Chapter 30

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_ CHAPTER THIRTY.

Matters grew no better. There was a leaning toward the rough lad, who seemed never weary of trying to perform little acts of kindness for his father's prisoner; but there was only one thing which the midshipman desired, and, as that could not be accorded, the friendly feeling between the two lads stayed where it was. In fact, it seemed to be turning into positive dislike on one side, Archy fiercely rating his gaoler over and over again, and Ram bearing it all in the meekest way.

The gloom was so familiar to Archy now that he could go almost anywhere about the great place, without stumbling over the loose fragments of stone, or being in danger of running up against the great pillars. And, as he roved about the quarry, his busy fingers touched packages and bales; he knew which parcels contained tobacco; he handled bales which he felt sure were silk, and avoided the piled-up kegs of brandy, whose sickly odour would always remind him of being ill at sea.

All these things occupied his mind a little, and when he was extra dull, he would go and lie down by the hole which admitted the salt sea air, or else make his way right under the trap-door, and climb up to it, and sit and listen for the coming of Ram.

One morning he was there, wondering whether it was near the boy's hour, and he was listening most intently, so as to get full warning and insure time enough to go back to his place and wait, when he fancied he heard the bark of a dog.

It was not repeated, and he was beginning to think that it was fancy, when the sound came again nearer, then nearer still, till there was a prolonged volley of canine-words, let us call them, for they evidently meant something from their being so persistent.

"Why--hurrah! He has found me!" cried the prisoner excitedly; and he heard quite plainly, as he clung to the rough steps and pressed his ear against the trap-door, the eager scratching made by a dog, and the snuffling noise as it tried to thrust its nose down amongst the stones.

"Hi! Good dog then!" he shouted, and there was a furious burst of barking.

Then there was a sharp sound as if a heavy stone had fallen upon a heap, and he heard it rattle down to the side.

Then there was a fierce growl, a bark, and directly after silence.

The midshipman's heart, which had been throbbing with excitement a few minutes before, sank down now like lead, as he waited to hear the sounds again, but waited in vain.

If ever the loud baying of a dog sounded like music in his ear, it was during those brief moments, and as he sat there, longing to know what it meant, and whether his conjecture was right that the dog had scented him out, he faintly heard the gruff tones of a voice, and, hastily descending, he went down the slope and made for his usual place.

"That's what it was," said Archy to himself. "The dog scented me out, and was scratching there till that great brute of a smuggler saw him, and threw a stone and drove him away. There they are."

He was right, the rough pieces of stone were being removed, and a few minutes later he saw the swinging lamp coming through the gloom.

The prisoner was, as he said, quite right, for that day Celia Graeme had wandered down towards the edge of the huge line of cliffs in a different direction to that which it was her wont to take.

It was not often that she stirred far from the gloomy fir-wood at the back of the house, for her life had not been that of most young people of her age. Her father's disappointed and impoverished life, consequent upon his political opinions, and her mother's illness and depression, had made the Hoze always a mournful home, and naturally this had affected her, making her a serious, contemplative girl, older than her years, and one who found her pleasure in sitting on a fallen trunk in the sheltering woods, listening to the roar of the wind in the pine boughs, watching the birds and squirrels, and having for companion her dog Grip, who, when she took him for her walks, generally ran mad for the first hour, scampering round and round her, making charges at her feet, and pretending to worry her shoes or dress; running off to hide and dash out upon her in a mock savage way; bounding into furze bushes, chasing the rabbits into their holes; and then, as if apologising for this wild getting rid of a superabundance of animal spirits kept low in the mournful old house, he would come as soon as she sat quietly down, crouch close up to her, and lay his head on her knee, to gaze up in her face, blinking his eyes, and not moving again perhaps for an hour.

Celia seldom went seaward. The distance was short, but she was content to watch the beautiful changes on the far-spreading waste from high up on the hills. There had been wrecks on the Freestone Shore, which made her shudder as she recalled how the wild cries of the hapless mariners in their appeals for help had reached the shore; she had seen the huge waves come tumbling in, to send columns of spray high in the air, to be borne over the land in a salt rain, and, as a rule, the sea repelled her, and she shrank, too, from the great folds of the cliff, with their mysterious-looking grass-grown ledges and cracks, up which came the whispering and gurgling of water, and at times fierce hissings as if sea monsters lived below, and were threatening those who looked down and did not pause to think that these sounds must be caused by air compressed by the inrushing tide.

Then, too, there was something oppressing in the poorly protected shafts with their sloping descents, once, perhaps hundreds of years back, the busy spots where old hewers of stone worked their way down below the thinner and poorer strata to where the freestone was clean and solid.

These spots attracted and yet repelled her, as she peered cautiously down, to see that they were half hidden by long strands of bramble, with tufts of pink-headed hemp agrimony, and lower down the sides and archway infringed with the loveliest of ferns.

There was something very mysterious-looking in these ancient quarries where foot of man never trod now, and she shivered as she passed funnel-shaped holes which she knew were produced by the falling in of the surface to fill up passages and chambers in the stone whose roofs had given way far below.

She often thought, when tempted by Grip in the direction of these weird old places, how horrible it would be if some day the earth suddenly sank beneath her, and she should be buried alive.

At such times her hands grew wet, and she retraced her steps, fancying the while that the earth sounded hollow beneath her tread.

Upon this particular morning Grip had vanquished her. He was always tempting her in this direction by making rushes and looking back as if asking her to come, for the dark holes tempted him. The rabbit burrows were all very well, but he could never get in them beyond his shoulders, while in these holes he could penetrate as far as he liked in search of imaginary wild creatures which were never found. Then, too, there were the edges of the cliffs where he could stand and bark at the waves far below, and sometimes, where they were not perpendicular, descend from shelf to shelf.

The morning was glorious, and the sea of a lovely amethyst blue, as Celia wandered on and on toward the highest of the hills away west of the Hoze. Grip was frantic with delight, his tail stood straight out, and his ears literally rattled as he charged over the short turf after some rabbit, which dodged through the bushes, reached its hole, displayed a scrap of white cotton, and disappeared.

And still, smiling at the dog's antics, the girl wandered on, nearer and nearer to where the land suddenly ended and the cliff went sharply down to the sea.

As she went on, stopping to admire the beautiful purple thistles, which sent up one each a massive head on its small stalk, or admired the patches of dyer's rocket and the golden tufts of ragwort, the old fancies about the ancient quarries were forgotten for the time, and she seated herself at last upon a projecting piece of stone, away there in the solitude, to watch the grey gulls and listen to the faint beat of the waves hundreds of feet below.

There were a few sheep here and there, but the Hoze was hidden beyond a fold of the mighty hills, and Shackle's farm and the labourer's cottage were all down in one of the valleys.

It was very beautiful, but extremely lonely, and to right and left there were the great masses of cliff, which seemed like huge hills suddenly chopped off by the sea, and before her the wide-stretching amethystine plain, with a sail or two far away.

Celia sat watching a little snake which was wriggling rapidly along past her, a little creature whose scales looked like oxidised silver in the afternoon sunshine, and she was about to rise and try to capture the burnished reptile, knowing from old experience that it was harmless, when at one and the same moment she became aware that Grip was missing, and that Ram Shackle and the big labourer from the farm, Jemmy Dadd, were coming up a hollow away to the right, one by which they could reach the down-like fields that spread along the edge of the cliffs from the farm.

She saw them, and hardly realising that they did not see her, she went on watching the reptile as it glided with easy serpentine motion through the grass.

"Ram is going to gather blackberries," she said to herself, as she glanced at his basket; "and Dadd is going to count the sheep. I ought to have brought a basket for some blackberries."

She felt full of self-reproach, as she recalled how plentifully they grew there, and how useful they would be at home. "And I might get some mushrooms, too," she thought, "instead of coming out for nothing."

Just then she heard Grip again barking very faintly.

"Stupid dog!" she said to herself, with a little laugh. "He has followed a rabbit to its hole. If he would only catch a few more, how useful they would be!"

Then she moved a little to follow the slow-worm, which was making for a patch of heath, and she was still watching it when, some time after, Grip came running up quickly, snarling and growling, and pausing from time to time to look back.

"Oh, you coward!" she said, sitting down and pulling his ears, as he thrust his head into her lap. "Afraid of a fox! Was it a fox's hole, then, and not a rabbit's, Grip?"

The dog growled and barked.

"Poor old fellow, then. Where is it, then?"

The dog leaped up, barked, and ran a few yards, to stop, look back at her, and bark again.

"No, no, Grip; I don't want to see," she said; and she began idly to pick up scraps of wild thyme and toss at the dog, who vainly kept on making rushes toward the slope of the great cliff.

"No, sir," she said, shaking her finger at him. "I am not going to be led to one of your discoveries, to see nothing for my pains."

The dog barked again, angrily, and not until she spoke sharply did he obey, and followed her unwillingly up the slope and then down into a hollow that looked as if at one time it might have been the bed of some great glacier.

The dog tried again to lead her away toward the sea, but she was inexorable; and so he followed her along unwillingly, till, low down in the hollow, as she turned suddenly by a pile of great blocks of weather-worn and lichened stone, she came suddenly upon Dadd and Ram, the former flat on his back, with his hat drawn-down over his eyes, the latter busy with his knife cutting a rough stick smooth.

"How do, Miss Celia?" said Ram, showing his white teeth.

"Quite well, Ram. How is your head now?"

"Oh, it's all right agen now, miss. On'y a bit sore."

"You tumbled off the cliff, didn't you?"

"Off a bit of it," said Ram, grinning. "Not far."

"But how foolish of you! Mrs Shackle said you might have been killed."

"Yes, miss, but I wasn't."

"What were you doing in such a dangerous place?"

"Eh?" said Ram, changing colour; "what was I doing?"

"Yes, to run such a risk."

"I was--I was--"

Ram was completely taken aback, and sat staring, with his mouth open.

"Lookin' after a lost sheep," came in a deep growl from under Jemmy Dadd's hat.

"Oh! And did you find it?"

"Yes; he fun' it," said the man, "but it were in a very dangerous place. It's all dangerous 'long here; and Master Shackle wouldn't let young Ram here go along these here clift slopes without me to take care on him."

Ram grinned.

"And you take my advice, miss, don't you come 'bout here. We lost four sheep last year, and come nigh losing the missuses best cow not long ago. Didn't you hear?"

"Yes; old Mary told me, and Mrs Shackle mentioned it too."

"Ay," continued Jemmy, without removing his hat, "she fell slip-slap into the sea."

"Poor thing."

"Ay, little missus; and, if I were you, I wouldn't come along top o' they clifts at all. Grass is so short and slithery that, 'fore you knows where you are, your feet goes from under you, and you can't stop yourself, and over you goes. And that aren't the worst on it; most like you're never found."

"Yes, 'tis very slippy, Miss Celia," said Ram, beginning to hack again at his stick.

"I do not come here very often, Ram," she said, quietly. "It is a long time since I came."

"Ay, and I wouldn't come no more, little missus," continued Jemmy, from under his hat, "for if you did not go off, that there dog--"

Grip had been looking on uneasily, and turning his head from one to the other, as each spoke in turn; but the minute he heard himself mentioned, he showed his teeth, and began to growl fiercely at the man.

"Look ye here," cried Jemmy, sitting up quickly and snatching away his hat, "if you comes at me--see the heel o' that there boot?"

He held up the great heavy object named, ready to kick out, and Grip bared his teeth for an attack.

"Down, Grip! Come here, sir. How dare you?"

But Grip did dare, and he would have dashed at the labourer if Celia had not caught him by the loose skin of his neck, when he began to shake his head and whine in a way that sounded like protesting.

"And me giving a bit of advice too," said Jemmy in an ill-used tone.

Grip barked fiercely.

"Be quiet, sir!"

"And going to say, little missus, that if that there dog comes hanging about here, he'll go over them there cliffs as sure as buttons, and never be seen no more."

"Come away, Grip. Thank you, Mr Dadd," said Celia, hurrying the dog away, and giving him a run down along the hollow; while Jemmy Dadd threw himself back, rolled over on to his face, and laughed hoarsely.

"I say, young Ram," he cried, "what a game!"

"What's a game?" said the boy sharply.

"That there dog; he won't forget that whack I give him on the ribs for long enough."

"Needn't have thrown so hard."

"Why not?"

"Don't like to see dogs hurt," said Ram, who was dealing with an awkward knot.

"Oh, don't you! Why, if your father had been along here with that rusty old gun of hisn, that he shoots rabbits with, and seen that dog scratching among them stones, know what he'd have done?"

"No."

"Well, then, I do. He'd have shot him. And if I ketches him ferretin' about there again, I'll drop a big flat stone down on him, and then chuck him off the cliff."

"If you do, I'll chuck you down after him," said Ram.

"What?" cried the man, bursting into a fresh roar of laughter. "Oh, come, I likes that. Why, you pup! That's what you are--a pup."

This was uttered with what was meant to be a most contemptuous intonation of the voice.

"Pups can bite hard sometimes, Jemmy," said Ram slowly; "and I shan't have Miss Celia's dog touched."

"Ho! Then he's to come here when he likes, and show everybody the way into our store, is he? Well, we shall see."

"Yes; and you'd better go and see if they've gone."

"Ah, yes, lad, I'll go and see if they've gone; and we needn't quarrel 'bout it, for it strikes me as little missus won't come down here no more, I scared her too much."

Jemmy burst into another hoarse fit of laughing, and went lumping off in his big sea-boots to see if Celia and her dog were well out of sight, before rejoining Ram to take the prisoner his repast. _

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