I felt the insolence of the question, but was too young to resent it.
“No!” I exclaimed, surprised.
“Ah!” he said. “I lay he won’t be best pleased, sir, with humility. This here hill, sir, if all what’s said is Gospel true—is risky ground to walk fur them as knows it not, nor its toppling stones, sir, nor its hidden abscesses. I’d go home, sir, if I was you, with favour, sir.”
I was offended, but a little frightened also. Blushing scarlet, I turned away, without a word, and ran down the slope homewards.
I told Uncle Jenico of my adventure and encounter. To my further surprise he commended Mr. Rampick’s warning.
“What should I do, if anything happened to you, Richard, when I was not by?” he pleaded.
There was a note of emotion in his voice which touched me, and I promised I would never seek the Mitre again out of his company. I meant it when I said it; but, alas! the venturesomeness of youth led me later on, I am ashamed to confess, to disregard my promise.
That was not till long after, however; and in the meanwhile the weather remaining fine, as I have said, we had plenty of opportunity for exploring the district. Not a day was allowed to pass, moreover, without our investigating at least once in the twelve hours, a section of the coast. Uncle Jenico would prod all the way, with his thick stick, into the moraine of shingle which ran along the shore above the high tide mark. At these times he would be very absent-minded, answering my questions at random, and I knew that he had Morant and his golden bushels in his thoughts. He never found anything, however, and each evening would look up at the sky and predict stormy weather with a sham deprecation of the inconvenience it would be to us.
But at last the weather really did break, and dark evening settled in, with a high wind and rising sea. It blew a gale all night and throughout the following day, and Uncle Jenico bemoaned our detention in the house with a gratified face.
It was not until the second morning that it had cleared sufficiently to enable us to go out, which we did immediately after breakfast. The sun was blinking waterily, and the surf pounding yellow as we came down to the beach; but the wind had fallen and the rain ceased, which was enough for us.