Chapter Seven.
The Pangs of Cold Pudding.
“A burnt child fears the fire.” So says the old proverb; and therefore it was quite reasonable for a couple of big lads to feel a certain sensation of shrinking when they talked about their adventure while trying to investigate the mysteries surrounding the portion of Crag, or Cormorant Island, as it was called, known as the Scraw.
For they did talk about it a great deal. Then, too, Vince had some very unpleasant dreams about hanging over a tremendous gulf. One night in particular he was especially bad.
It happened in this way: Mike came over to the Doctor’s cottage one evening after tea—though this was no novelty, for he was always coming over to the cottage after tea, when Vince was not going over to Sir Francis Ladelle’s quaint, semi-fortified house, which had stood there for hundreds of years, being repaired by its various occupants, but very little altered. In fact, when the little island was for sale, many years before this story commences, and the baronet became the purchaser, he was so pleased with the old place that he determined to keep up the traditions of the past, in spite of low ceilings, dark windows, and what Mike described to Vince as “the jolly old ghosts,” which, being interpreted, meant rats.
So Mike came over one evening, after Vince had eaten a tremendous meal, and the two lads went out for a stroll to the cliff edge, where there was always something to see, returning after dusk by the light of the moon and glowworms, of which there were abundance. Then Vince had to see Mike up to the gates of the old house; and, to make things straight, Mike said he would walk back a few yards with him, the few yards being so elastic that they stretched out to five hundred, more or less.
At last Vince reached home and had his supper, which had been put out for him, and when he had finished, found that the sea air and exercise had made him ravenous.
“I must have something else to eat,” he said to himself, and he was going into the parlour to speak upon this important subject to Mrs Burnet; but as he reached the door he could hear her pleasant voice, and he knew what was going on, though he could not see through the panels. For the picture rose plainly before his mind’s eye of his father lying back in his easy chair, tired out with his round of the island and gardening, while by the light of a pair of mould candles—
What? You don’t know what mould candles are? The happier you! People did fifty years ago, and they were largely used by those who could not afford wax or spermaceti; and they did what Vince heard the Doctor do from time to time—took up the old-fashioned, scissor-like snuffers from their plated tray, snuffed the candles, and laid them back with a sharp click. And let me tell you that there was an art in snuffing a candle which required practice and a steady hand. For if you of the present generation of boys who live in the days of gas, electric lights, spirit lamps, and candles ingeniously made after the analytical experiments of chemists on a material very different from the old-fashioned Russian tallow—if you, I say, were to try and snuff an old candle, the chances are that you would either cut the cotton wick too much or too little, if you did not snuff the light out. After a time these sources of light would grow lengthy of black, burnt wick, a curious mushroomy, sooty portion would grow on the top, and the flame of the candle would become dull yellow and smoky. Then, if you cut too little off, the light would not be much improved; if you cut too low down, it was worse; if lower still, you put the light out. But the skilful hand every few minutes cut to the happy medium, as the Doctor did, and the light burned up fairly white and clear; so that, according to the custom at the cottage, Mrs Burnet could see well to continue reading aloud to her weary husband, this being his one great enjoyment in the calm life on the island.
Now, it seems rather hard on Vince to keep him waiting hungrily at the door while the writer of this little history of boy life runs away from his narrative to begin prattling in print about candles; but what has preceded these lines on light, and the allusion to chemistry, does ask for a little explanation, for many of you who read will say, What can chemistry have to do with tallow candles?
A great deal. I daresay you have read a little chemistry, or heard lectures thereon. Many of you may have been bitten by the desire to try a little yourselves, as I was, and tried making hydrogen and oxygen gases, burning phosphorus, watch-spring and sulphur in the latter; and even tried to turn the salts of metals back into the metals themselves. But that by the way. Let us return to the candle—such a one as Vince had left burning, smoking and smelling unpleasantly, in the flat brass candlestick upon the little hall table, for it was time he was off to bed. Now, the chemists took the candle, and pulled it to pieces, just as the candle-makers took the loose, fluffy cotton wick metaphorically to pieces, and constructed another by plaiting the cotton strands together and making a thin, light wick, which, as it burned, had a tendency to curl over to the side of the conical flame where the point of the wick touched the air and burned more freely—so freely, in fact, from getting more oxygen from the air than the other part, as to burn all away, and never need snuffing. That is the kind of wick you use in your candles to-day; and the snuffers have gone into curiosity cases in museums along with the clumsy tinder-boxes of the past.
But that is to do with the wick, though I daresay some chemist or student of combustion gave the first hint to the maker about how to contrive the burning away of the unpleasant snuff.
Let us go back to the candle itself, or rather to the tallow of which it was made.
Now, your analytical chemist is about the most inquisitive person under the sun. Bluebeard’s wife was a baby to him. Why, your A C would have pulled the Blue Chamber all to bits, and the key too, so as to see what they were made of. He is always taking something to pieces. For instance, quite lately gas tar was gas tar, and we knew that it was black and sticky, good for palings and horribly bad for our clothes, when, on hot, sunny days, we climbed over the said palings. But, all at once, the A C took gas tar in hand to see what it was made of, and the result is—what? I must not keep Vince and you waiting to tell all—in fact, I don’t know, but may suggest a little. Gas tar now means brilliant aniline dyes, and sweet scents, and flavours that we cannot tell from pears and almonds, and ammonia and carbolic preparations good for the destruction of disease germs. But when the A C attacked the tallow of the candle he astonished us more.
For, so to speak, he took the tallow, and he said to himself, Now, here’s tallow—an unpleasant animal fat: let’s see what it is made of.
Years ago I should have at once told him that it was grease, obtained by melting down the soft parts of an animal. But the A C would have said to me: Exactly; but what is the grease made of?
Then he began making tests and analysing, with the result that out of candle fat he distilled a beautifully clear white, intensely sweet fluid, and made a name for it: glycerine, from the Greek for “sweet,” for which, as Captain Cuttle would have said, consult your lexicon.
Then our friend the chemist tested the glycerine, and tried if it would burn; but it would not burn in the least, and he naturally enough said, Well, that stuff is no good for candles, so it may be extracted from the tallow. To make a long dissertation short, that was done at once, and the result was that, instead of the new tallow candles being soft, they were found to be hard, and to burn more clearly. Then chemicals were added, and they became harder still, and were called composites.
That was the beginning of the improvements, which subject I must carry no further, but return to our hungry lad, who, hearing the reading going on, would not interrupt his mother, but took up his candle and went to the larder to investigate for himself.
There was bread and butter, and bread and cheese, and a small piece of mutton—but this last was raw; and Vince was about to turn to the bread and cheese when his eyes lighted upon a wedge of cold apple dumpling, which he seized upon as the very thing, bore off to his bedroom, after putting his head in at the parlour door to say good-night, ate with the greatest of gusto, and then, thoroughly drowsy, tumbled into bed.
The next minute, as it seemed most vividly to Vince, the new rope that Mike took with them to the tempest-torn ridge above the Scraw was cutting into his chest and compressing it so that he could hardly breathe. But he would not complain, for fear his companion should think it was because he was too cowardly to go on down that steep slope of thirty or forty feet to look over the edge of the precipice. So he went on lower and lower, suffering horribly, but more and more determined to go on; and as he went the rope stretched out, and the slope lengthened, till he seemed to have descended for hours. Flocks of ravens came down, flapping their wings about him and making dashes with their great beaks at his eyes; while stones were loosened, rattled down into the gulf and startled clouds upon clouds of birds, which came circling up, their wings beating the air, till there was a noise like thunder.
Down to the stone at last; and upon this he sat astride, gazing at the vast gulf below, where the cove spread out farther than eye could reach, while the waters rushed by him like many cataracts of Niagara rolled into one. At last Mike’s voice came to him, in imploring tones, sounding distant, strange and familiar, begging him to come up; and he drew himself up once more, and, with the rope tightening, gave that great thrust with his heels which sent the block upon which he had ridden falling down and down, as if for ever, into space, while he hung motionless, with the line compressing his chest so that he could not breathe. He could not struggle, he could not even stir—only hang there suffocating, till his senses were leaving him fast, and a burning light flashed into his eyes. Then the rope parted, the terrible tension about his chest was relieved, and he began falling more and more swiftly, with a pleasant feeling of restfulness, till a voice said loudly:
“Vince, Vince! What is it, boy? Wake up!”
Vince not only woke up, but sat up, staring at his father and mother, who were standing in their dressing-gowns on either side of his bed.
“He must have something coming on,” said Mrs Burnet anxiously.
“Coming on!” said the Doctor, feeling the boy’s temples and then his wrist; next, transferring his hand to where he could feel the pulsation of the heart, “Nightmare!” he cried.
“What’s the matter?” said Vince confusedly. “Fire?”
“Any one would have thought so, and that you were being scorched, making all that groaning and outcry. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” said Vince, whose dreaming was all hidden now by a mental haze. “Is anybody ill, then?”
“I’m afraid you are, my dear,” said Mrs Burnet anxiously; and she laid her cool hand upon her son’s forehead. “His head is very hot and wet, dear,” she added to the Doctor.
“Yes, I know,” he said gruffly. “Here, Vince!”
“Yes, father.”
“What did you have for your supper?”
“Oh! only a couple of slices of bread and butter, with a little jam on,” said Mrs Burnet hastily. “I cut it for him myself.”
“Nothing else?” said the Doctor.
“No, dear.”
“Yes, I did, mother,” said Vince, whose head was growing clearer now. “I was so hungry I went into the larder and got that piece of cold pudding.”
“Wurrrh!” roared the Doctor, uttering a peculiar growling sound, and, to the astonishment of mother and son, he caught up the pillow and gave Vince a bang with it which knocked him back on the bolster. “Cold pudding!” he cried. “Here! try a shoe-sole to-morrow night, and see if you can digest that. Come to bed, my dear. Look here, Vince: tell Mr Deane to give you some lessons in natural history, and then you’ll learn that you are not an ostrich, but a boy.”
The next minute Vince was in the dark, but not before Mrs Burnet had managed to bend down and kiss him, accompanying it with one of those tender good-nights which he never forgot to the very last.
But Vince felt hot and angry with what had passed.
“I wish father hadn’t hit me,” he muttered. “He never did before. I don’t like it; and he seemed so cross. I wonder whether he did feel angry.”
Vince lay for some minutes puzzling his not quite clear brain as to whether his father was angry or pretending. There was the dull murmur of voices from the next room, as if a conversation were going on, but he could not tell whether his mother was taking his part or no. Then, all at once, there came an unmistakable “Ha, ha, ha!” in the Doctor’s gruff voice, and that settled it.
“He couldn’t have been cross,” thought Vince, “or he wouldn’t laugh like that. And it was only the pillow after all.”
Two minutes later the boy was asleep, and breathing gently without dreams, and so soundly that he did not hear the handle of the door creak softly, nor a light step on the floor. Neither did he hear a voice say: “Asleep, Vince?” nor feel a hand upon his forehead, nor two soft, warm lips take their place as a gentle voice whispered: “God bless my darling boy!”
Chapter Eight.
A Random Shot.
“How about the cold pudding?”
“Look here, Ladle, if you say any more about that it means a fight.”
“Ha, ha! Poor old Cinder riding the nightmare, and dreaming about the Scraw! Wish I’d been sleeping at the cottage that night. I’d have woke you up: I’d have given you cold pig!”
“Lucky for you that you weren’t,” said Vince. “I’d have given you something, my lad. But, I say, Ladle, drop it. I wouldn’t have told you about that if I’d known you were always going to fire it off at me.”
“Well it does seem so comic for a fellow to go stuffing himself with cold pudding, and then begin dreaming he was hanging at the end of our rope.”
“Look here,” said Vince sharply, “if you’d felt what I did that day, though I didn’t say much, I’ll be bound to say you’d have dreamed of it after.”
“I felt bad enough,” said Mike, suddenly growing serious, as they walked together over the heathery land, unwittingly taking the direction of the scene of their adventure; “and I don’t mind telling you, Cinder, that I’ve woke up four nights since with a start, fancying I was trying to hold the rope, and it kept slipping through my fingers. Ugh! it was very horrid.”
He laid his hand on Vince’s shoulder, and his companion followed his example, both walking along very silently for a few minutes before Vince said quietly:
“I say, you won’t grin if I tell you something?”
“No: honour bright.”
“Well, let’s see: it was last Thursday week we went, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”
“So have I: not about the rope business, you know, but about that place. It’s just as if something was always making me want to go.”
Vince let his hand drop, shook himself free, and faced his companion.
“But that’s just how I feel,” he said. “I keep on thinking about it and wanting to go.”
“Not to try and get down with a rope?” said Mike excitedly.
“Brrrr! No!” exclaimed Vince, with a shudder. “I don’t say I wouldn’t go down with a rope from the cliffs if it was to help some poor chaps who were wrecked and drowning, because that would seem to be right, I suppose, and what one would expect any fellow to do for one if being drowned. Why, you’d go down then, Ladle.”
“I d’know. I shouldn’t like to; but when one got excited with seeing a wreck, perhaps I should try.”
“There wouldn’t be any perhaps about it, Ladle,” said Vince gravely. “Something comes over people then. It’s the sort of thing that makes men go out in lifeboats, or swim off through the waves with ropes, or, as I’ve read, go into burning houses to get people out.”
Mike nodded, and they went on very thoughtful and dreamy over the purple heather and amongst the golden furze till they reached the edge of the scrub oak wood, where they stopped short and looked in each other’s eyes again.
“What do you say? shall we go and have another look at the place?”
“I feel as if I should like to,” replied Mike; “and at the same time I’m a bit shrinky. You won’t do anything risky, will you?”
“That I just won’t,” said Vince decisively.
“Then come on.”
They plunged into the wood eagerly, and being more accustomed to the way they got along more easily; and decided as they walked that they would go to the southern end of the slope and then try and get up to have a look over the ridge from there, while afterwards they would make their way along the landward side of the jagged serrations of weather-worn granite points right to the northern end if they could get so far, and return at the bottom of the slope.
“That’ll be more than any one in the Crag has ever done,” said Vince, “and some day we’ll bring Mr Deane, and see what he’ll say to it.”
Little more was said, but, being of one mind, they steadily went on fighting their way through the difficulties which beset them on all sides, till, hot, weary and breathless, they neared the slope some considerable distance from the spot where they had approached it first. Then, after a short rest, they climbed up, over and among the fallen rocks, with nothing more to startle them than the rush of a rabbit or two, which went scuttling away.
Half-way up they saw a couple of those fast disappearing birds, the red-legged choughs, and startled a few jackdaws, which went off shouting at them, Mike said; and then the top was won, and they had a long survey of the cove from another point of view.
But there was nothing fresh to see; all beneath them was entirely hid from view, and though they looked again and again as they continued their course along the ridge their patience and toil were not rewarded, for, save that they were from different standpoints, the views they obtained of the rocks and rushing waters were the same.
They continued along the ridge by slow climbing for a considerable distance, and then as if moved by the same spirit they stopped and looked at each other.
“I say,” said Mike, “it don’t seem any good to go any farther.”
“No,” was the reply, given in a very decisive tone. “The only way to see that place down below is to get there in a boat.”
“And old Joe Daygo says it’s not right to go, and we should never get back; so we shall never see it.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Vince shortly.
“Well, I don’t want to, but it seems as if he’s right, and the more one looks the more one believes in him.”
“I don’t,” said Vince. “The more I look the more I seem to want to go and have a thorough good search, and I can’t help thinking he knows why.”
“Shall we try him again?”
Vince thoughtfully shook his head, as he gazed down once more from between two pieces of granite that the storms of centuries had carved till they seemed to have been set upon edge.
“Might offer him some money.”
“I don’t believe he’d like it, and you know Jemmy Carnach once said that, though he always dressed so shabbily and never spent anything, he always was well off.”
“Well, then, what are we to do? I want to see the place worse than ever. It looks so tempting, and as if there’s no knowing what we might find.”
“I don’t think we should find anything about it but that it would be a good place for fishing. It must be if no one ever goes there. Why, Ladle, all the holes among the rocks must swarm with lobsters, and the congers must be as big as serpents.”
Mike nodded.
“But how are we to get there to fish for them?”
“Don’t know, unless we try it ourselves with a boat.”
“Would you risk it?”
Vince did not answer for a few moments, but stood clinging to the rock, gazing down and searchingly examining the opening through which the tide poured.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said; “but I begin to think I would. That narrow passage would look wider when you were right in it, and the way to do it would be to come in when the tide was high,—there wouldn’t be so much rushing and tumbling about of the water then; and the way to get out again would be at high water too.”
“But that would mean staying till the tide had gone down and come up again—hours and hours.”
“Yes,” said Vince, “that would be the way; but it would want ever so much thinking about first.”
“Yes,” replied Mike; “it would want ever so much thinking about first. Ready to go back?”
“May as well,” said Vince; and he stepped down, after a farewell look down at the sheltered cove, fully realising the fact that any one passing it a short distance from the shore would take the barrier of rocks which shut it in for the continuation of the cliffs on either side; and as the place had a terrible reputation for dangerous reefs and currents, in addition to the superstitious inventions of the people of the Crag, it seemed highly probable that it had never been approached unless by the unfortunate crew of some doomed vessel which had been battered to pieces and sunk unseen and unheard.
“Shall I go first?” said Vince.
“Yes: you lead.”
“Mean to go along among the bushes at the bottom, or would you like to slope down at once?”
“Oh, we’ll go back the way we said, only we shan’t have done as much as we promised ourselves.”
Vince started off down the slope, and upon reaching the trough-like depression at the bottom he began to work his way in and out among the fallen blocks, leaping the hollows wherever there was safe landing on the other side. At times he had to stop to extricate himself from the brambles, but on the whole he got along pretty well till their way was barred by a deeper rift than they had yet encountered, out of which the brambles and ferns grew luxuriantly.
The easier plan seemed to be to go round one end or the other; but it only appeared to be the simpler plan, for on trying to put it to the test it soon proved itself to be the harder, promising as it did a long, toilsome climb, whichever end they took.
“Jump it,” said Mike: “there’s a good landing-place on the other side.”
“Yes, but if I don’t reach it I shall get a nice scratching. Look at that blackthorn covered with brambles.”
“Oh, never mind a few thorns,” said Mike, grinning. “I’ll pick them all out for you with a packing needle.”
“Thankye,” said Vince, eyeing the rift he had to clear: “you’ll have enough to do to pick out your own thorns, for if I go down I’m sure you will. Stand aside and let’s have a good start.”
There was no running, for it was a standing jump from one rugged block to another a little lower; and after taking a good swing with both arms, the lad launched himself forward, drawing his feet well up, clearing the mass of tangled bushes below, and just reaching the other side with his toes.
An inch or two more would have been sufficient; as it was, he had not leaped quite far enough, for his boots grated and scratched down the side facing him, the bushes below checked him slightly, and he tried to save himself with his hands and clung to the rough block for a few moments. Then, to Mike’s great amusement, he slipped suddenly lower, right in among the brambles which grew from out of a rift, and looked matted enough together to support him as he hung now by his hands.
“Scramble up, Cinder!” cried Mike. “You are a jumper!”
“Wait till you try it, my lad,” was the reply; and then, “Must drop and climb out at the end.”
As Vince spoke his hands glided from their hold, and he dropped out of sight among the bushes, and at the same moment, to Mike’s horror, there was the rushing noise of falling stones, increasing to quite an avalanche, and sounding hollow, echoing, and strange, as if descending to a terrific depth.
Mike’s heart seemed to stand still as he craned forward, gazing at the slight opening in the brambles which his companion had made; and as he listened intently he tried hard to speak, but his mouth felt dry, and not a word would come.
It was horrible. They had both imagined that they were about to leap over a hollow between some masses of stone, probably two, perhaps three feet deep; but the bushes and brambles which had rooted in the sides had effectually masked what was evidently a deep chasm, penetrating to some unknown distance in the bowels of the earth.
What to do? Run for help, or try to get down?
Before Mike could decide, in his fear and excitement, which, he drew his breath heavily, with a gasp of relief, for a voice sounding hollow and strange came up through the bushes and ferns.
“Mike!”
“Yes. Hullo, are you hurt?”
“Bit scratched,” came up.
“How far are you down? Tell me what to do. Shall I go for a rope?”
“Steady!” came up: “don’t ask so much at once. Not down very far. I can see the light, and it’s all of a slope here, but awful lower down. Did you hear the stones go with a rush?”
“Yes, yes; but Vince, old chap, tell me how I am to help you.”
“I can’t: I don’t know. I think I can climb out, only I hardly like to stir for fear of a slip. Here goes, though. I can’t stay like this.”
Mike stood gazing down at the bushes, trembling with anxiety as he heard a rustling and scraping sound beneath, which made him long to speak and ask questions about how his companion got on, but he feared to do so lest he should take his attention from the work he had on hand. Then came the rattle of a falling stone going slowly down, as if there were a good, steady slope; and the boy listened for its plunge into water far beneath, but the falling of the stone ceased to be heard, while the rustling and scraping sound made by the climber increased. Then all at once the bushes began to move and a hand appeared at the far end.
“Take care! pray take care!” cried Mike. “Don’t—pray don’t slip back!”
“Oh, it’s all right now,” said Vince, to the watcher’s great relief. “It’s all of a slope here, as if it had once been a place where water ran down. Wait a moment till I get out my knife.”
There was a pause, during which Mike climbed round to the end where Vince was trying to get out; and he was there by the time his companion began hacking at the brambles with his big knife, first his arm appearing and soon after his head, as he chopped away, getting himself free, and seizing the hand extended to him from where Mike knelt and reached down.
“Hah!” cried Vince, as he climbed on to one of the rugged blocks, “that wasn’t nice. It slopes down from here, so that where I fell through I must have dropped a dozen feet; but I came down standing, and then fell this way on my hands and stopped myself from sliding, when a lot of stones that had been waiting for a touch went down.”
“But are you hurt?” cried Mike anxiously.
“Not much: bit bruised, I suppose. But I say, isn’t it rum? There must have been water running to make a place like that. It must have come all along the bottom, where we’ve been creeping, and run down here, eating its way, like your father and mine were talking about one evening.”
“I’d forgotten,” said Mike. “But if it ran down there, where did it go to?”
“Down to the sea, of course, and— I say, Mike, don’t you see?” cried Vince excitedly.
“See? See what?” said the lad, staring.
“What I said.”
“How could any one see what you said!” cried Mike, ready enough to laugh now that his companion was out of danger.
“Oh, don’t be stupid at a time like this!” grumbled Vince excitedly. “Once water begins to eat away, it goes on eating a channel for itself, like it does at the waterfall over the other side of the island. Well, this must have cut itself a way along. It’s quite a big, sloping passage, and it must go down to the shore. Can’t you see now?”
“I don’t know. Do you mean that hole leads down to the shore?”
“Yes, or into some cavern like the great holes where the stream runs out into the sea.”
“Then it would be a way down into the Black Scraw?” cried Mike excitedly.
“Of course it would. Why, Mikey, we’ve found out what we were looking for!”
“You mean you tumbled upon it,” said Mike, laughing.
“Tumbled into it,” cried Vince, whose face was flushed with eagerness. “Come on down, and let’s have a look if I’m not right.”
“What, down there?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But isn’t it dark?”
“Black enough lower down; but you can see the top part, because the light shines through all these brambles and thorns.”
“But hadn’t we better wait till I’ve got a lanthorn and the rope?”
“Why, of course, before we try to explore it; but we might go and look a little way. You’re not afraid?”
“No, I don’t think I’m afraid,” said Mike.
“Then come on.”
Without a moment’s hesitation Vince began to lower himself down where he had so lately emerged, and Mike followed; but in a few minutes they had decided that they could do nothing without a light. All they could make out was that there was a rugged slope, very steep and winding, going right away in the direction of the sea. They picked up the loose stones beneath their feet, and threw them into the darkness, and listened to hear them go bounding down, striking the sides and floor; but there seemed to be no precipitous fall, and at last, thoroughly satisfied with their discovery, they climbed back into daylight, and sat down on the stones to rest and think.
“I’ve got it!” said Mike suddenly. “It isn’t what you think.”
“What is it, then?”
“An old mine, where they bored for lead in the old, old days.”
“No,” said Vince stubbornly, “it’s what I say—the channel of an old stream; and you’ll see.”
“So will you, my lad, when we bring a lanthorn. I say you’ll find the walls sparkling with what-you-may-call-it—you know—that glittering lead ore, same as we’ve got specimens of in the cabinet at home.”
“No,” said Vince; “you’ll find that it’ll be all smooth, worn granite at the sides, where the water has been running for hundreds of years.”
“Till it all ran away. Very well, then: let’s go back at once and get a lanthorn and the rope.”
Vince laughed. “We’ve got to get home first, and by the time we’ve done that we shan’t want to make another journey to-day; but I say to-morrow afternoon, directly after dinner. Are you willing?”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll bring the rope?”
“To be sure; and you the crowbar and hammer?”
Vince promised, and sat there very thoughtful, as he gazed down at the hacked-away brambles.
“Let’s put these away or throw them down,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because if Old Daygo came along here, he’d see that some one had found a way down into the Scraw.”
“Daygo! What nonsense! I don’t believe he ever was along here in his life.”
“Perhaps not; but he may come now, if he sees us spying about. I’m sure he watches us.”
“And I’m sure you’ve got a lot of nonsense in your nut about the old chap. Now then, shall we go?”
“Yes; I’m willing. Think we can find it again?”
“Easily,” said Mike. “Look up yonder: we can take those two pieces of rock up on the ridge for our bearings. They stand as two ends of the base A B, as Mr Deane would say, and if you draw lines from them they will meet here at this point, C. This hole’s C, and we can’t mistake it.”
“No. But look here: this is better still. Look at that bit of a crag split like a bishop’s mitre.”
“Yes: I see.”
“We’ve got to get this laid-down rock in a line with it, and there are our bearings; we can’t be wrong then.”
“No,” cried Mike. “Who wouldn’t know how to take his bearings when he’s out, and wants to mark a spot! Now then, is it lay our heads for home?”
It was a long while before either of them slept that night for thinking of their discovery, and when they did drop off, the dark, tunnel-like place was reproduced in their dreams.
Chapter Nine.
Study versus Discovery.
“Dear, dear, dear, dear!” in a tone full of reproach, and then a series of those peculiar sounds made by the tongue, and generally written “tut-tut-tut-tut!” for want of a better way—for it is like trying to express on paper the sound of a Bosjesman’s click cluck or the crowing of a cock.
The speaker was Mr Humphrey Deane—a tall, pale, gentlemanly-looking young university man, who, for reasons connected with his health, had arranged with Sir Francis Ladelle and the Doctor to come and stay at the Mount, where he was to have a comfortable home and the Doctor’s attendance, a moderate stipend, and, in exchange, to help on the two lads in their studies every morning, the rest of the day being his own.
The plan had worked admirably; for Mr Deane was an earnest, able man, with a great love of learning, and always ready to display a warm friendship for boy or man who possessed similar tastes. The lads liked him: he was always firm, but kindly; and he possessed that wonderful power of imparting the knowledge he possessed, never seeming at a loss for means to explain some puzzling expression in classic lore, or mathematical problem, so as to impress it strongly upon his pupil’s mind.
The morning he uttered the words at the beginning of this chapter he was seated with the two boys in the long, low library at the Mount, whose heavy windows looked out upon a great, thick, closely-cropped yew hedge, which made the room dark and gloomy, for it completely shut off all view of the western sea, though at the same time it sheltered the house from the tremendous gales which swept over the island from time to time.
It was the morning after the discovery in so unpleasant a manner of the hole at the foot of the slope, and their projected visit of investigation in the afternoon so filled the lads’ heads that there did not seem to be any room for study; and, in consequence, after patiently bearing the absence of mind and inattention of his pupils for a long time, the tutor began to be fidgety and, in spite of his placid nature, annoyed.
The Latin reading and rendering went on horribly, and the mathematics worse. Vince tried hard; but as soon as he began to write down a + b—c = the square root of x, his mind wandered away to the rocks over the Black Scraw. For that root of x was so suggestive: x represented the unknown quantity, and the Black Scraw was the unknown quantity of which he wanted to get to the root; and, over and over again, when the tutor turned to him, it was to find the boy, pen in hand, but with the ink in it dried up, while he sat gazing straight before him at imaginary grottoes and caverns, lit up by lanthorns which cast the black shadows of two explorers behind them on the water-smoothed granite floor.
But this did not apply only to Vince, for Mike was acting in a similar way; and at the end of an hour Mr Deane could bear it no longer, for it had happened at a time when he was not so well as usual, and it required a strong effort of will to be patient with the inattentive lads when suffering pain.
And so it was that at last he uttered the “dear dears” and “tut tuts,” and roused the two boys from their dreams about what they would see in the afternoon.
“Are you unwell, Vincent Burnet?” he said.
“Unwell, sir?—oh no!” said the lad, colouring a little.
“You seem so strange in your manner this morning; and Michael Ladelle here is the same. I hope you are not both sickening for something.”
“Oh, I’m quite well, sir,” said Mike hurriedly. “Perhaps it’s the weather.”
“Perhaps it is,” said Mr Deane drily. “Now, pray get on with those problems.”
“Yes, of course,” cried Vince; and he began to work away most industriously, till, as the tutor was resting his head upon his hand and looking down at the paper upon which he was himself working out the problem he had set the boys, so as to be able to show them, step by step, how it was best done, Mike scribbled something on a scrap, shut it in a book, and passed it to Vince, after glancing across the table and then giving him a nudge.
Vince glanced across too; but Mr Deane was apparently intent upon the problem, his delicate right-hand guiding the new quill pen, and forming a long series of beautifully formed characters which were always looked upon by the boys with envy and surprise.
Vince opened the book at the scrap of paper and read:
“I say: let’s tell old Deane, and make him go with us.”
Vince turned the paper over and wrote:
“What for? He’d spoil it all. Want to knock all the fun out of our discovery?”
The scrap was shut up in the book and pushed back to the sender; the work continued, and then came another nudge and the book once more, with a fresh scrap of paper stuck in.
“I say, I can’t get on a bit for thinking about the Black Scraw.”
Vince wrote on the back:
“More can I. Get on with your work, and don’t bother.”
This was forwarded by library table post, and then there was nothing heard but the scratching of the tutor’s pen. But Mike’s restlessness increased: he fidgeted and shuffled about in his chair, shook the table, and tried all kinds of positions to help him in solving his algebraic problem, but without avail. Scrub oaks, ravens and red-legged choughs danced before his eyes; great dark holes opened in the rocks, and the desire to finish work, get out in the bright sunshine, and run and shout, seemed more than he could bear.
At last, to relieve his feelings a little, he took a fresh piece of paper, laid it over his pluses and minuses and squares and cubes, and then wrote enigmatically:
“Lanthorn and rope.”
This he blotted, glanced at the hard-working student across the table, and then thrust it sidewise to Vince, who took it, read it, and, turning it over, wrote:
“You be hanged!”
He was in the act of blotting it when the pen dropped from Mr Deane’s fingers; he sat up, and extended his hand as he looked sternly across the table.
“Give me that piece of paper, Vincent,” he said.
Vince hesitated; but the tutor’s eyes gazed firmly into his, and wrong yielded to right.
He passed the paper across to Mr Deane, and then nearly jumped out of his chair, for Mike gave him a violent kick under the table.
“To be paid with interest,” thought Vince.
“Oh! you jolly sneak, to give it up!” thought Mike, as the tutor read the paper on both sides.
“I am very sorry,” he said, after coughing to clear his voice—“very sorry to have to exercise my authority towards you two, who have been acting this morning like a pair of inattentive, idle schoolboys; but when I undertook to act as your tutor, it was with the full understanding that I was to have complete authority over you, and that you were both to treat me with proper respect.”
The boys sat silent and feeling horribly guilty. If Humphrey Deane had been an overbearing, blustering personage, they might have felt ready to resent his words; but the injured tone, the grave, gentle manner of the invalid went right home to both, and they listened, with their eyes upon their scanty display of work, as the tutor went on.
“You both know,” he said, “that my health will not permit of much strain, but so long as you both work with me and try your best, it is a pleasure to me, and no one could feel more gratification than I do when you get on.”
“Mr Deane,” began Vince.
“One moment, and I have done,” continued the tutor. “You well know that I try to make your studies pleasant.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mike.
“And that when the morning’s work is over I am only too glad to join you in any amusement or excursion. I ask you, then, is it fair, when you see I am unwell, to make my endeavours to help you a painful toil, from your carelessness and inattention?”
“No, Mr Deane,” said Vince quickly; “it’s too bad, and I’m very sorry. There!”
“Thank you, Burnet,” said the tutor, smiling. “It’s what I expected from your frank, manly nature.”
“Oh, and I’m sorry too,” said Mike quickly; but he frowned slightly, for the speaker had not called him frank and manly.
“I have no more to say,” said the tutor, smiling at both in turn; “and I suppose I ought to apologise for insisting upon seeing that paper. I am glad to find that it was not of so trifling a nature as I thought for on Michael Ladelle’s part, though I am sorry that you, Burnet, treated the note he passed you in so ribald a way. ‘You be hanged!’ is hardly a gentlemanly way of replying to a historical memorandum or query such as this: ‘Lanthorn and rope.’ Of course, I see the turn your thoughts had taken, Michael.”
The boys stared at him wonderingly. While they had been suspecting old Joe Daygo of watching them, had Mr Deane been quietly observing them unnoticed, and had he divined that they were going to take lanthorn and rope that afternoon?
“Of course, history is a grand study,” continued the tutor, “and I am glad to see that you have a leaning in that direction; but I like to be thorough. When we are having lessons on history let us give our minds to it, but when we are treating of algebra let us try to master that. There—we will say no more. I am glad, though, that you recall our reading; but try, Michael, to remember some of the other important parts of French history, and don’t let your mind dwell too much upon the horrors of the Revolution. It is very terrible, all that about the excesses of the mob and their mad hatred of the nobility and gentry—A bas les aristocrates! and their cry, A la lanterne! Yes: very terrible those ruthless executions with the lanthorn and the rope. But now, please, I have finished that compound equation. Pray go on with yours.”
The two lads bent down now earnestly to their work, and with a little help mastered the puzzle which had seemed hopeless a short time before. Then the rest of the morning glided away rapidly, and Vince hurried off home to his midday dinner, after a word or two about meeting, which was to be at the side of the dwarf-oak wood, to which each was to make his way so as not to excite attention, and in case, as Vince still believed, Daygo really was keeping an eye upon their movements.
“I thought as much,” said Vince aloud, as he reached the appointed place, with a good-sized creel in his hand, the hammer and crowbar being in a belt under his jersey, like a pair of hidden weapons. “I’d go by myself if I had the rope.”
“And lanthorn,” said Mike, raising his head from where he had been lying hidden in a clump of heather.
“Hullo, then!” cried Vince joyously. “I didn’t see you there. But, I say: lanthorn and rope! I felt as if I must burst out laughing.”
“Yes: wasn’t it comic?”
“I felt that I must tell him—poor old chap!—and as if I was trying to cheat him.”
“Oh no, it wasn’t that! We couldn’t help him taking the wrong idea. I’d have told him at once, only it seems to spoil the fun of the thing if everybody knows. But come on.”
“Wait a minute,” said Vince, sitting on a stone. “I want to look all round first without seeming to. Perhaps old Joe’s watching us.”
“If he is,” said Mike sagely, “you won’t see him, for he’ll be squatted down by some block of stone, or in a furze bush. He’s a regular old fox. Let’s go on at once. But where’s the lanthorn?”
“Never you mind about the lanthorn: where’s the rope?”
“Lying on it. Now, where’s the light?”
“In the creel here,” was the reply. Then without further parley they plunged into the wood, and, profiting by former experiences, made their way more easily through it into the rocky chaos beyond; threaded their way in and out among the blocks, till at last with very little difficulty they found their bearings, and, after one or two misses in a place where the similarity of the stones and tufts of furze and brambles were most confusing, they reached the end of the opening, noted how the old watercourse was completely covered in with bramble and fern, and then stepped down at once, after a glance upward along the slope and ridge, to stand the next minute sheltered from the wind and in the semi-darkness.
Chapter Ten.
A Venturesome Journey.
“Mind how you go,” said Mike in a subdued voice, for the darkness and reverberation following the kicking of a loose pebble impressed him.
“All right: it’s only a stone. It was just down there that I slipped to. Ahoy!”
He shouted softly, with one hand to his mouth, and his cry seemed to run whispering away from them to echo far beneath their feet.
“I say, don’t do that,” said Mike excitedly.
“Why not? Nobody could hear.”
“No; but it sounds so creepy and queer. Let’s have a light.”
It did sound “creepy and queer,” for the sounds came from out of the unknown, which is the most startling thing in nature, from the fact that our busy brains are always ready to dress it up in the most weird way, especially if the unknown lies in the dark.
But no more was said, for Vince was busy opening his basket, out of which he drew an old-fashioned horn lanthorn and gave it to Mike to hold, while he took something else out of the creel, which rattled as it was moved.
“Why, you’ve only brought half a candle,” said Mike, who had opened the lanthorn, and held it so that the rays which streamed down through the brambles overhead fell in its interior. “What shall we do when that burns out?”
“Light one of the pieces I’ve got in my pockets,” said Vince coolly, as he sat down on the water-worn granite, and placed a round, flattish tin box between his knees. “Didn’t bring a cushion with you, did you?”
“Cushion? No; what for?”
“One to sit on: this is precious hard.”
And then scratch, scratch: a rub of a tiny wax match upon the sanded side of a box, and a flash of red, dim light followed by a clear white flame?
Nothing of the kind: matches of that sort had not been invented fifty or sixty years ago. Whoever wanted a light had to go to work as Vince prepared to do, after placing a thin slip of wood sharpened at each end and dipped in brimstone ready to hand. Taking a piece of steel or iron bent round so as to form a rough handle to be grasped, while the knuckles were guarded by the edge of the steel, this was held over the tin box, which was, on the inner lid or press being removed, half full of burned cotton ash now forming the tinder that was to catch the sparks.
Vince was pretty handy at the task from old experience, and gripping the box tightly between his knees he made the hollow, cavernous place echo again as he struck the steel in his left hand with a piece of sharp-edged flint held in his right.
Nick, nick, nick, nick—the nearly forgotten sound that used to rise in early morning from the kitchen before a fire could be lit—and nick, nick, nick, nick again, here in the narrow opening, where the rays of sunshine shot down and made the sparks which flew from flint and steel look pale as they shot downward at every stroke the lad gave.
Mike felt nervous at the idea of penetrating the depths below them, and to hide this nervousness he chattered, and said the first thing that came to his lips in a bantering tone:
“Here! you are a fellow to get a light. Let me have a try.”
But as he spoke one spark fell upon the tinder and seemed to stay, while as soon as Vince saw this he bent down and blew, with the result that it began to glow and increase in size so much that when the brimstoned point of the match was applied to the glowing spot still fanned by the breath the curious yellow mineral began to melt, sputter, and then burst into a soft blue flame, which was gradually communicated to the wood. This burned freely, the candle in the lanthorn was lit, the door shut, and the tinder-box with flint and steel closed and smothered out and returned to the creel.
“You’d have done it in half the time, of course,” said Vince, rising and slinging the creel on his back. “Now then, are you going to carry the lanthorn?”
“I may as well, as I’ve got it,” said Mike.
“All right: then you’ll have to go first.”
Mike felt disposed to alter the arrangement, but he could not for very shame.
“You take the rope, then. But, I say, you needn’t carry that creel as well,” he said.
“I don’t want to; but suppose the candle goes out?”
“Oh, you’d better take it,” said Mike eagerly. “Ready?”
“Yes, if you are.”
Mike did not feel at all ready, but he held the lanthorn up high and took a step or two forward and downward, which left the sunlit part of the place behind, and then began cautiously to descend a long rugged slope, which was cumbered with stones of all sizes, these having evidently fallen from the roof and sides, the true floor of the tunnel-like grotto being worn smooth by the rushing water which must at one time have swept along, reaching in places nearly to the roof just above the boys’ heads.
The way was very steep, and winding or rather shooting off here and there, after forming a deep, wonderfully rounded hollow, in which in several cases huge rounded stones lay as they had been left by the torrent, after grinding round and round as if in a mill, smoothing the walls of the hollow, and at the same time making themselves spherical through being kept in constant motion by the water. These pot-holes, as a geologist would call them, are common enough in torrents, where a heavy stone is borne into a whirlpool-like eddy, and goes on grinding itself a deeper and deeper bed, the configuration of the rock-walls where it lies having prevented its being swept down at the first, while every year after it deepens its bed until escape becomes impossible.
Again and again, as they went on, places of this kind were met with; while twice over they had to pause at spots where the water must have sprung from a shelf ten or a dozen feet down into a basin which it had hollowed for itself in the course of time.
Upon the first of these sudden drops presenting itself Mike stopped with the lanthorn.
“Here’s the end of it,” he said. “Goes down into a sort of bottomless pit, black as ink. Let’s go back.”
Vince stepped close to his side and gazed down into the black depths with a feeling of awe, the place looking the more terrible from the fact that the tunnel had narrowed until there was only just room for them to stand between the smooth granite walls.
“Looks rather horrid,” said Vince. “Worse than a big well. Let’s see how deep it is.”
He stepped back and picked up a stone that had fallen from the roof, returning to where Mike held up the lanthorn for him to see.
Down went the block of stone, and they prepared themselves to hear it go bounding and echoing far away in the bowels of the earth; but it stopped instantly with a loud clang, and Vince cried,—
“Why, it isn’t deep at all! I can see it.”
A ring or two of the rope was cast loose, passed through the handle of the lanthorn, and upon lowering it down block after block presented itself sufficient to enable them to descend into what proved to be quite a hollow, from which the stream must have leapt into another and again into another, each being a fall of only a few feet. After which there was another great pot-hole, like a vast mortar with a handleless pestle of rock remaining therein.
Beyond this the water had carved out a rugged trough, steep enough to form a slide if they had felt disposed to trust themselves to it, and Vince laughingly suggested that they should glide down.
“Only it wouldn’t do,” he added. “We can’t tell what’s at the bottom. Might mean a bad fall. Had enough of it?”
“Yes, ever since we started,” replied Mike.
“Then you want to go back?”
“Oh no, I don’t,” retorted Mike. “One can’t help feeling that one must keep on and see where it goes to, even if it does make you turn creepy. Doesn’t it you?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” replied Vince thoughtfully; “and I wouldn’t go on, only it’s so easy to climb back, and the air feels fresh and sweet, so that except that it’s dark there’s nothing to mind.”
“But suppose the candle went out. How much is there left?”
As Mike spoke, he opened the door of the lanthorn and looked at the light anxiously, but they had not burned an inch.
“We could easily get another light,” said Vince; “and we must go on now. Here, shall I go down first?”
“No; I’ll keep to it,” cried Mike. “I’m not going to have you jeering at me afterwards and telling me I was afraid. But look here, Cinder: you can’t walk down—it really is too steep.”
“Let’s try the rope: I’ll fasten it, and then you can hold on.”
“Nothing to fasten it to.”
“Soon get over that,” said Vince; and, taking out the iron bar and the hammer, he found a crack in the rock directly, into which he drove the narrow edge till it was perfectly firm, the roof just overhead echoing the blows of the hammer so rapidly that in a short time it sounded as if a dozen smiths were at work.
“Stop a moment,” cried Mike, as he held the light, and Vince began to tie the end of the rope to the strong iron peg he had formed.
“What for?”
“Suppose when we get down we want the rope for another place, what should we do if we leave it here?”
Vince took the lanthorn and held it out before him, so that he could examine the trough-like slope.
“I shouldn’t like to trust myself to slide down here,” he said; “but there’s nothing to prevent our climbing up. Let’s double the rope and hook the middle over the bar; then, when we’re down, we can pull one end and get it free.”
This was done, and, tying the lanthorn to his neck by means of his kerchief, Mike secured the doubled rope and let himself down, his companion soon after seeing him standing some thirty feet lower.
A minute later Vince was by his side, and they looked about them, but there was nothing fresh to see. The roof was only a foot above their heads. The width of the place averaged six or seven feet, and there was this to encourage them—no branches occurred to form puzzling labyrinths. If they had been overtaken by darkness there was nothing to prevent their feeling their way back into the sunshine. So, growing accustomed to the place, familiarity, if it did not breed contempt, made them cooler and more ready to go on descending over similar obstacles to those they had previously encountered, till all at once Mike stopped short, and held up the lanthorn beneath which he peered.
“What is it?” said Vince anxiously.
“Hark! What’s that?” said Mike, in a whisper full of awe.
A dull rushing sound smote upon their ears, but in a muffled, strange way, that puzzled them to make out what it might be.
“I know,” said Vince at last: “it’s water.”
“Think so?” said Mike dubiously.
“Yes. I’ve been puzzling ever so long to make out how it was that water could have run along here, and for there to be none now, but I see how it is. This was once the channel of the stream, till it ate its way down through the rock to a lower one, and that’s it we can hear running somewhere below.”
“Perhaps,” said Mike; but his words implied doubt, and, after once more examining the candle in the lanthorn, he led on, but very cautiously and slowly now, though the passage was easier, and the slope less broken by step-like faults in the granite, over which the water must once have flowed.
At the end of a dozen yards Mike stopped again, and Vince quite as willingly, for the dull rushing sound continued, and they looked at each other by the light of the lanthorn.
“How far down are we, do you think?” said Mike.
“I dunno. Must be a long way below the sea.”
Mike nodded, and Vince continued:
“I thought it led down into the Scraw cove, but we must be lower than that.”
“Yes, ever so much; and it strikes me that we might go on down and down for hours. Haven’t we done enough for this time?”
“Well, yes,” said Vince, in a hesitating tone; “only I should have liked to find out something better than going on and on, just like in one of the caverns on the shore stretched out a tremendous way.”
“Yes, I should have liked to see something more; but this is a curious place. Old Deane would like to come down here and see those round stones in the holes.”
“We’ll bring him some day,” said Vince. “Well, suppose we’d better go back, for it seems to be all like this.”
“Can’t be all like this, because there’s water rushing somewhere down below.”
“Well, let’s go on till we come to the water, and then turn back.”
“But if it’s very dangerous?”
“We won’t go into danger. You keep the lanthorn well up, so that you can see where you go, and then you can stop.”
“Suppose you lead now,” said Mike: “my arm aches awfully with holding up the light.”
“All right: I’ll go first, then.”
“But I’m not afraid to!” cried Mike hastily.
“Well, I am, Ladle,” said Vince frankly; “and I shall go very slowly and carefully, I can tell you. Here, you carry the rope and hammer. Stop a minute, though: how’s the light?”
He opened the lanthorn door now, and was surprised to see how little the candle was burned down, but there was a tremendously long snuff with a fungous top.
“I thought it was very dull,” he said; and, moistening his fingers, he snuffed the candle.—“Now we shall have a better light.”
But unfortunately he had moistened his fingers too much, and the result was that the shortened wick hissed, sputtered, burned blue, and then without further warning went out.
“Oh!” cried Mike, in tones of horror, as they stood there in profound darkness.
“Oh!” was echoed along the passage, and prolonged as if in a groan.