"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 b.u.t.ter, 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 pa.s.sed.

"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: "G.o.d 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.