"No matter! You kids must do as you're bid, and if ever you go a step along there you'll catch it. See?" said David. And the infants, with moody brows, averred that they saw.
By this time the hole which formed the entrance to the cave was much improved. The wooden steps had been replaced by a flight of mud steps, the making of which had been a joy, not only to the boys, but to the baby. They had required water as well as mud in their making—endless paddlings and pattings and treadings down of little feet before the staircase was complete. David had engineered the proceedings, and Mr. Warde, now and then hovering about the top, had conferred advice. He was not encouraged to descend. The boys wanted no prying grown-ups to mar their schemes. Marjorie, now and then, had suspicions that some extra mischief was afloat. Never before had she known them to stick to anything for so long. But she recollected the fascination of caves and holes, and was, besides, much engaged with her own concerns.
The Bishop and the boy.—p. 170.
One evening the Bishop, on leaving the drawing-room, had gone to his study. It had been a wet day, and the rain had finished in a thunderstorm an hour or so before, leaving the sky washed and pellucid under the summer moon.
The shutters had been closed and a little fire lighted; but presently, finding the room warm, the Bishop opened the window, and stood gazing over the wide lawn which occupied the space between the house and the ruins.
The delicate tracery of the ruined window of the banqueting hall, and the many unevennesses of the walls, stood out black against the sky. Every object on the lawn—every bush and tree and flower—was sharply distinct.
As he looked, his eye caught a movement among the distant shrubs. Some small object was advancing along the gravelled walk surrounding the lawn. Presently, as if attracted by the light, it turned off the pathway on to the lawn, in a bee-line for the window.
The Bishop stood watching, wondering a little, when the object resolved itself first into a small boy, and then into Sandy Bethune.