it up a bit, and this time it glided out of the angle in which it had rested, increased its speed, bringing down quite a shower of shale, and then there was a dull thud.

“That’s it, Samson. I’ve got it.”

“Good job, for there ain’t much more.”

“There’s quite enough,” cried Fred, as he rapidly set the stone loose, and tied the line to the rope’s end. “Now, then, haul away.”

“No, no, my lad; I tell you it won’t bear you. You’d only have a nasty tumble.”

“Haul!”

“And I shall be blamed.”

“Will you haul? Oh, only wait till I come up!”

Samson gave quite a snatch at the line, and drew it up rapidly, while the boys waited to hear what he would say when he found their meaning.

“Why couldn’t you have said as you meanted that!” he grumbled. “I see now. Want me to make this here fast to the pole.”

“Yes, of course; then we can climb up.”

“To be sure you can. I see now.”

“Make it quite fast, Samson.”

“I will, sir. And try it, too,” he added under his breath, as he knotted the rope fast, seized and drew it tight, and then lowering himself into the crevice, he began to glide down rapidly, sending a tremendous shower of shale on to Fred’s head, and making him start away just as he had drawn the rope tight ready to ascend.

“Why, what are you doing?” he shouted.

“Coming down, sir,” panted Samson; and the next minute he was on the broad shelf in company with nearly enough disintegrated rock to bury the skeleton of the sheep.

“Well, ’pon my word, young gentlemen,” cried the gardener, “you’ve got rum sort of ideas. Wouldn’t no other place please you for a game but this?”

“We wanted to explore it,” exclaimed Fred; “to see if there’s a way down to the shore.”

“Well, you can hear there is, lads. But why didn’t you bring a lanthorn?”

“I wish we had.”

“Wish again,” said Samson, with a chuckle.

“What for?”

“Because then you’ll get one,” said the gardener, laughing.

“Why, Samson, what do you mean?” cried Scarlett.

“This here!”

There was a rattling sound, a clicking noise of flint upon steel, and soon after a glowing spark appeared, then a blue flame, a splint burst into a blaze, and directly after Samson’s red and shining features could be seen by the light of the candle he had lit inside a lanthorn.

“There, lads,” he said, closing the door with a snap; “you didn’t think to tell me to bring that, but I thought of it, and there we are. Now we can see what we’re about,” he continued, as he swung the lanthorn above his head; “and not much to see nayther. Only an ’ole. Yes, of course. There you are. Sheep’s bones. Dessay many a one’s tumbled down here. Hole don’t go up very high,” he added, once more raising the lanthorn above his head; “but it goes down to the sea for sartain.”

“Oh, Samson, and you’ve left the line up above. If we had it here, we might have swung the lanthorn down and seen how deep it was.”

“That’s just like you, Master Fred,” said Samson. “You always think other folk will do what you’d do. You’d ha’ left the line up at the top, same as you did your clothes, but being only a gardener, and a very bad one, as my brother Nat says, I put that there line in my pocket, and here it is.”

Fred’s answer was a slap on Samson’s hard broad back, as he tied one end of the line to the lanthorn-ring, swung it over the edge of the shelf, and they watched it go down sixty or seventy feet, feebly illumining the sides of the cave, and as it grew lower an additional radiance was displayed by the light striking on the bottom, which proved to be full of water kept slightly in motion by the influx of the waves outside.

“Not much to see, my lads,” said Samson. “No gold, nor silver, nor nothing. Shouldn’t wonder if there’s pigeons’ nesties, though, only you couldn’t get at ’em without a ladder. There! seen enough?”

“No; I want to see whether there is any way down,” said Fred.

“Any way down?” said Samson, swinging the lanthorn to and fro. “No, my lad—yes, there is. Easily get down at that corner. Slide down or slip down. See!”

“Yes,” said the lads in a breath; and long afterwards they recalled their eagerness to know about a means of descent from that shelf.

“Yes,” said Samson; “you might make a short cut down to the sea this way if you wanted to. But you don’t want to, and it wouldn’t be any good if you did, because you’d be obliged to have a boat outside; and if the boat wasn’t well-minded, it would soon be banged to matchwood among the rocks. There, my bit o’ ground’s waiting to be dug, and I’ve got you two out of your hobble, so here goes back.”

As he spoke, he rapidly hauled up the lanthorn, forming the line into rings, untying the end from the ring, and, after giving it a twist, thrusting it back into his pocket, while he undid the strap he wore about his waist, thrust an end through the lanthorn-ring, and buckled it on once more.

“Will you go first, Samson?” said Fred.

“No; I mean to go last. I don’t leave here till I see you both safe. What should I have said to your mothers if you’d been lost and not found for a hundred years? Nice state of affairs that would ha’ been.”

“Go on first, Scar,” said Fred; “we’ll hold the rope tight, so that it will be easy.”

Scarlett reached up, seized the rope, and began to climb, getting the thick cord well round his legs, as he struggled up for nearly twenty feet, and then he slipped down again.

“Can’t we go down the other way, and climb the cliff?”

“No, you can’t,” said Samson, gruffly. “You’ve got to go up as you come down. Here, Master Fred, show him the way.”

Fred seized the rope, and began to climb, but with no better success; and he, too, glided down again after a severe struggle.

“The rope’s so slippery,” he said angrily.

“And you call yourselves young gentlemen!” grunted Samson. “Why, you’d ha’ been just as badly off if your rope hadn’t slipped. Here, give us hold.”

Samson seized the rope, and they heard him grunt and pant and cease his struggle, and then begin to grunt and pant again for quite ten minutes, when, just as they rather maliciously hoped that he would prove as awkward as themselves, they heard the lanthorn bang against the rock, a shower of shale fell as it was kicked off, and Samson’s voice came down—

“Line is a bit slithery,” he said; “but I’m all right now.”

They could not see, but they in imagination felt that he had reached the first slope, up which he was climbing, and then felt when he passed up the second, showers of shale and earth following every moment, till, all at once, there was a cessation of noise, and of the shower, and Samson’s bluff voice exclaimed—

“Up a top! Now, then, lay hold, and I’ll have you up to where you can climb.”

“Go on, Scar.”

“Go on, Fred.”

The boys spoke together, and, after a little argument, Scarlett seized the rope, felt himself hoisted up, and, once up at the slope, he soon reached daylight, Fred following in the same way, to stand in the sunshine, gazing at his companions, who, like himself, were covered with perspiration and dust.

“You look nice ones, you do,” said Samson, grinning; “and all that there trouble for nothing.”

But Samson was a very ignorant man, who knew a great deal about gardening, but knew nothing whatever about the future, though in that instance his want of knowledge was shared by Fred and Scarlett, who, after resuming their jerkins, took, one the pole, the other the coil of neatly ringed rope, and trudged back to the Manor with Samson, who delivered quite a discourse upon waste of time; but he did not return to his digging, contenting himself with extracting his spade from the ground, wiping it carefully, and hanging it up in his tool-house, close to the lanthorn.

“Going home, Master Scarlett?” said Samson.

“Yes, directly.”

“Won’t have a mug o’ cider, I suppose?”

“No, thank ye, Samson.”

“Because I thought Master Fred was going to fetch some out, and you could have a drop too.”

“Hark at him, Scar! There never was such a fellow for cider.”

“Oh yes, there was; but I’ve yearned it anyhow to-day.”

“So you have, and I’ll fetch you a mug,” said Fred, darting off.

“Ah, that’s better,” grunted Samson. “Never such a fellow for cider! Why, my brother’s a deal worse than I am, and you wouldn’t ketch him leaving his work to take all the trouble I did to-day, Master Scarlett. Hah! here he comes back. Thank ye, Master Fred, lad. Hah! what good cider. Puzzle your Nat to make such stuff as that.”

“He says ours is better,” said Scarlett.

“Let him, sir; but that don’t make it better.”

“Bother the old cider! Who cares?” cried Fred. “Look here, Samson, don’t say a word to anybody about our having found that hole.”

“No, sir; not I.”

“Why did you tell him that!” said Scarlett, as they walked away.

“I don’t know,” said Fred, starting.

“Perhaps I thought we ought not to tell, in case we wanted to hide some day.”

“Hide! What from whom from!”

“I don’t know,” said Fred again, as he looked in a puzzled way at his companion; and then they parted. Fred felt that he should have liked to have told his friend why he wished the discovery to be kept a secret, but the puzzled feeling grew more intense, and when at last he dismissed it, he was obliged to own that he did not know himself any more than when he spoke.

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