Cormorant Crag Part 20

"And that when the morning's work is over I am only too glad to join you in any amus.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.bility 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? n.o.body 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 cus.h.i.+on with you, did you?"

"Cus.h.i.+on? 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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?"