“Come out of that tree, you Ragamuffin,” it said. “Leave that squirrel alone, and kindly take the trouble to read the notice underneath you. ‘The public is allowed in these woods on sufferance only by permission of the Right Honorable the Countess of Crewkerne. Any person guilty of disorderly conduct, or who does willful damage to the trees, shrubs, and flowers, or who attempts to take fish from the lake, or who wanders in search of game, will be prosecuted with the utmost rigor of the law.’ Come down at once, you Ragamuffin.”
The voice belonged to Jim Lascelles, of course. Jim was looking rather haggard, weary, and disheveled. The truth is he had had no sleep during the night. In the acute phase of his fortunes he could not rest. A sensitive conscience assured him that he was on forbidden ground, seeking fruit to which he had no lawful claim. He would have been far better in Normandy.
This morning he was in a really desperate humor. Work had never been farther from his thoughts, and the fact that two persons had been reputed recently to have lost their lives in an attempted ascent of the Devil’s Footstool, seemed to invest that precipitous chasm with a certain attraction.
“Look here, you law-breakers,” said he, “let us go and have a look at the Devil’s Footstool.”
The Misses Perry needed no second invitation. The dark and baleful ascent looming up from the lower end of the lake had fascinated them already, and they had even made one or two tentative attempts upon it. A walk of twenty minutes brought them to the foot thereof; and Tobias being left in his bag at the bottom, the three of them began to conduct some highly interesting and extremely thrilling investigations.
From ledge to ledge they went, rising rapidly to a dizzy and precarious height. On one side of them was a torrent, on the other a chasm. But they went up resolutely, without a pause, although the foothold was very uncertain, and it meant death and destruction to look down. And when, in the course of three hours, they returned breathless and disheveled to whence they started, having made a complete circuit of the Devil’s Footstool, and the three of them sat down exulting in their weariness by the side of Tobias, they really felt that they had achieved something. All the most signal performances of Widdiford and Slocum Magna had been effaced.
According to Borrow, Wales is not only a picturesque, but also a romantic country. Therefore, it must not surprise the judicious reader that by half-past nine on this memorable August morning Jim Lascelles had become a hero. The breakfast table at Pen-y-Gros Castle was regaled by an extremely thrilling narrative of adventures by gorge and chasm.
It was not quite clear—and even to this day the mystery has not been elucidated—whether Jim Lascelles had saved the life of Muffin, or whether Muffin had saved the life of Jim Lascelles. But one fact emerged clear, distinct, and radiant. Jim Lascelles was a hero of the first class. His conduct within the precincts of the Devil’s Footstool merited a diploma.
Cheriton seconded the praises of his protégé.
“It is bred in the fellow,” said he. “His father, you know, was Lascelles, V.C.”