“And a jolly good caning you’ll get, Kitty, when Gumshoe has had his talk with the Doctor.”
“Jolly good,” replied Kit, rubbing his legs with a wry face. “But in the meantime, mes enfants,” he continued, “since I am to be swished, it shall not be that I suffer unjustly; we are going to make the swishing worth while. We are off to the Woods this minute. We’ll take the stuff over, stow it in the cave, put up a notice, and be back by supper. I’ll be hanged if I’ll pay any attention to Gumshoe’s twaddle about bounds or to the Doctor’s nonsense about caves. Are you with me, Jimmie, old boy?”
“Well, rather,” Jimmie replied. “The experience of the last quarter of an hour has quite discouraged me with regard to the peace and quiet and healthy conversation us nice boys ought to have in form common-room.”
Tony had kept silent. “Well, are you going to cut for a quitter?” asked Kit, turning upon him with an indignant glare.
“Not I,” said Tony quickly.
“Then help stow this truck. We’ve an hour and a half till supper, and the Gumshoe will undoubtedly think we have disperrssed to our rooms.” And he gave an absurd imitation of Mr. Roylston’s manner of speaking.
Ten minutes later they were running down the slope of Deal Hill, under the cover of the stone walls; then tearing across the frozen marshes, and clambering up the steep banks and crags that bounded the west side of Lovel’s Woods. The sun was sinking in the west, and its rich mellow golden light fell athwart the snow-clad woodland, flooding it with glory, save where the great masses of pine and cedar cast broad splotches of shadow. The splendid loveliness of the dying afternoon, the biting cold of the wind, the thrill of doing the forbidden, filled Tony with a delicious sense of happiness and adventure.
Each boy had his arms full of cooking utensils, food, boxes—the varied paraphernalia of a cave. It had been an ancient custom at Deal during the winter for boys to have caves in Lovel’s Woods, where they cooked weird messes during the afternoons when there was no skating. This year the Doctor, owing to certain abuses reported by the prefects the year before, had decided to restrict the use of caves to the three upper forms.
Kit had a particular cave in mind, far away on the remote side of what was known as the Third Ridge, a cave that he and Jimmie and Teddy Lansing had had together the year before as Second Formers. This desirable spot was a natural formation in the rocky side of the farther of the three ridges of which Lovel’s Woods consisted. It was practically inaccessible from below, and the entrance above, well concealed by a clump of low cedars, was a narrow cleft in the rocks, at the extreme edge of which the initiated might descend to the cave by a series of dangerous steps which the boys had fashioned in the side of the precipitous cliff.
Tony and Kit climbed down into the cave, while Jimmie, lying flat on the ledge above, handed down to them the supply of stores. These were safely stowed in a strong box, which had lasted out the previous season, and made secure. When the boys had clambered up again, they discovered that the sun had set and the darkness was gathering swiftly. The clear crescent of the new moon hung in the western sky a band of gold, and the evening star was rising over the ocean.