Fred had gathered the rope into rings, and was taking a final glance down at what seemed to be an uglier descent the more it was inspected, and but for very shame he would have given up. He set his teeth, though, and handed one end of the rope to his companion.
“Catch hold—tight,” he said in a low voice. “If you let that go we’re done. Now then—one, two—”
He did not say three, for at that moment a gruff, husky voice came rumbling and echoing down toward them with the cheery hail of—
“Anybody at home?”
“Now, I wonder what them boys are going to do,” said Samson, over and over again, and each time that he said so he sighed and rubbed his back, and ended by resting upon the handle of his spade.
“No good, I’m sure,” he muttered. “Yes,” he added, after a thoughtful pause, “that’s it—going to let one another down over the cliffs so as to break their necks; and if they do, a nice mess I shall be in, for the colonel ’ll say it was all my fault for letting them have the rope.”
Samson turned over a couple of spadefuls of earth, and then drove the tool in with a fierce stab, leaving it sticking up in the ground.
“Here, I can’t go on digging and knowing all the time as them lads is breaking their necks over the cliff side. Never was in such a muddle as this before. Why didn’t they say what they were going to do?”
“Here, this must be stopped—this must be stopped!” he cried, with a display of energy such as he had not before shown that day; and, snatching up his jacket, he started off in the direction taken by the lads, he having had no difficulty in seeing that their aim was the mass of slaty rock, rounded and covered with short green turf, known as the Rill Head, up which he climbed just in time to shout down the grassy crevice the words which sent joy into the boys’ hearts.
“Hurrah! There’s help!” cried Scarlett, starting up.