“I don’t think I should be a coward about other things. Can’t you give me something else to do that isn’t going in a boat?”
Queenie quite approved of being appealed to in this way. She liked to feel her power over Bertie, and her face relaxed its severity. After a little pause she approached a few paces nearer to the little boy, and asked, in a low and mysterious tone,—
“Should you be afraid to climb about the cliffs to look for sea-gulls’ eggs or young birds?”
Bertie looked both eager and astonished.
“No, I don’t think so,” he answered, glancing down the rugged face of the cliff, which showed numbers of rough ledges and natural rocky steps, very tempting to boys with steady heads and a natural aptitude for climbing. “Do you mean now—to-day?”
“No,” answered Queenie, laying her finger on her lips and looking cautiously round her. “It’s a great secret, and you mustn’t say a word to anybody. But when the spring comes Phil and I are going to come here and try and get some young sea-gulls,—David will tell us the best places,—and if you can promise to be brave, perhaps you may come too.”
Bertie looked eager and excited. He had a good deal of innate daring and love of adventure, little though some of his companions guessed it, and a hunt about those grim, rocky cliffs seemed to him the most attractive of schemes.
“Oh, shouldn’t I like that!” he cried. “I’ll practise climbing every day till the spring comes. I’d like to catch a pair of gulls for the Squire too. I heard him say once that he wanted some, to eat the snails in the kitchen garden. Can’t we find some, to-day, Queenie? Why must we wait till the spring?”
“Phil says there are no young birds now; they’ve all got big and flown away. We must wait till some more are hatched—that will be in the spring. I’m glad you’re not afraid, Bertie. You shall come with us, and perhaps David too; but you mustn’t say anything to the rest. We want it to be a secret, and if they know they’ll tell everybody, or let it out by accident, and then”—she stopped suddenly and added, with a little laugh, “then it would all be spoiled, and they would get all the fun; but it’s Phil’s secret and mine, and you must promise not to tell anybody.”
“Of course not,” answered Bertie, promptly; “I won’t say a word to anybody.”