"No; but anybody not a fool could see it with half an eye. I can't think why you don't. He's an awfully jolly old boy, for all he's so gruff and such an old tyrant. He'd like you to like him I'm sure. I can't think why you don't."
"You'd much better," advised Puck, "or perhaps you'll make him angry, and then he might put you into one of his tanks and use you for his experiments. I think it's silly of you always to run away and hide when he comes. He's always asking where you have gone to, and when we tell him you're hiding away from him, he looks as if he didn't quite like it, though he always laughs his big, gruff laugh."
"O Puck! why do you tell?"
"Well, we must speak the truth," said Puck with an air of virtue; "and you know you do always scuttle away when he comes."
"Never mind," cried Pickle, who was in a mighty hurry to be off; "come along now, and let's go up. We may go any time after dinner, you know."
"It's so hot!" said Esther with a little sigh. "Would it do if I came a little later? The sun makes my head ache."
"Oh, but it's all in the wood, and I don't believe he'll have us without you. Do come along. Boys never have headaches. I don't see why girls should have either."
Esther yielded. She did not want to spoil the boys' holiday afternoon, but she did wish that her going with them had not been a condition. Her fears of the Crag and its master did not diminish from the things she heard dropped by older people about the things going on there, now that Mr. Trelawny had an assistant in his experiments. The scientific names she heard spoken sounded terrible in her ears; and she pictured the two men in their gloomy cave, sitting up all the night through pursuing wonderful and mysterious researches, and her books of historical romance, which told of the secret machinations of wizards and magicians, acquired for her a new fascination and a new terror.
The three children started off through the pine woods, but Esther was soon left far behind. The boys clambered hither and thither, rushing about with the inexhaustible energy of children; but Esther's feet lagged wearily, and her small face was pale. There were shadows beneath her eyes, and she pulled off her hat and fanned herself with it, thinking the way to the Crag had never seemed so long before.
Esther's head had taken to aching a good deal of late. At night she could not always sleep. Her lessons seemed to dance before her eyes, and she would dream about them even after she got off to slumber-land.