IIOf course, this was merely the beginning of the great anti-Cherry Ripe feeling, and next term we were planning a deadly revenge with regard to Cherry Ripe's Kentish cobnuts, which were remarkably fine, when a great assistant came to our aid in the shape of Trelawny. This was that Trelawny who had such a terrible end in the matter of the protest of the wing dormitory. But many things happened first. He was fourteen, and a fighter from the beginning. All his relations were also fighters, and poetry had been made about one, who was condemned to death for magnificent fighting in historic times. This Trelawny, by the most curious accident, proved to know an immense deal about Cherry Ripe. And it came out that Trelawny's father, who was a retired soldier and only a colonel, though Trelawny said that if justice had been done he would be a general at least, actually owned miles of land about Merivale, including Cherry Ripe's nursery garden and the field."The beggar merely rents it from my father for so many pounds a year," said Trelawny. "Why, if I said a word to my father, I could have the man turned out altogether, and his daughters and everybody. I'll jolly soon teach him!"This was a pretty good score for us, and we soon arranged to show Cherry Ripe that things were changed. Trelawny took to strolling about in Cherry Ripe's field as if it belonged to him; and, of course, as I pointed out to Trelawny, when his father died, though I hoped it would not be for ten years at least—still he had to—and when he did, the field and the orchard and everything would actually be Trelawny's own, to do what he liked with. He said it was so; and he said that he should jolly soon clear Cherry Ripe out, and build almshouses for old soldiers broken in the wars, when he came to have the ground. He wouldn't take nuts or anything. He said that was paltry; but he had a fixed idea that he ought to be perfectly free of the place, and he went on strolling about in it till at last Cherry Ripe surprised him down at the pond in the field. I was there, too, but Cherry Ripe didn't recognize me, which, no doubt, was lucky.He seemed to have something on his mind, for he didn't get into a bate, but merely said—"Now, you boys, you slope off to your playground—can't have you messing about here.""Perhaps you don't know who you're talking to, Mr. Jenkins," said Trelawny in a frightfully grand tone of voice.Then Cherry Ripe jumped."Lord, the sauce of your nippers now-a-days! Why can't your old gentleman over there teach you manners as well as figures and all the rest of it?"Clearly he meant no less a person than Dr. Dunstan."My name is Trelawny," began Trelawny."A very fine name too," said Cherry Ripe. "Take care you never bring no discredit on it, there's a good boy.""My father is your landlord," said Trelawny. "And I'll thank you not to call me 'boy'!"Cherry Ripe was by no means so much struck by this as you might have expected."You're the Colonel's young shaver—eh? Well, I hope you'll turn out as sensible a man—though I do wish me and him saw alike on the subject of a new tomato house. However, everybody's a right to his own opinion."Trelawny was fuming, like a train wanting to start."You don't seem to understand," he said, "that this very field we're in at this moment will be mine before long!""The Colonel's not ailing, I hope?" said Cherry Ripe very civilly.I could now see that Mr. Jenkins was laughing at Trelawny, but, luckily, Trelawny did not see this, or he might have taken some very desperate step."And I want to say further," went on Trelawny, not answering about his father, "that as this land will be mine sooner or later, I have a perfect right to walk on it when and where I choose.""Agreed," said Cherry Ripe; "and as I'm renting the land, and don't like rude little boys poking about where they've no business, I've got a perfect right to pull their ears for 'em when I catches 'em. So that's settled. Now we know where we are. Be off with you both, or I'll begin this minute!"Trelawny was as furious as a grown man. He turned a sort of colour like stewed fruit; but, of course, we had to go. There was nothing else we could do—for the moment."I shall write to my father about this, and you'll soon find out you can't insult your own landlord's son with impunity," Trelawny shouted, as we got through the hedge back into our wood."Can't do better. And tell him what I said," answered Cherry Ripe.Then he seemed to forget us, and stood quite still looking into the pond. Evidently he had other things on his mind besides Trelawny; but Trelawny didn't think so, and believed that Jenkins was standing like that in a frightful funk to think of the dangerous thing he'd done."However, it's too late now; I shall write to my father next Sunday," said Trelawny; and he did, and he got a letter back.We were rather keen to hear what his father was going to do about it, and expected he would read it out to us. But he tore the letter up small, and chucked it away, and merely said he was surprised to find his father didn't agree with him."But I'll make it clear that the man ought to be sacked when I go home," said Trelawny.Funnily enough, though he'd torn this letter up so small and flung it scornfully away, we found out afterwards what was in it; because Peters, who hoped to be a detective of crime when he grew up, always collected anything with writing on it to decipher mysteries; and it was him who found out what Johnson's pet name at home was, and how many sisters West had, and other things not generally known. He said if a letter was once torn up and flung away, that it was public property for a detective; and so when Trelawny had gone, Peters collected the bits of his letter, and pieced it together after taking frightful trouble. It was a detective-like thing but not a sportsmanlike thing to do, and Trelawny, when he came to hear of it, challenged Peters. In fact, they fought, and Peters was badly licked. Still, the letter certainly was rather curious, considering it came from Trelawny's own father.It read like this—"DEAR TEDDY,"I've got your letter, and I've dropped a line to Jenkins, directing him to give you and any of your friends a real good hiding every time he catches you on his ground."Your affectionate father,"TRELOAR TRELAWNY."Of course, the thing couldn't be allowed to stop there. We were all on Trelawny's side, though his father wasn't. In fact, Pedlar and Methuen and me were rather vexed with Trelawny's father; and we told Trelawny so; and he said he was too. He said—"We'll be revenged next term, as it is too late this. We must all think of a heavy score against Jenkins"—he never called Cherry Ripe anything but Jenkins for some reason—"and the best idea is the one we'll carry out."And everybody interested in the matter quite agreed; but Steggles did not come into it, because Trelawny utterly barred Steggles from the first.IIINext term the great idea of how to crush Cherry Ripe came to me out of the Bible. I let everybody speak first, and then, as nobody had said anything like as good, I said—"We will do what the enemy did in the New Testament, and sow tares in his ground."Everybody thought the idea fine but jolly difficult, and Chilvers asked—"What are tares?"I said I wasn't exactly sure, and Methuen said it was a sort of grass, and Trelawny said it was a parable. Anyhow, we didn't know where to buy them. Finally we decided not to ask for tares, but some sort of seed that would grow quickly, and get a deep hold of the ground, and ruin anything else for yards round. Unfortunately we didn't know much about wild things in general, and we asked Tomkins, who is our champion botanist, and he said "Willow herb." But there were no seeds about at that time of the year, it being February, and so Trelawny said—"We will confide in Batson, who is well known to be the son of a greengrocer and seedsman."But it happened that Batson, who was the gardener's boy at Dunstan's, was leaving to better himself. However, there was just time before he went, and we let him into our secret score against Cherry Ripe, and gave him two shillings with which to buy some seed of some vigorous growing thing to sow in Cherry Ripe's nursery garden and choke his vegetables when they came up. Batson said that he would do his best. He said it might have to be grass seed or clover, but he promised it should be a good choking thing.Certainly it looked hopeful, because he soon brought a bag of seeds and said they were a kind of clover that, if once sown, could not be got out of the ground again without ploughing. Then came the question of the time, and we decided that next Saturday was the day. There happened to be a big game at football, but not a little one, so we were all free excepting Methuen, who kept goal for the first.All went well, and when the match began to get exciting owing to hands being given against Bray in our 'twenty-five,' Trelawny and Pedlar and Chilvers and I went into the wood unseen and got to the Cherry Ripe side of it. Chaps had been in his field a good deal lately, hunting for a very beautiful red fungus that was to be found in the hedges, on dead sticks, and Cherry Ripe had been a good deal worried by them.Then came the first surprise of that day. There was a huge board stuck up in the field facing our wood with these remarkable words on it—+-----------------------+| || DANGER! || BEWARE OF THE BULL! || |+-----------------------+Our first step was to get back into the hedge. The field seemed to be quite empty, but there are many hollows in it, and a bull might easily have been sitting down quite near us. Or it might have been hidden in the cluster of trees in the middle. One thing was clear. It was not at the pond.Trelawny said—"This man is worth fighting. I'm glad he's got a bull, because it makes more strategy necessary for us."And Pedlar said—"And I'm glad too."But I was not glad, and so I didn't say so; and as for Chilvers, he went further and openly said that he thought a bull altered everything.It was about a hundred and fifty yards across the field from the wood to Cherry Ripe's wall, and it is well known that a bull can run three times as fast as a man and five times as fast as a boy.I reminded Trelawny of this, and he said—"I know all that; it is a question of strategy."And I said—"Yes, but strategy won't alter facts."He thought a bit and said—"You chaps stop here and I'll reconnoitre."But Pedlar, who was nearly six months older than Trelawny, said he ought to reconnoitre too. Finally they both went to reconnoitre in different directions and came back in five minutes. Neither had seen the bull."There's no bull!" said Trelawny. "It's a subterfuge. Come on.""Wait," said Chilvers. "I have a feeling it's not a subterfuge. Something tells me there is a bull."Trelawny said it was cowardice, and Chilvers said it was a presentiment. Anyway, no time could be lost, and Chilvers was firm, so we left him. He was half inclined to come, but said that an uncle of his had once been gored by a buffalo, or some such thing, in America, and somehow he felt that this particular adventure would not suit him, though he would have feared nothing else. Of course Trelawny explained that this was no excuse, even if true. But though white and very worried, Chilvers was firm. He refused to follow, so we went alone.We made a detour of the trees in the middle of the field and crept forward in Indian file. Fifty yards from the wall Pedlar whispered that he saw something red in a hollow, which might easily be a bull's back; so Trelawny said "Sprint!" and we threw off caution to the winds and sprinted. So we got to the wall in safety, and, as if to reward us for the effort, what should we see on the other side but a beautiful bit of ground all prepared for seeds! It was smoothed and arranged, and little narrow trenches had been drawn in it about an inch deep—evidently for seeds. It was frightful luck and playing into the hands of the enemy as Trelawny said. He instantly gave the word and we dropped. There was not a soul in sight—only a spade and two rakes, where the man who had been working had left them."A commander always seizes any chance the enemy offer," said Trelawny. "Pour the seed pretty thick along the drills and everywhere else, then take the rakes and rake it all over until everything is quite smooth!"So all Cherry Ripe's arrangements for planting seed were used by us to sow a particularly deadly sort of clover. We worked jolly hard, and in about five minutes the thing was done by me and Pedlar while Trelawny mounted guard.Then the exciting work began and Trelawny shouted—"Take cover! They're coming!"But there was no cover, and so we all got back the way we had come, and just as Cherry Ripe and a man ran up from another part of the garden we reached the top of the wall and prepared to leap down. But luckily we didn't. In fact, even as it was we only just saved Pedlar and lugged him back in time.The bull had arrived!He was there, not more than twenty yards from the wall, and he was a whacker. He had an enormous body and head, and his forehead was curly, and his eyes fierce, and his horns rather short but very thick. A copper ring was in his nose, and his hoofs turned up rather curiously, like Turkish slippers. There was some hay flung down in front of him, and he was smelling it. He was evidently a large and fierce bull, and him being on one side of the wall and Cherry Ripe on the other made it a very tricky position for us on the top.Trelawny said—"This is critical!"And Cherry Ripe said—"Hullo, my brave chap, how d'you find your future property is looking? I hope you're pretty well satisfied?"Trelawny said—"This is a case for a parley."But Cherry Ripe did all the parleying. We sat down on the wall, which was easier and safer than standing on it. We sat with our faces to Cherry Ripe and our backs to the bull."This is an ambuscade in a way," said Trelawny. "In fact, we are rather scored off. In war we should be shot. Not that it would matter, as we have done our work."Now, my young shavers," began Cherry Ripe, "I see you've been very busy down here on your own account, so perhaps you'll just step off that wall and do a bit of work for me. You can take your choice. Either we'll all go straight along to your old gentleman, and see what he'll say and do about it, or you can step down here—all three of you—and set to work over a bit of weeding. Take your choice and be quick.""We'll confer," said Trelawny.Which we did do; and Pedlar and I thought one thing and Trelawny thought another. He said that it would be far more dignified to go back and suffer from Dr. Dunstan as an equal; but Pedlar and I had done that before, and we didn't care in the least about the dignity. We said that to do a bit of weeding for Cherry Ripe would be mere child's play to four on each hand and perhaps more, not to mention a few thousand lines chucked in, and a couple of half-holidays gone.So Trelawny said—"I'm out-voted in the conference."Then he got down and we got down also.Cherry Ripe seemed rather pleased at what we had decided to do, because I don't think he wanted to have another talk with the Doctor any more than we did. But he certainly had arranged rather a big job for us."You've got to pick it clean, mind you—roots and all," he said. Then he divided the bit of land into three with sticks, and it seemed to us that we had to weed about as much as a cricket pitch each."You shall have the biggest job, young master," he said to Trelawny. "And that's only right and fair, because you're such a big man and take such big views."Trelawny did not answer, but he was evidently in a very proud frame of mind. He seemed determined to show Cherry Ripe something, if it was only how to weed.We worked jolly hard, and Cherry Ripe kept us at it. Then in the distance went up three cheers, and we knew the match was over; and, from the sound of the cheers, it looked as if we'd won, because after a match we always cheer the enemy, and we always cheer him heartier if we've beat him—not intentionally, but still the sound is different."Now you can all nip back," said Cherry Ripe. "Better go the way you came—through the wood.""And be killed by your bull, I suppose," said Pedlar. "Not likely!""We have accepted your terms," said Trelawny, "and if you are an honourable foe, you'll let us out by the gate.""Better go through the wood," answered Cherry Ripe. "It's a lot shorter, and as to the old bull, you needn't mind him. He's my daughter's pet. He wouldn't hurt a daddy-long-legs, much less a nice young chap like you. Tame isn't the word for him. A pet lamb's fierce to him. Come on. I'll go as far as the wood with you if you're frightened."All this was true. And when we got back into the field, Cherry Ripe scratched the bull's curly head and the bull almost purred. It was the mildest and humblest sort of a bull you ever saw, though so huge; and to see such an enormous and happy bull so close was rather interesting in its way. In fact, we all gave it a pat, just to be able to say in after life that we had patted a monstrous bull."My youngest daughter often sits on his back," said Cherry Ripe. "This here bull has got a heart of gold, I do assure you.""Another strategy," said Trelawny to me. "Certainly the man's cunning is frightful. I think I shall tell him about the seed—just to show him we've scored a bit too."I advised not, but Trelawny was so stung by the way we'd been defeated all round by the wretched Cherry Ripe, that, as we were leaving him, he said—"It may interest you to know that we've sowed that patch of your beastly ground under the wall with weeds of the deadliest sort. In fact, you'll never get them out again. So that's one for us, anyway.""Well done!" said Cherry Ripe. "Where did you get the seed from?""That's our business," answered Trelawny. "Anyway, you'll find it out presently.""Well," answered Cherry Ripe, "I know where you got the seed. It was from my good friend, Batson. And his boy be coming here to work next week. He's learned all your gardener at the school can teach him, and that wouldn't sink a ship. He brought the tale to his father, and his father brought it to me; and so I got the ground ready for you, knowing what a dashing fellow you are, and what a hurry you'd be in.""More fool you then," said Trelawny."Not so fast. The seed you sowed was lettuce seed! Good-evening, my dears, and when you say your prayers afore you go to sleep to-night, you can all thank the Lord that you've done a bit of honest, useful work for once in your lives!"* * * * *We talked it over during prep., and Pedlar said—"On the whole, we'd better keep this afternoon's work to ourselves."And I said—"We were overreached by superior cunning, and we'd better give Cherry Ripe best in future."And Trelawny said—"Wait! This, in a way, is a defeat. But I'll arrange a jolly good Waterloo for Cherry Ripe yet."Meaning, of course, that he would be Wellington, and that Cherry Ripe would be merely Napoleon.However, though I didn't say it to Trelawny, I doubt very much if he is clever enough to score off Cherry Ripe till he grows up. Then, of course, Cherry Ripe will find him a bitter and relentless foe.THE QWARRYNo. IXTHE QWARRYIf your parints happen to live in India, of corse holidays are not all they might be. Becorse India is too far off to go to often, and such relations as aunts and uncles don't seem much to care to have you if you are the son of an Indian soldier. But grandmothers always seem to want to have you; at leest they do in the case of Travers; but his parints are ded. Anyway me and Morris have to stop at Dr Dunstan's for holidays, and so we have to be friends at those times. I am eleven and he is twelve and we are very diffrent, him being never knone to lose a conduct mark, and me being ordinry. I am called Foster and the hapiest day of my life was when I got ten shillings all at once, being my ninth birthday in a postal order from my father. The first fealing was one of shere joy, and the second fealing was that if it had been a pound it would have been better.I remember the birthday only too well, though nearly two years ago, because immedeetly after getting the money I wrote to Mr Gammidge—the grand toy and games man—for some important things wanted by me and my chum, Smythe—him that cut off the Doctor's tiger's tail with such disasterous results. And by grate ill-luck that beest Steggles looked over my sholder and saw how I had begun my letter. I had asked Smythe how to begin it in a very respectful way, so as to please Mr Gammidge, and Smythe had said, "I should make it as friendly as you possibly can;" and I had said, "yes." Then I thort that as the friendliest letters I ever write are to my mother, I would begin it like that; and I had written down "Darling Mr Gammidge, I shall be very grately obliged by your sending me if you have time by return of post"—certain things. Becorse Mr Gammidge was quite as much to me as my mother in those days, if not more.Well, the beestly Steggles saw this and set up a loud and hideous yell of laughter which was very paneful to me and Smythe. And presently, when he had drawn the attenshun of many chaps to the letter, he told us on no account to send it, but to write in a firm and manly tone andorderthe things. He said when you are sending postal orders you have always the rite to be firm and manly; and when you are asking for them, that is the time to be affecshunite. So we wrote the letter again and merely said, "Dere Mr Gammidge," and sined ourselves, "yours truly, Arnold Foster and Huxley Smythe."I must now return to Morris, who was left at Merivale with me during the grate summer holiday last year. In a way his luck was friteful although he had nowhere to go in holidays. Even his amusements were such that they turned into marks and pleesed the masters, such as natural history; and his conduct marks were so exstraordinry that he never lost any at all without an effort.In face he was nothing, being sandy-haired and pail with a remarkably small mouth and watery eyes. He had not much courage but was fond of chaps who had, and he liked me and Smythe more for our courage than anything. We tried without success to increese his courage, and he helped us a lot with work that didn't want courage but only intelleck, of which he had a grate deal.It was reely owing to my courage that the adventure of the old slate qwarry happened. You see the holiday competishun for that year was a colleckshun of insect life, such as beetles, moths and butterflies, and as Merivale happened to be a fine place for insect life in general, Morris determined to win the prize if he could.When the Doctor and his family went off to the seaside, the last thing he said to me and Morris was this—"Farewell, my dear lads. Persue all innocent pleasures and give no corse of offence during the vocation. The Matron will be at your service and she has the key of the liberary. The playing field is also open to you, and having regard for the seeson I relax a little of the riggid discipline of time and place, of hours and bounderies, proper to the term. But I put you on your honour in this matter and feal that the chastening influenze of Morris will possibly serve to restrain the native exooberance of Foster. Lastly I have directed that the comissariat shall be ordered on a generous—nay, lavvish skale. Good-bye, my dear boys, and God bless you."We said "good-bye," and I hoped that the Doctor and Missis Dunstan and the gurl Dunstans would have a good time; and the Doctor thanked me and said he was glad I had the grace to make that wish; and after he had gone, Morris said that he very nearly said "God bless you" to the Doctor, but staid just in time. And I said it was jolly lucky he had, for it certainly would have been friteful cheek to do it.Then two cabs rolled away with the Doctor and his luggage and his family, and me and Morris were left. We found what 'comissariat' ment at dinner, and I will say that the food was magnificent, and the Matron was a brick all through the holidays—very diffrent to what she is in term time; and she told us a lot about her private life, which turned out that she was a widow Matron with a son. And Morris said "Why don't you bring your son here, Matron?" And I said "Of corse, why don't you?" And Morris said "It would hurt the Doctor's fealings a good deal if he knew you had a son being educated somewhere else." And she said it was all right and the Doctor was as kind as any man could be, and that the son was working hard and was a very good son, being an office-boy in a lawer's office in London.Then came the qwarry and my temptashun of Morris, which ended in Morris going to the qwarry.The qwarry was certainly out of bounds, and it was when out of bounds in secret with Freckles and other big chaps that I found all the wonders of it. It was a stone qwarry in Merivale Grate Wood, and there were game preserves near by, where Freckles hunted and practiced to be a bush-ranger when he went home to Australia. But of course Morris had never seen the place, because he never went out of bounds at all, from fear and also from goodness, but cheefly from fear.I said to Morris on a fine day in the middle of August—"Have you got any draggon-flies in your collectshun?"And he said—"There are no draggon-flies in Merivale."And I said—"You're a liar."And he said—"Well, anyway, I never saw one."And I said—"In the old qwarry in Merivale Grate Wood there are billions."And he said—"They can't live without water to cool their tails."And I said—"Any fool knows that. There's a stream and a pond in the qwarry and the draggon-flies and blackberries and butterflies, including peacocks and red admirals, are all as common as dirt.""It's a friteful pity it's out of bounds," said Morris to me, and I explained that, though out of bounds in term time, yet, owing to the Doctor's speshul words to us before he went on his holiday, every thing was free now.Then Morris said—"He put us on our honour."And I said—"I've got just as much honour as you for that matter. But my honour covers the hole of Merivale Grate Wood, and if your honour doesn't do the same, you'll loose the draggon-flies."Morris thought over this a good deal.At last he said—"There's no doubt that Slade and probably Thompson minor will get draggon-flies in their collectshuns, owing to their living by swamps and rivers."And I said—"Do what you like, only it happens I'm going to the qwarry to-morrow for the hole day, and Matron is going to make me sandwiches to take.""If you honestly think it is an honourable thing to do——" said Morris."I honestly do think so," I said."I believe you're right," he said. Then rather a footling idea struck him."How would it be if we wrote a polite letter to the Doctor?" he asked."Not me," I said. "You may be sure that the Doctor, in his hard-eerned vocation, doesn't want polite letters from me or even you. In fact, it might so much anoy him that he might change his mind all together and not put us on our honour at all, but merely say we were to keep bounds, which would be deth to me. Not that I should do it in any case."So after a lot more rot and jaw about his blessed honour, Morris came, and the day was jolly fine to begin with, and we went well armed for sport in genral. He had his butterfly-net and killing-bottle—a beestly thing full of cemicals but merciful in its way, becorse when you put a butterfly in and shut down the cork the butterfly becomes unconshus without pane and dies pretty cumfortably. All the same, as Morris said to me while we watched a lesser tortussshell passing away, "deth is deth," and the killing bottle was the only part of natural history he did not care about. Before we got to the qwarry he was wondering if the cemicals in the bottle would be strong enough for a draggon-fly.I said—"You've got to jolly well catch them first."I had the sandwiches and a sling made of lether, which hurls a stone friteful distances. I had also got in secresy a packet of 'Windsor Pearl' cigarets and a box of matches. These I did not intend to show to Morris, because it wood have upset his honour again; but I had been a smoaker for years, having been tought by Steggles, and it seemed to me if I couldn't have a cigaret in the summer holidays now and then, I might as well give up smoaking all together.There were tongue sandwiches, and bread and butter ones, and two hard-boiled eggs each, and two large lumps of carraway seed cake. It seemed a good deel to carry and yet not much to eat. I also took an india-rubber cup for water; but Morris said the water in the qwarry was no doubt where the draggon-flies lived in the first stages of their careers, and he douted if we could drink it with safety. He littel nue that he would soon drink it whether it was safe or not.[image]AT ONE SPOT THE DESCENT WAS VERY PERILOUS.There was only one way into the qwarry and that was down a very steep and dangerous place. The opening into the qwarry was all filled up and there were raillings all round it to keep anybody from falling into it by night. Morris funked getting down for some time; then a draggon-fly actually sored past and so much excited him that he said he was reddy if I went first. I told him to see exactly what I did and then I went down. At one spot the dissent was very perilous owing to a huge stone that stuck out in the middle of the cliff. You had to curl over it and feal with your feet for a tree-root below, then, for one grate moment, you had to let go with your hands and cluch at a pointed stone on the right hand side. This stone was allways loose and wanted very delicate handling. To me, with years of practice, it was eesy; but I fealt sure it would be a bit of a twister for Morris.He lowered down his killing-bottle and net and caterpillar-box, then he began to slowly dissend. But at the critikal moment he stretched for the pointed stone before he had got his foot on the root and all his wait came on the stone with the terrible result that the stone gave way. And when the big stone gave way, about a million other stones gave way also, so that Morris fell to the ground in an avvalanch of stones and the woods resounded with the sound. My first thort was keepers and my second thort was Morris.He was alive and hardly hurt at all more than a spraned ankle. He went very white and sat down and shivered and felt his bones and limbs one by one. He said it was his first great escape from deth.And I said—"You may not have escaped all the same, becorse you've pulled down the cliff in your dissent, and that was the only way out of the qwarry, and now there isn't any way out at all!"Which was perfectly true and not said to friten Morris. Getting out of the qwarry was far far worse than getting in and wanted a nerve of iron, which I hadn't mentioned to Morris till I got him safely in; but now he'd pulled down the place compleatly and left a naked precipice, and my nerve of iron was no good. In fact we were evidently going to have a grate adventure, and so I told Morris.It certainly spoilt the day for him, becorse you can't very well have a ripping good picknick if you don't know how the picknick is going to end."It's a fine place for natural history no doubt," he said; "but we can't pretend we're going to have a good time now.""We're going to have a long time anyway," I said.He smiled in rather a gastlie way and said he hoped not, becorse the weather was changeing and it might rain later on.Then I told him that wether didn't matter as there was a pretty dry cave where Freckles used to do his cooking of rabbits on half-holidays. Morris seemed glad about the cave. He rubbed his ankle and said, so far as that went, he fealt pretty right. Presently he said—"There are certainly red admirals here in grate quantities and also draggon-flies, but somehow I don't feel I've got the heart to kill annything for the moment, espeshully after what I've just eskaped myself. Deth is deth.""You'll be better after food," I said.But he wouldn't hear of food."We must face the possishun," he said. "Here we are in a qwarry and we can't get out.""Yes," I said."Very well. Then, there being no food in the qwarry except what we have brort with us, we shall soon be hungry.""Yes," I said. "I am now."Morris went on trying to be calm, but I could see the more he explained the situashun the more fritened he got. His voice shook when he said the next thing."You can't go on being hungry for more than a certain time. After you reech a certain pich, you die.""Yes," I said."Well, there you are," he said.He figetted about with his killing-bottle and things, then made a hopeless sort of a sound like an engine letting off steem."We must consider meens of eskape," I said. "People come here sometimes, no doubt."Only boys out of bounds," said Morris faintly. "Oh, what would I give to see the face of Freckles peep over the top!""It's impossible," I told him. "Freckles is spending the holidays with some cousins in Norfolkshire. But there are often keepers in the woods to look after the game.""Then we must shout at intervals, night and day—as long as we've got the strength to do it, said Morris."Before each shout we will eat a sandwich to increese our strength," I said. But Morris fancied half a sandwich would be safer.I thort it wasn't much good beginning by starving ourselves. In adventures nobody begins by starving—they end like that; but Morris, who has a watch, looked at it and said the time was only half-past ten and that, even if we were safe and within reach of food, we should not eat any for two hours and a half. But I said planely I could not waite that time and it ended by our dividing the food into two heaps of exactly the same size to a crumb. And I eat a sandwich boldly and fearlessly, but Morris shook his head and said it was foolhardy.He took a very hopeless view from the first, and even thort that perhaps, when my food was all gone and his hardly begun, I should turn on him with the feerceness of starvashun and tare his food away from him. But I said, "No, Morris. What ever tortures I may suffer, I am a gentleman, and I would rather die a hundred times than take as much as one seed out of your peece of cake."This comforted him rather. He put his hand on his chin and stared before him in a very feeble manner."Deth is deth," he began again."That's the third time you've said that," I told him, "and if you say it once more, I'll punch your head. Now, I'm going to utter the first grate shout, and I hope it may bring a keeper—not Thomas or Waxy West, for they are both very hard and beestly men, and very likely wouldn't rescue us even if they new we were here; but the under-keeper, Masters. He will certainly save us, and if he does, I'll give him my packet of cigarets."I shouted six times; then I shouted six more times; then I told Morris to have a shot. But he made such a piffling, feeble squeak that you could hardly have heard him a quarter of a mile off."Lucky I can howl," I said, "or we should both be done for without a dout. Why, a lamb that has lost its mother would get up more row than that."Morris was rather hurt at this. Me explained that he was making an Australian sound tought him by Freckles."It may not be loud," he said, "but it is a well-none sound in Australia and travel grate distances espeshully over water."The menshun of water made us go and look at the pond. I was fritefully thirsty by now and drank some. It was grey in colour but clear when seen in my india-rubber cup and quite holesome to the taste. Morris douted, but still he drank. I advised him to catch some draggon-flies and he said he would after the next time for shouting had come. We arranged that I should shout every half-hour, and Morris wanted to give me one sandwich from his store as payment for the exershun of shouting; but I skorned it and told him I would not think of doing so.After the second shouting, which did nothing, used my sling a bit and neerly hit a bird, and Morris cought a draggon-fly and let it go out of pitty, and then he cought another and kept it to see if the killing-bottle would kill it. It did. After about half a minute in the bottle the draggon was gone, and we shook him out and examined his butiful markings of yellow and black and his transparent wings, that had the colours of the rainbow on them when the sun fell on them in a particular manner.Morris stroaked it in a sorroful way."It is out of its missery now. I wish me and you were," he said.I said we hadn't begun our missery yet. I advised him to eat a sandwich and he did, but very reluctantly.He said that water would keep life in the human frame for many weeks. He also said that he fealt, in a damp place like this, we might eesily get pewmonia. He wondered if I hadn't better shout every quarter of an hour. He also thort his watch was going far too slow owing to his fall down the side of the qwarry. The sun had gone behind some rather dark clouds and we couldn't be sure where it was.The only thing that happened during the next hour was that the draggon-fly came to again, not being ded but merely incensible. It lifted a paw rather feebly to its forehead and evvidently had a headacke. Then it took a step or two and shivered a lot. Somehow it grately cheered Morris the draggon-fly recovering. He sed it had come out of the jaws of deth and so perhaps we should. He gave it an atom of tongue out of a sandwich, but it was not up to eating, and turned away from it. Then Morris got it some water to wet its glittering tail. This certainly refreshed it and so Morris dashed a few drops on its head which refreshed it still more. At half-past two it rose and flew several inches and at three it disappeered.By this time I had eaten all my sandwiches and drunk tons of water and was pealing my first hard-boiled egg.Suddenly Morris had an idea. He had only eaten one sandwich and was of course famishing with hunger. He said—"If you was to write a message and tie it round a stone and sling it into space, it might be found and red. Then a resque party would be arranged and we should be saved."It was pretty good for Morris, and I took out my pocket-book instantly and wrote three messages. And he wrote three. He sed it was like men on sinking ships, who send off messages in bottles that are found many years afterwards in Iceland. And I said it was. Of corse we hoped one at leest of the six messages might be found pretty soon. Years afterwards was no good to us.I merely wrote—"Lost in Grate Wood Qwarry and unable to get out. Arnold Foster. Come at once."And Morris wrote—"At the point of deth in Grate Wood Qwarry. No eskape. Food neerly done. A handsome reward will be given. William Arkwright Henderson Morris."I asked him how he nue a handsome reward would be given, and he said he didn't, but that he felt it was a safe thing to say and might make all the diffrence to anybody finding the message. Then I shot off the six messages rapped round stones, and they eesily flew over the edge of the qwarry. I then shouted again and eat my first egg.Just when it began to rain Morris had another grate idea. He said—"Didn't you say something about a packet of cigarets some time ago?"And I said—"Yes, and I am glad you reminded me about them, becorse I just feal that one will do me a lot of good."Then I pulled them out and opened the packet and took one and lit it."It is very restful in such an adventure as this," I told Morris.Then he explained his idear. It is well none that when you are learning to smoak, your appetite is often spoilt for a time. Now Morris thort that if he smoaked, he would not want food, and so much valuable food might be saved, and life prolonged if necessary.He said—"To you, who smoak so eesily, no dout it is no good, but I have never smoaked, and if I took a cigaret and went through with it, it might turn me off eating for some time."This was true, but I pointed out a grate danger that Morris had forgotten."That is all right and I will of corse share my cigarets with you, and as there are twenty, that will be ten each," I said; "but I must seeriously warn you, Morris, that to a perfect beginer, like you, many things might happen besides merely a fealing against tongue sandwiches. You might be absolutely sick and then——""All the food in me would be wasted," said Morris in a very tragick tone.He turned quite white at this idea. He said it would be madness to do anything to weaken his system at such a critikal time, and I said so too. Then he asked me to go and smoak further off, because the very smell made him feal rather strange after what I had told him.I smoaked three cigarets bang off and they only made me hungrier than ever. Then the rain became rather bad and at four o'clock we entered the cavern. At least I did, but Morris stood at the door ready to run out and shout if by a lucky chance anybody came in sight on the edge of the qwarry. But nobody came and the next serious thing was that my voice began to get husky after so much shouting. Morris said it was the cigarets, but I told him it was owing to yelling all day every half-hour, which undoubtedly it was.At six I went to sleep for some time in the cave and Morris did not wake me, because he said that I was gaining strength by it. When I woke it was getting darkish and I thort it would be a good thing to make a fire. Morris thort so too and we made one reddy with a lot of ded fern that Freckles had put long ago into the cavern. We took the paper that had rapped up our lunch, and put it under the fern, and covered it with my coat to keep it dry; and after dark we lighted it, and it made a good blaze for a minute but unfortunately went out owing to the rain.The rain, in fact, began to pour steddily and it was a partickularly dark evening. Morris became a simple worm after dark. He took a small bite out of a sandwich and said his prayers from end to end every half-hour. I had only got my cake left now, and it seemed to me better to have one good meel and have done with it than keep messing about like Morris was. So I finished my cake and tried to go to sleep again.We found that water came through the roof of the cavern in rather large quantities, and Morris had a new terror. He said—"If we can't get out of the qwarry, then I don't see how water can get out, and so, if it rains more than a certain amount, the qwarry will get full and we shall be drowned."Which showed what a footling state of mind Morris had got into.Presently I sneezed and he said of corse that it was the beginning of pewmonia. Then he asked for a match to see the time and it was six minutes past ten. Then I shouted again at the cavern entrance without result.He kept on asking for matches to see the time until there were only five left, and I said we must keep these for immergencies, and he said he supposed we must.At last he went into a sort of sleep after shedding some teers and pretending it was a cold in his head. Then I lighted a cigaret and found much to my supprise that I was beginning to feal queer myself with a new sort of queerness quite new to me.I woke Morris and told him that I was sorry to say I was ill; and he said he was undoubtedly very ill too and had been dreeming of his mother, which he only did when frightfully ill. He also asked me if I believed in ghosts and I said I thort I did. And he said he always did.There were some awfully strange noises happening outside at this time, and I sakrificed another match and found it was neerly one o'clock. Then we went to the mouth of the cavern and listened to a peculiar creepy sound far off. The rain had stopped and a sloppy looking moon was coming up. Morris shivered."That might be the mournful yell of some wretched ghost," he said."It's owels," I said, but he did not think so. He thort it was too miserable for owels.It came neerer and certainly was not owels.Then a thort struck me."It's a resque party!" I said.We shouted with all our might and screamed and yelled, and presently there was an ansering yell and we fealt that with any luck we were now saved. Soon toarches gleemed through the trees, and there were sounds of human feet and langwidge.I said to Morris—"We are now saved, Morris, and if you are not going to eat your piece of carraway seed cake, I should very much like to."And he said—"You can eat everything. I have such a fealing of thankfulness to be saved, that I couldn't eat for the moment, empty as I am. Besides there will be supper provided."A man shouted above us and I heard the hated voice of Waxy West."Be you little devils down there?" he cried out."Yes, we are, Mr West," I answered him very loud. "We're doing no harm at all—merely waiting quietly to be resqued. We only came for draggon-flies, and the side of the qwarry gave way unfortunately, or we shouldn't have had to trouble you at such a late hour."He growled in rather an unkind tone of voice, and we saw there were two other men with him. Then they began to make arrangements for the resque and one was told to go and get a rope."If ever I catch you in this place again, I'll break both your necks," said Waxy West; and though this was rather strong, it comforted Morris in a way, becorse it showed that West hadn't found his messages offering a handsome reward. If there had been any question of that, he would have been polite and kringeing; but he was just as usual.We found out, after, that Matron had got in a funk and gone to the big house, where the people belonging to Merivale Grate Wood live; and the people had sent their keepers in all directions to save us.These keepers got a rope and made knots in it and lowered it down, and told us that we must climb up it. And I let Morris go first, which he did; and then I went up, and the keepers saw us home.I told Waxy West that I should mention the subject to my parints in India and that I hoped they might send at least a pound to him, and he said it wasn't likely, becorse he'd done them the worst turn any man could. And he said that if I wanted to reward him, I would never go into Merivale Grate Wood again; and I promised I wouldn't go in again for a full month. Which he evvidently didn't believe.There was fritefully good tuck waiting for us at school, and the Matron, who had been blubbing, said a grate many rather unkind things while we eat it. But she promised not to tell Dr Dunstan and he does not no even to this day.Morris didn't win the holiday competishun becorse, as he expected, both Slade and Thompson minor brort back draggon-flies. We might eesily have gone to the qwarry again, after the month I promised Waxy West was over, but nothing would tempt Morris to go, though I bought ten yards of good rope for my own use. However, he paid me sixpence for getting him back his killing-bottle and his butterfly-net and his caterpillar-box, which were forgot in the excitement of the resque; and that was all to the good.
II
Of course, this was merely the beginning of the great anti-Cherry Ripe feeling, and next term we were planning a deadly revenge with regard to Cherry Ripe's Kentish cobnuts, which were remarkably fine, when a great assistant came to our aid in the shape of Trelawny. This was that Trelawny who had such a terrible end in the matter of the protest of the wing dormitory. But many things happened first. He was fourteen, and a fighter from the beginning. All his relations were also fighters, and poetry had been made about one, who was condemned to death for magnificent fighting in historic times. This Trelawny, by the most curious accident, proved to know an immense deal about Cherry Ripe. And it came out that Trelawny's father, who was a retired soldier and only a colonel, though Trelawny said that if justice had been done he would be a general at least, actually owned miles of land about Merivale, including Cherry Ripe's nursery garden and the field.
"The beggar merely rents it from my father for so many pounds a year," said Trelawny. "Why, if I said a word to my father, I could have the man turned out altogether, and his daughters and everybody. I'll jolly soon teach him!"
This was a pretty good score for us, and we soon arranged to show Cherry Ripe that things were changed. Trelawny took to strolling about in Cherry Ripe's field as if it belonged to him; and, of course, as I pointed out to Trelawny, when his father died, though I hoped it would not be for ten years at least—still he had to—and when he did, the field and the orchard and everything would actually be Trelawny's own, to do what he liked with. He said it was so; and he said that he should jolly soon clear Cherry Ripe out, and build almshouses for old soldiers broken in the wars, when he came to have the ground. He wouldn't take nuts or anything. He said that was paltry; but he had a fixed idea that he ought to be perfectly free of the place, and he went on strolling about in it till at last Cherry Ripe surprised him down at the pond in the field. I was there, too, but Cherry Ripe didn't recognize me, which, no doubt, was lucky.
He seemed to have something on his mind, for he didn't get into a bate, but merely said—
"Now, you boys, you slope off to your playground—can't have you messing about here."
"Perhaps you don't know who you're talking to, Mr. Jenkins," said Trelawny in a frightfully grand tone of voice.
Then Cherry Ripe jumped.
"Lord, the sauce of your nippers now-a-days! Why can't your old gentleman over there teach you manners as well as figures and all the rest of it?"
Clearly he meant no less a person than Dr. Dunstan.
"My name is Trelawny," began Trelawny.
"A very fine name too," said Cherry Ripe. "Take care you never bring no discredit on it, there's a good boy."
"My father is your landlord," said Trelawny. "And I'll thank you not to call me 'boy'!"
Cherry Ripe was by no means so much struck by this as you might have expected.
"You're the Colonel's young shaver—eh? Well, I hope you'll turn out as sensible a man—though I do wish me and him saw alike on the subject of a new tomato house. However, everybody's a right to his own opinion."
Trelawny was fuming, like a train wanting to start.
"You don't seem to understand," he said, "that this very field we're in at this moment will be mine before long!"
"The Colonel's not ailing, I hope?" said Cherry Ripe very civilly.
I could now see that Mr. Jenkins was laughing at Trelawny, but, luckily, Trelawny did not see this, or he might have taken some very desperate step.
"And I want to say further," went on Trelawny, not answering about his father, "that as this land will be mine sooner or later, I have a perfect right to walk on it when and where I choose."
"Agreed," said Cherry Ripe; "and as I'm renting the land, and don't like rude little boys poking about where they've no business, I've got a perfect right to pull their ears for 'em when I catches 'em. So that's settled. Now we know where we are. Be off with you both, or I'll begin this minute!"
Trelawny was as furious as a grown man. He turned a sort of colour like stewed fruit; but, of course, we had to go. There was nothing else we could do—for the moment.
"I shall write to my father about this, and you'll soon find out you can't insult your own landlord's son with impunity," Trelawny shouted, as we got through the hedge back into our wood.
"Can't do better. And tell him what I said," answered Cherry Ripe.
Then he seemed to forget us, and stood quite still looking into the pond. Evidently he had other things on his mind besides Trelawny; but Trelawny didn't think so, and believed that Jenkins was standing like that in a frightful funk to think of the dangerous thing he'd done.
"However, it's too late now; I shall write to my father next Sunday," said Trelawny; and he did, and he got a letter back.
We were rather keen to hear what his father was going to do about it, and expected he would read it out to us. But he tore the letter up small, and chucked it away, and merely said he was surprised to find his father didn't agree with him.
"But I'll make it clear that the man ought to be sacked when I go home," said Trelawny.
Funnily enough, though he'd torn this letter up so small and flung it scornfully away, we found out afterwards what was in it; because Peters, who hoped to be a detective of crime when he grew up, always collected anything with writing on it to decipher mysteries; and it was him who found out what Johnson's pet name at home was, and how many sisters West had, and other things not generally known. He said if a letter was once torn up and flung away, that it was public property for a detective; and so when Trelawny had gone, Peters collected the bits of his letter, and pieced it together after taking frightful trouble. It was a detective-like thing but not a sportsmanlike thing to do, and Trelawny, when he came to hear of it, challenged Peters. In fact, they fought, and Peters was badly licked. Still, the letter certainly was rather curious, considering it came from Trelawny's own father.
It read like this—
"DEAR TEDDY,
"I've got your letter, and I've dropped a line to Jenkins, directing him to give you and any of your friends a real good hiding every time he catches you on his ground.
"TRELOAR TRELAWNY."
Of course, the thing couldn't be allowed to stop there. We were all on Trelawny's side, though his father wasn't. In fact, Pedlar and Methuen and me were rather vexed with Trelawny's father; and we told Trelawny so; and he said he was too. He said—
"We'll be revenged next term, as it is too late this. We must all think of a heavy score against Jenkins"—he never called Cherry Ripe anything but Jenkins for some reason—"and the best idea is the one we'll carry out."
And everybody interested in the matter quite agreed; but Steggles did not come into it, because Trelawny utterly barred Steggles from the first.
III
Next term the great idea of how to crush Cherry Ripe came to me out of the Bible. I let everybody speak first, and then, as nobody had said anything like as good, I said—
"We will do what the enemy did in the New Testament, and sow tares in his ground."
Everybody thought the idea fine but jolly difficult, and Chilvers asked—
"What are tares?"
I said I wasn't exactly sure, and Methuen said it was a sort of grass, and Trelawny said it was a parable. Anyhow, we didn't know where to buy them. Finally we decided not to ask for tares, but some sort of seed that would grow quickly, and get a deep hold of the ground, and ruin anything else for yards round. Unfortunately we didn't know much about wild things in general, and we asked Tomkins, who is our champion botanist, and he said "Willow herb." But there were no seeds about at that time of the year, it being February, and so Trelawny said—
"We will confide in Batson, who is well known to be the son of a greengrocer and seedsman."
But it happened that Batson, who was the gardener's boy at Dunstan's, was leaving to better himself. However, there was just time before he went, and we let him into our secret score against Cherry Ripe, and gave him two shillings with which to buy some seed of some vigorous growing thing to sow in Cherry Ripe's nursery garden and choke his vegetables when they came up. Batson said that he would do his best. He said it might have to be grass seed or clover, but he promised it should be a good choking thing.
Certainly it looked hopeful, because he soon brought a bag of seeds and said they were a kind of clover that, if once sown, could not be got out of the ground again without ploughing. Then came the question of the time, and we decided that next Saturday was the day. There happened to be a big game at football, but not a little one, so we were all free excepting Methuen, who kept goal for the first.
All went well, and when the match began to get exciting owing to hands being given against Bray in our 'twenty-five,' Trelawny and Pedlar and Chilvers and I went into the wood unseen and got to the Cherry Ripe side of it. Chaps had been in his field a good deal lately, hunting for a very beautiful red fungus that was to be found in the hedges, on dead sticks, and Cherry Ripe had been a good deal worried by them.
Then came the first surprise of that day. There was a huge board stuck up in the field facing our wood with these remarkable words on it—
+-----------------------+| || DANGER! || BEWARE OF THE BULL! || |+-----------------------+
Our first step was to get back into the hedge. The field seemed to be quite empty, but there are many hollows in it, and a bull might easily have been sitting down quite near us. Or it might have been hidden in the cluster of trees in the middle. One thing was clear. It was not at the pond.
Trelawny said—
"This man is worth fighting. I'm glad he's got a bull, because it makes more strategy necessary for us."
And Pedlar said—
"And I'm glad too."
But I was not glad, and so I didn't say so; and as for Chilvers, he went further and openly said that he thought a bull altered everything.
It was about a hundred and fifty yards across the field from the wood to Cherry Ripe's wall, and it is well known that a bull can run three times as fast as a man and five times as fast as a boy.
I reminded Trelawny of this, and he said—
"I know all that; it is a question of strategy."
And I said—
"Yes, but strategy won't alter facts."
He thought a bit and said—
"You chaps stop here and I'll reconnoitre."
But Pedlar, who was nearly six months older than Trelawny, said he ought to reconnoitre too. Finally they both went to reconnoitre in different directions and came back in five minutes. Neither had seen the bull.
"There's no bull!" said Trelawny. "It's a subterfuge. Come on."
"Wait," said Chilvers. "I have a feeling it's not a subterfuge. Something tells me there is a bull."
Trelawny said it was cowardice, and Chilvers said it was a presentiment. Anyway, no time could be lost, and Chilvers was firm, so we left him. He was half inclined to come, but said that an uncle of his had once been gored by a buffalo, or some such thing, in America, and somehow he felt that this particular adventure would not suit him, though he would have feared nothing else. Of course Trelawny explained that this was no excuse, even if true. But though white and very worried, Chilvers was firm. He refused to follow, so we went alone.
We made a detour of the trees in the middle of the field and crept forward in Indian file. Fifty yards from the wall Pedlar whispered that he saw something red in a hollow, which might easily be a bull's back; so Trelawny said "Sprint!" and we threw off caution to the winds and sprinted. So we got to the wall in safety, and, as if to reward us for the effort, what should we see on the other side but a beautiful bit of ground all prepared for seeds! It was smoothed and arranged, and little narrow trenches had been drawn in it about an inch deep—evidently for seeds. It was frightful luck and playing into the hands of the enemy as Trelawny said. He instantly gave the word and we dropped. There was not a soul in sight—only a spade and two rakes, where the man who had been working had left them.
"A commander always seizes any chance the enemy offer," said Trelawny. "Pour the seed pretty thick along the drills and everywhere else, then take the rakes and rake it all over until everything is quite smooth!"
So all Cherry Ripe's arrangements for planting seed were used by us to sow a particularly deadly sort of clover. We worked jolly hard, and in about five minutes the thing was done by me and Pedlar while Trelawny mounted guard.
Then the exciting work began and Trelawny shouted—
"Take cover! They're coming!"
But there was no cover, and so we all got back the way we had come, and just as Cherry Ripe and a man ran up from another part of the garden we reached the top of the wall and prepared to leap down. But luckily we didn't. In fact, even as it was we only just saved Pedlar and lugged him back in time.
The bull had arrived!
He was there, not more than twenty yards from the wall, and he was a whacker. He had an enormous body and head, and his forehead was curly, and his eyes fierce, and his horns rather short but very thick. A copper ring was in his nose, and his hoofs turned up rather curiously, like Turkish slippers. There was some hay flung down in front of him, and he was smelling it. He was evidently a large and fierce bull, and him being on one side of the wall and Cherry Ripe on the other made it a very tricky position for us on the top.
Trelawny said—
"This is critical!"
And Cherry Ripe said—
"Hullo, my brave chap, how d'you find your future property is looking? I hope you're pretty well satisfied?"
Trelawny said—
"This is a case for a parley."
But Cherry Ripe did all the parleying. We sat down on the wall, which was easier and safer than standing on it. We sat with our faces to Cherry Ripe and our backs to the bull.
"This is an ambuscade in a way," said Trelawny. "In fact, we are rather scored off. In war we should be shot. Not that it would matter, as we have done our work.
"Now, my young shavers," began Cherry Ripe, "I see you've been very busy down here on your own account, so perhaps you'll just step off that wall and do a bit of work for me. You can take your choice. Either we'll all go straight along to your old gentleman, and see what he'll say and do about it, or you can step down here—all three of you—and set to work over a bit of weeding. Take your choice and be quick."
"We'll confer," said Trelawny.
Which we did do; and Pedlar and I thought one thing and Trelawny thought another. He said that it would be far more dignified to go back and suffer from Dr. Dunstan as an equal; but Pedlar and I had done that before, and we didn't care in the least about the dignity. We said that to do a bit of weeding for Cherry Ripe would be mere child's play to four on each hand and perhaps more, not to mention a few thousand lines chucked in, and a couple of half-holidays gone.
So Trelawny said—
"I'm out-voted in the conference."
Then he got down and we got down also.
Cherry Ripe seemed rather pleased at what we had decided to do, because I don't think he wanted to have another talk with the Doctor any more than we did. But he certainly had arranged rather a big job for us.
"You've got to pick it clean, mind you—roots and all," he said. Then he divided the bit of land into three with sticks, and it seemed to us that we had to weed about as much as a cricket pitch each.
"You shall have the biggest job, young master," he said to Trelawny. "And that's only right and fair, because you're such a big man and take such big views."
Trelawny did not answer, but he was evidently in a very proud frame of mind. He seemed determined to show Cherry Ripe something, if it was only how to weed.
We worked jolly hard, and Cherry Ripe kept us at it. Then in the distance went up three cheers, and we knew the match was over; and, from the sound of the cheers, it looked as if we'd won, because after a match we always cheer the enemy, and we always cheer him heartier if we've beat him—not intentionally, but still the sound is different.
"Now you can all nip back," said Cherry Ripe. "Better go the way you came—through the wood."
"And be killed by your bull, I suppose," said Pedlar. "Not likely!"
"We have accepted your terms," said Trelawny, "and if you are an honourable foe, you'll let us out by the gate."
"Better go through the wood," answered Cherry Ripe. "It's a lot shorter, and as to the old bull, you needn't mind him. He's my daughter's pet. He wouldn't hurt a daddy-long-legs, much less a nice young chap like you. Tame isn't the word for him. A pet lamb's fierce to him. Come on. I'll go as far as the wood with you if you're frightened."
All this was true. And when we got back into the field, Cherry Ripe scratched the bull's curly head and the bull almost purred. It was the mildest and humblest sort of a bull you ever saw, though so huge; and to see such an enormous and happy bull so close was rather interesting in its way. In fact, we all gave it a pat, just to be able to say in after life that we had patted a monstrous bull.
"My youngest daughter often sits on his back," said Cherry Ripe. "This here bull has got a heart of gold, I do assure you."
"Another strategy," said Trelawny to me. "Certainly the man's cunning is frightful. I think I shall tell him about the seed—just to show him we've scored a bit too."
I advised not, but Trelawny was so stung by the way we'd been defeated all round by the wretched Cherry Ripe, that, as we were leaving him, he said—
"It may interest you to know that we've sowed that patch of your beastly ground under the wall with weeds of the deadliest sort. In fact, you'll never get them out again. So that's one for us, anyway."
"Well done!" said Cherry Ripe. "Where did you get the seed from?"
"That's our business," answered Trelawny. "Anyway, you'll find it out presently."
"Well," answered Cherry Ripe, "I know where you got the seed. It was from my good friend, Batson. And his boy be coming here to work next week. He's learned all your gardener at the school can teach him, and that wouldn't sink a ship. He brought the tale to his father, and his father brought it to me; and so I got the ground ready for you, knowing what a dashing fellow you are, and what a hurry you'd be in."
"More fool you then," said Trelawny.
"Not so fast. The seed you sowed was lettuce seed! Good-evening, my dears, and when you say your prayers afore you go to sleep to-night, you can all thank the Lord that you've done a bit of honest, useful work for once in your lives!"
* * * * *
We talked it over during prep., and Pedlar said—
"On the whole, we'd better keep this afternoon's work to ourselves."
And I said—
"We were overreached by superior cunning, and we'd better give Cherry Ripe best in future."
And Trelawny said—
"Wait! This, in a way, is a defeat. But I'll arrange a jolly good Waterloo for Cherry Ripe yet."
Meaning, of course, that he would be Wellington, and that Cherry Ripe would be merely Napoleon.
However, though I didn't say it to Trelawny, I doubt very much if he is clever enough to score off Cherry Ripe till he grows up. Then, of course, Cherry Ripe will find him a bitter and relentless foe.
THE QWARRY
No. IX
THE QWARRY
If your parints happen to live in India, of corse holidays are not all they might be. Becorse India is too far off to go to often, and such relations as aunts and uncles don't seem much to care to have you if you are the son of an Indian soldier. But grandmothers always seem to want to have you; at leest they do in the case of Travers; but his parints are ded. Anyway me and Morris have to stop at Dr Dunstan's for holidays, and so we have to be friends at those times. I am eleven and he is twelve and we are very diffrent, him being never knone to lose a conduct mark, and me being ordinry. I am called Foster and the hapiest day of my life was when I got ten shillings all at once, being my ninth birthday in a postal order from my father. The first fealing was one of shere joy, and the second fealing was that if it had been a pound it would have been better.
I remember the birthday only too well, though nearly two years ago, because immedeetly after getting the money I wrote to Mr Gammidge—the grand toy and games man—for some important things wanted by me and my chum, Smythe—him that cut off the Doctor's tiger's tail with such disasterous results. And by grate ill-luck that beest Steggles looked over my sholder and saw how I had begun my letter. I had asked Smythe how to begin it in a very respectful way, so as to please Mr Gammidge, and Smythe had said, "I should make it as friendly as you possibly can;" and I had said, "yes." Then I thort that as the friendliest letters I ever write are to my mother, I would begin it like that; and I had written down "Darling Mr Gammidge, I shall be very grately obliged by your sending me if you have time by return of post"—certain things. Becorse Mr Gammidge was quite as much to me as my mother in those days, if not more.
Well, the beestly Steggles saw this and set up a loud and hideous yell of laughter which was very paneful to me and Smythe. And presently, when he had drawn the attenshun of many chaps to the letter, he told us on no account to send it, but to write in a firm and manly tone andorderthe things. He said when you are sending postal orders you have always the rite to be firm and manly; and when you are asking for them, that is the time to be affecshunite. So we wrote the letter again and merely said, "Dere Mr Gammidge," and sined ourselves, "yours truly, Arnold Foster and Huxley Smythe."
I must now return to Morris, who was left at Merivale with me during the grate summer holiday last year. In a way his luck was friteful although he had nowhere to go in holidays. Even his amusements were such that they turned into marks and pleesed the masters, such as natural history; and his conduct marks were so exstraordinry that he never lost any at all without an effort.
In face he was nothing, being sandy-haired and pail with a remarkably small mouth and watery eyes. He had not much courage but was fond of chaps who had, and he liked me and Smythe more for our courage than anything. We tried without success to increese his courage, and he helped us a lot with work that didn't want courage but only intelleck, of which he had a grate deal.
It was reely owing to my courage that the adventure of the old slate qwarry happened. You see the holiday competishun for that year was a colleckshun of insect life, such as beetles, moths and butterflies, and as Merivale happened to be a fine place for insect life in general, Morris determined to win the prize if he could.
When the Doctor and his family went off to the seaside, the last thing he said to me and Morris was this—
"Farewell, my dear lads. Persue all innocent pleasures and give no corse of offence during the vocation. The Matron will be at your service and she has the key of the liberary. The playing field is also open to you, and having regard for the seeson I relax a little of the riggid discipline of time and place, of hours and bounderies, proper to the term. But I put you on your honour in this matter and feal that the chastening influenze of Morris will possibly serve to restrain the native exooberance of Foster. Lastly I have directed that the comissariat shall be ordered on a generous—nay, lavvish skale. Good-bye, my dear boys, and God bless you."
We said "good-bye," and I hoped that the Doctor and Missis Dunstan and the gurl Dunstans would have a good time; and the Doctor thanked me and said he was glad I had the grace to make that wish; and after he had gone, Morris said that he very nearly said "God bless you" to the Doctor, but staid just in time. And I said it was jolly lucky he had, for it certainly would have been friteful cheek to do it.
Then two cabs rolled away with the Doctor and his luggage and his family, and me and Morris were left. We found what 'comissariat' ment at dinner, and I will say that the food was magnificent, and the Matron was a brick all through the holidays—very diffrent to what she is in term time; and she told us a lot about her private life, which turned out that she was a widow Matron with a son. And Morris said "Why don't you bring your son here, Matron?" And I said "Of corse, why don't you?" And Morris said "It would hurt the Doctor's fealings a good deal if he knew you had a son being educated somewhere else." And she said it was all right and the Doctor was as kind as any man could be, and that the son was working hard and was a very good son, being an office-boy in a lawer's office in London.
Then came the qwarry and my temptashun of Morris, which ended in Morris going to the qwarry.
The qwarry was certainly out of bounds, and it was when out of bounds in secret with Freckles and other big chaps that I found all the wonders of it. It was a stone qwarry in Merivale Grate Wood, and there were game preserves near by, where Freckles hunted and practiced to be a bush-ranger when he went home to Australia. But of course Morris had never seen the place, because he never went out of bounds at all, from fear and also from goodness, but cheefly from fear.
I said to Morris on a fine day in the middle of August—
"Have you got any draggon-flies in your collectshun?"
And he said—
"There are no draggon-flies in Merivale."
And I said—
"You're a liar."
And he said—
"Well, anyway, I never saw one."
And I said—
"In the old qwarry in Merivale Grate Wood there are billions."
And he said—
"They can't live without water to cool their tails."
And I said—
"Any fool knows that. There's a stream and a pond in the qwarry and the draggon-flies and blackberries and butterflies, including peacocks and red admirals, are all as common as dirt."
"It's a friteful pity it's out of bounds," said Morris to me, and I explained that, though out of bounds in term time, yet, owing to the Doctor's speshul words to us before he went on his holiday, every thing was free now.
Then Morris said—
"He put us on our honour."
And I said—
"I've got just as much honour as you for that matter. But my honour covers the hole of Merivale Grate Wood, and if your honour doesn't do the same, you'll loose the draggon-flies."
Morris thought over this a good deal.
At last he said—
"There's no doubt that Slade and probably Thompson minor will get draggon-flies in their collectshuns, owing to their living by swamps and rivers."
And I said—
"Do what you like, only it happens I'm going to the qwarry to-morrow for the hole day, and Matron is going to make me sandwiches to take."
"If you honestly think it is an honourable thing to do——" said Morris.
"I honestly do think so," I said.
"I believe you're right," he said. Then rather a footling idea struck him.
"How would it be if we wrote a polite letter to the Doctor?" he asked.
"Not me," I said. "You may be sure that the Doctor, in his hard-eerned vocation, doesn't want polite letters from me or even you. In fact, it might so much anoy him that he might change his mind all together and not put us on our honour at all, but merely say we were to keep bounds, which would be deth to me. Not that I should do it in any case."
So after a lot more rot and jaw about his blessed honour, Morris came, and the day was jolly fine to begin with, and we went well armed for sport in genral. He had his butterfly-net and killing-bottle—a beestly thing full of cemicals but merciful in its way, becorse when you put a butterfly in and shut down the cork the butterfly becomes unconshus without pane and dies pretty cumfortably. All the same, as Morris said to me while we watched a lesser tortussshell passing away, "deth is deth," and the killing bottle was the only part of natural history he did not care about. Before we got to the qwarry he was wondering if the cemicals in the bottle would be strong enough for a draggon-fly.
I said—
"You've got to jolly well catch them first."
I had the sandwiches and a sling made of lether, which hurls a stone friteful distances. I had also got in secresy a packet of 'Windsor Pearl' cigarets and a box of matches. These I did not intend to show to Morris, because it wood have upset his honour again; but I had been a smoaker for years, having been tought by Steggles, and it seemed to me if I couldn't have a cigaret in the summer holidays now and then, I might as well give up smoaking all together.
There were tongue sandwiches, and bread and butter ones, and two hard-boiled eggs each, and two large lumps of carraway seed cake. It seemed a good deel to carry and yet not much to eat. I also took an india-rubber cup for water; but Morris said the water in the qwarry was no doubt where the draggon-flies lived in the first stages of their careers, and he douted if we could drink it with safety. He littel nue that he would soon drink it whether it was safe or not.
[image]AT ONE SPOT THE DESCENT WAS VERY PERILOUS.
[image]
[image]
AT ONE SPOT THE DESCENT WAS VERY PERILOUS.
There was only one way into the qwarry and that was down a very steep and dangerous place. The opening into the qwarry was all filled up and there were raillings all round it to keep anybody from falling into it by night. Morris funked getting down for some time; then a draggon-fly actually sored past and so much excited him that he said he was reddy if I went first. I told him to see exactly what I did and then I went down. At one spot the dissent was very perilous owing to a huge stone that stuck out in the middle of the cliff. You had to curl over it and feal with your feet for a tree-root below, then, for one grate moment, you had to let go with your hands and cluch at a pointed stone on the right hand side. This stone was allways loose and wanted very delicate handling. To me, with years of practice, it was eesy; but I fealt sure it would be a bit of a twister for Morris.
He lowered down his killing-bottle and net and caterpillar-box, then he began to slowly dissend. But at the critikal moment he stretched for the pointed stone before he had got his foot on the root and all his wait came on the stone with the terrible result that the stone gave way. And when the big stone gave way, about a million other stones gave way also, so that Morris fell to the ground in an avvalanch of stones and the woods resounded with the sound. My first thort was keepers and my second thort was Morris.
He was alive and hardly hurt at all more than a spraned ankle. He went very white and sat down and shivered and felt his bones and limbs one by one. He said it was his first great escape from deth.
And I said—
"You may not have escaped all the same, becorse you've pulled down the cliff in your dissent, and that was the only way out of the qwarry, and now there isn't any way out at all!"
Which was perfectly true and not said to friten Morris. Getting out of the qwarry was far far worse than getting in and wanted a nerve of iron, which I hadn't mentioned to Morris till I got him safely in; but now he'd pulled down the place compleatly and left a naked precipice, and my nerve of iron was no good. In fact we were evidently going to have a grate adventure, and so I told Morris.
It certainly spoilt the day for him, becorse you can't very well have a ripping good picknick if you don't know how the picknick is going to end.
"It's a fine place for natural history no doubt," he said; "but we can't pretend we're going to have a good time now."
"We're going to have a long time anyway," I said.
He smiled in rather a gastlie way and said he hoped not, becorse the weather was changeing and it might rain later on.
Then I told him that wether didn't matter as there was a pretty dry cave where Freckles used to do his cooking of rabbits on half-holidays. Morris seemed glad about the cave. He rubbed his ankle and said, so far as that went, he fealt pretty right. Presently he said—
"There are certainly red admirals here in grate quantities and also draggon-flies, but somehow I don't feel I've got the heart to kill annything for the moment, espeshully after what I've just eskaped myself. Deth is deth."
"You'll be better after food," I said.
But he wouldn't hear of food.
"We must face the possishun," he said. "Here we are in a qwarry and we can't get out."
"Yes," I said.
"Very well. Then, there being no food in the qwarry except what we have brort with us, we shall soon be hungry."
"Yes," I said. "I am now."
Morris went on trying to be calm, but I could see the more he explained the situashun the more fritened he got. His voice shook when he said the next thing.
"You can't go on being hungry for more than a certain time. After you reech a certain pich, you die."
"Yes," I said.
"Well, there you are," he said.
He figetted about with his killing-bottle and things, then made a hopeless sort of a sound like an engine letting off steem.
"We must consider meens of eskape," I said. "People come here sometimes, no doubt.
"Only boys out of bounds," said Morris faintly. "Oh, what would I give to see the face of Freckles peep over the top!"
"It's impossible," I told him. "Freckles is spending the holidays with some cousins in Norfolkshire. But there are often keepers in the woods to look after the game."
"Then we must shout at intervals, night and day—as long as we've got the strength to do it, said Morris.
"Before each shout we will eat a sandwich to increese our strength," I said. But Morris fancied half a sandwich would be safer.
I thort it wasn't much good beginning by starving ourselves. In adventures nobody begins by starving—they end like that; but Morris, who has a watch, looked at it and said the time was only half-past ten and that, even if we were safe and within reach of food, we should not eat any for two hours and a half. But I said planely I could not waite that time and it ended by our dividing the food into two heaps of exactly the same size to a crumb. And I eat a sandwich boldly and fearlessly, but Morris shook his head and said it was foolhardy.
He took a very hopeless view from the first, and even thort that perhaps, when my food was all gone and his hardly begun, I should turn on him with the feerceness of starvashun and tare his food away from him. But I said, "No, Morris. What ever tortures I may suffer, I am a gentleman, and I would rather die a hundred times than take as much as one seed out of your peece of cake."
This comforted him rather. He put his hand on his chin and stared before him in a very feeble manner.
"Deth is deth," he began again.
"That's the third time you've said that," I told him, "and if you say it once more, I'll punch your head. Now, I'm going to utter the first grate shout, and I hope it may bring a keeper—not Thomas or Waxy West, for they are both very hard and beestly men, and very likely wouldn't rescue us even if they new we were here; but the under-keeper, Masters. He will certainly save us, and if he does, I'll give him my packet of cigarets."
I shouted six times; then I shouted six more times; then I told Morris to have a shot. But he made such a piffling, feeble squeak that you could hardly have heard him a quarter of a mile off.
"Lucky I can howl," I said, "or we should both be done for without a dout. Why, a lamb that has lost its mother would get up more row than that."
Morris was rather hurt at this. Me explained that he was making an Australian sound tought him by Freckles.
"It may not be loud," he said, "but it is a well-none sound in Australia and travel grate distances espeshully over water."
The menshun of water made us go and look at the pond. I was fritefully thirsty by now and drank some. It was grey in colour but clear when seen in my india-rubber cup and quite holesome to the taste. Morris douted, but still he drank. I advised him to catch some draggon-flies and he said he would after the next time for shouting had come. We arranged that I should shout every half-hour, and Morris wanted to give me one sandwich from his store as payment for the exershun of shouting; but I skorned it and told him I would not think of doing so.
After the second shouting, which did nothing, used my sling a bit and neerly hit a bird, and Morris cought a draggon-fly and let it go out of pitty, and then he cought another and kept it to see if the killing-bottle would kill it. It did. After about half a minute in the bottle the draggon was gone, and we shook him out and examined his butiful markings of yellow and black and his transparent wings, that had the colours of the rainbow on them when the sun fell on them in a particular manner.
Morris stroaked it in a sorroful way.
"It is out of its missery now. I wish me and you were," he said.
I said we hadn't begun our missery yet. I advised him to eat a sandwich and he did, but very reluctantly.
He said that water would keep life in the human frame for many weeks. He also said that he fealt, in a damp place like this, we might eesily get pewmonia. He wondered if I hadn't better shout every quarter of an hour. He also thort his watch was going far too slow owing to his fall down the side of the qwarry. The sun had gone behind some rather dark clouds and we couldn't be sure where it was.
The only thing that happened during the next hour was that the draggon-fly came to again, not being ded but merely incensible. It lifted a paw rather feebly to its forehead and evvidently had a headacke. Then it took a step or two and shivered a lot. Somehow it grately cheered Morris the draggon-fly recovering. He sed it had come out of the jaws of deth and so perhaps we should. He gave it an atom of tongue out of a sandwich, but it was not up to eating, and turned away from it. Then Morris got it some water to wet its glittering tail. This certainly refreshed it and so Morris dashed a few drops on its head which refreshed it still more. At half-past two it rose and flew several inches and at three it disappeered.
By this time I had eaten all my sandwiches and drunk tons of water and was pealing my first hard-boiled egg.
Suddenly Morris had an idea. He had only eaten one sandwich and was of course famishing with hunger. He said—
"If you was to write a message and tie it round a stone and sling it into space, it might be found and red. Then a resque party would be arranged and we should be saved."
It was pretty good for Morris, and I took out my pocket-book instantly and wrote three messages. And he wrote three. He sed it was like men on sinking ships, who send off messages in bottles that are found many years afterwards in Iceland. And I said it was. Of corse we hoped one at leest of the six messages might be found pretty soon. Years afterwards was no good to us.
I merely wrote—
"Lost in Grate Wood Qwarry and unable to get out. Arnold Foster. Come at once."
And Morris wrote—
"At the point of deth in Grate Wood Qwarry. No eskape. Food neerly done. A handsome reward will be given. William Arkwright Henderson Morris."
I asked him how he nue a handsome reward would be given, and he said he didn't, but that he felt it was a safe thing to say and might make all the diffrence to anybody finding the message. Then I shot off the six messages rapped round stones, and they eesily flew over the edge of the qwarry. I then shouted again and eat my first egg.
Just when it began to rain Morris had another grate idea. He said—
"Didn't you say something about a packet of cigarets some time ago?"
And I said—
"Yes, and I am glad you reminded me about them, becorse I just feal that one will do me a lot of good."
Then I pulled them out and opened the packet and took one and lit it.
"It is very restful in such an adventure as this," I told Morris.
Then he explained his idear. It is well none that when you are learning to smoak, your appetite is often spoilt for a time. Now Morris thort that if he smoaked, he would not want food, and so much valuable food might be saved, and life prolonged if necessary.
He said—
"To you, who smoak so eesily, no dout it is no good, but I have never smoaked, and if I took a cigaret and went through with it, it might turn me off eating for some time."
This was true, but I pointed out a grate danger that Morris had forgotten.
"That is all right and I will of corse share my cigarets with you, and as there are twenty, that will be ten each," I said; "but I must seeriously warn you, Morris, that to a perfect beginer, like you, many things might happen besides merely a fealing against tongue sandwiches. You might be absolutely sick and then——"
"All the food in me would be wasted," said Morris in a very tragick tone.
He turned quite white at this idea. He said it would be madness to do anything to weaken his system at such a critikal time, and I said so too. Then he asked me to go and smoak further off, because the very smell made him feal rather strange after what I had told him.
I smoaked three cigarets bang off and they only made me hungrier than ever. Then the rain became rather bad and at four o'clock we entered the cavern. At least I did, but Morris stood at the door ready to run out and shout if by a lucky chance anybody came in sight on the edge of the qwarry. But nobody came and the next serious thing was that my voice began to get husky after so much shouting. Morris said it was the cigarets, but I told him it was owing to yelling all day every half-hour, which undoubtedly it was.
At six I went to sleep for some time in the cave and Morris did not wake me, because he said that I was gaining strength by it. When I woke it was getting darkish and I thort it would be a good thing to make a fire. Morris thort so too and we made one reddy with a lot of ded fern that Freckles had put long ago into the cavern. We took the paper that had rapped up our lunch, and put it under the fern, and covered it with my coat to keep it dry; and after dark we lighted it, and it made a good blaze for a minute but unfortunately went out owing to the rain.
The rain, in fact, began to pour steddily and it was a partickularly dark evening. Morris became a simple worm after dark. He took a small bite out of a sandwich and said his prayers from end to end every half-hour. I had only got my cake left now, and it seemed to me better to have one good meel and have done with it than keep messing about like Morris was. So I finished my cake and tried to go to sleep again.
We found that water came through the roof of the cavern in rather large quantities, and Morris had a new terror. He said—
"If we can't get out of the qwarry, then I don't see how water can get out, and so, if it rains more than a certain amount, the qwarry will get full and we shall be drowned."
Which showed what a footling state of mind Morris had got into.
Presently I sneezed and he said of corse that it was the beginning of pewmonia. Then he asked for a match to see the time and it was six minutes past ten. Then I shouted again at the cavern entrance without result.
He kept on asking for matches to see the time until there were only five left, and I said we must keep these for immergencies, and he said he supposed we must.
At last he went into a sort of sleep after shedding some teers and pretending it was a cold in his head. Then I lighted a cigaret and found much to my supprise that I was beginning to feal queer myself with a new sort of queerness quite new to me.
I woke Morris and told him that I was sorry to say I was ill; and he said he was undoubtedly very ill too and had been dreeming of his mother, which he only did when frightfully ill. He also asked me if I believed in ghosts and I said I thort I did. And he said he always did.
There were some awfully strange noises happening outside at this time, and I sakrificed another match and found it was neerly one o'clock. Then we went to the mouth of the cavern and listened to a peculiar creepy sound far off. The rain had stopped and a sloppy looking moon was coming up. Morris shivered.
"That might be the mournful yell of some wretched ghost," he said.
"It's owels," I said, but he did not think so. He thort it was too miserable for owels.
It came neerer and certainly was not owels.
Then a thort struck me.
"It's a resque party!" I said.
We shouted with all our might and screamed and yelled, and presently there was an ansering yell and we fealt that with any luck we were now saved. Soon toarches gleemed through the trees, and there were sounds of human feet and langwidge.
I said to Morris—
"We are now saved, Morris, and if you are not going to eat your piece of carraway seed cake, I should very much like to."
And he said—
"You can eat everything. I have such a fealing of thankfulness to be saved, that I couldn't eat for the moment, empty as I am. Besides there will be supper provided."
A man shouted above us and I heard the hated voice of Waxy West.
"Be you little devils down there?" he cried out.
"Yes, we are, Mr West," I answered him very loud. "We're doing no harm at all—merely waiting quietly to be resqued. We only came for draggon-flies, and the side of the qwarry gave way unfortunately, or we shouldn't have had to trouble you at such a late hour."
He growled in rather an unkind tone of voice, and we saw there were two other men with him. Then they began to make arrangements for the resque and one was told to go and get a rope.
"If ever I catch you in this place again, I'll break both your necks," said Waxy West; and though this was rather strong, it comforted Morris in a way, becorse it showed that West hadn't found his messages offering a handsome reward. If there had been any question of that, he would have been polite and kringeing; but he was just as usual.
We found out, after, that Matron had got in a funk and gone to the big house, where the people belonging to Merivale Grate Wood live; and the people had sent their keepers in all directions to save us.
These keepers got a rope and made knots in it and lowered it down, and told us that we must climb up it. And I let Morris go first, which he did; and then I went up, and the keepers saw us home.
I told Waxy West that I should mention the subject to my parints in India and that I hoped they might send at least a pound to him, and he said it wasn't likely, becorse he'd done them the worst turn any man could. And he said that if I wanted to reward him, I would never go into Merivale Grate Wood again; and I promised I wouldn't go in again for a full month. Which he evvidently didn't believe.
There was fritefully good tuck waiting for us at school, and the Matron, who had been blubbing, said a grate many rather unkind things while we eat it. But she promised not to tell Dr Dunstan and he does not no even to this day.
Morris didn't win the holiday competishun becorse, as he expected, both Slade and Thompson minor brort back draggon-flies. We might eesily have gone to the qwarry again, after the month I promised Waxy West was over, but nothing would tempt Morris to go, though I bought ten yards of good rope for my own use. However, he paid me sixpence for getting him back his killing-bottle and his butterfly-net and his caterpillar-box, which were forgot in the excitement of the resque; and that was all to the good.