Crown and Sceptre Part 11

"Wish I could fly like that," said Scarlett. "Look at them; they're going right over the Rill Head."

The two boys stopped and watched until the birds glided out of sight, beyond the lion-like headland, an object, however, which grew less lion-like the nearer they drew.

"What would be the good?" replied Fred. "It would soon be very stupid to go gliding here and there."

"But see how easy it would be to float like that."

"How do you know?" said practical Fred. "I dare say a bird's wings ache sometimes as much as our legs do with running. I say, Scar."

"Yes."

"Let's go and have a look at the caves."

"What caves?"

"Down below the Rill. Now, only think of it; we were born here, and never went and had a look at them. Samson says that one of them is quite big and runs in ever so far, with a place like a chimney at one end, so that you can get down from the land side."

"And Nat said one day that it was all nonsense; that they were just like so many rabbit-holes--and that's what he thought they were."

"But our Samson said he had been in them; and if they were no bigger than rabbit-holes, he couldn't have done that. Let's go and see."

"Bother! I had enough of poking about in that damp old pa.s.sage, and all for nothing. I thought we were going to find the way in there."

"Well, so we did."

"But I mean the other end."

"Bother, bother! what's the good!"

"How do I know? It's very curious. There's something seems to draw you on when you are underground," said Scarlett, dreamily.

"Hark at the old worm! Why, Scar, I believe you'd like to live underground."

Scarlett shook his head.

"I mean to find that way in to our place some day, whether you help me or whether you do not. Never mind what your Samson said about the Rill caves. He don't know. Let's go and see."

"What's the good?"

"I don't know that it will be any good, but let's see. There may be all kinds of strange things in a cave. I've read about wonderful places that went into the earth for a long way."

"Yes; but our Rill cave would not. My father told me one day about two caves he went into in Derbys.h.i.+re. One had a little river running out of it, and he went in and walked by the side of the water for a long way till he came to a black arch, and there the gentlemen who were with him lit candles and they waded into the water and crept under the dark arch, and then went on and on for a long way through cave after cave, all wet and dripping from the top. Sometimes they were obliged to wade in the stream, and sometimes they walked along the edge."

"And what did they find?"

"Mud," said Fred, laconically.

"Nothing else?"

"No; only mud, sticky mud, no matter how far they went; and at last they got tired of it, and turned back to find that the water had risen, and was close up to the top of the arch under which they had crept, so that they had to wait half a day before it went down."

"What made the water rise?" asked Scarlett; "the tide?"

"No; there were no tides there right in among the hills."

"Then how was it?"

"There had been a storm, and the water had run down and filled the little river."

As they chatted, the lads walked steadily on, and began to ascend the long, low eminence, which formed, as it were, the large body of the couchant lion, but which from where they were, seemed like the most ordinary of hills.

"There was another cave, too, that my father went into, but that was very different. It was high up in among the hills, and you went down quite a hole to get to it, and then it was just as if the inside of the hill had come full of cracks and splits along which he kept climbing and walking with the two sides just alike, just as if the stone had been broken in two."

"Then this was stone, not mud," said Scarlett, who was deeply interested.

"Yes, solid stone--rock; and every here and there you could see curious shapes, just as if water had been running down, and it had all been turned into stone."

"I should like to go and see a place like that," said Scarlett.

"Yes; I shouldn't mind seeing a cave like that. Father says it went in for miles, and n.o.body had ever got to the end of it, for it branched off into narrow slits, and sometimes you were walking on shelves, and you could hold the candle over and look down horrible holes that were n.o.body knows how deep, and there you could hear the water gurgling at the bottom, and hissing and splas.h.i.+ng, and--Oh!"

"Scar!" yelled Fred, making a dash at his companion just in time to catch him by the arm as he suddenly dropped down through a narrow opening in the midst of the short green turf over which they were walking.

So narrow was the opening, and so nearly hidden by gra.s.s and heath, that Scarlett had no difficulty in supporting himself by spreading out his arms, as soon as he had recovered from the first startling effect of his slip.

But he did not stop many minutes in this position. Fred hung on to his arm. He threw himself sidewise, grasped tightly hold of a stout branch of heath, and scrambled out.

"Who'd have thought of there being a hole like that?" said Scarlett, as soon as he was safe. "But I don't suppose it's very deep, after all.

Got a stone?"

"No. Listen."

Fred had thrown himself upon his breast, and craned his neck over the place, trying to peer down, but only into darkness, the hole evidently not going down straight; it being, in fact, a narrow crack, such as he had described in telling of the Derbys.h.i.+re cavern.

Scarlett, who looked rather white from the shock he had received, joined his companion, and bent down to listen.

"Hear that?" said Fred in a whisper.

"Yes; water."

"Water! Yes, of course; but listen again."

They kept silence, and there ascended from below, through the almost hidden crevice, a low whisper of an echoing roar, which died away in a peculiar hissing sound that was thrilling in its strange suggestiveness.

"There must be a waterfall somewhere below there," said Scarlett at last.

"Why, don't you know what it is?"

"No."