'We'd have to go into the caves,' said Master Francis. 'It would be rather fun, with a good fire and with lots of blankets.'
'And where would you get blankets from, or wood for a fire, you silly boy?' said Miss Bess.
'Can we see the caves?' I asked, for having heard so much talk about them, I felt curious to see them.
'Of course,' said Master Francis. 'We always explore them every time we come to this bay. Do you see those two or three dark holes over there among the rocks, nurse? Those are the caves; come along and I'll show them to you.'
I was a little disappointed. I had never seen a cave in my life, but I had a confused remembrance of pictures in an old book at home of some caves—'The Mammoth Caves of Kentucky,' I afterwards found they were—which looked very large and wonderful, and somehow I suppose I had all the time been picturing to myself that these ones were something of the same kind. I didn't say anything to the children though, as they took great pride in showing me all the sights. And after all, when we got to the caves, they turned out much more curious and interesting than I expected from the outside. The largest one, though its entrance was so small, was really as big as a fair-sized church, and narrowing again far back into a dark mysterious-looking passage, from which Master Francis told me two or three smaller chambers opened out.
'And then,' he said, 'after that the passage goes on again—ever so far. In the old days the smugglers blocked it up with pieces of rock, and it isn't so very long ago that this was found out. It was somewhere down along that passage that they found the things I told you of.'
We went a few yards along the passage, but it soon grew almost quite dark, and we turned back again.
'I can quite see it wouldn't be safe to try exploring down there,' I said.
'Yes, I suppose so,' said Master Francis, with a sigh. 'I wish I could find some treasure, all the same. I wonder——' he went on, then stopped short. 'Nurse,' he began again, 'did you hear what old Prideaux said of our great grand-uncle the miser? Could it really be true, do you think, that he hid away money or treasures of some kind?' and he lowered his voice mysteriously.
'I shouldn't think it was likely,' I replied. For I had a feeling that it would not be well for the children to get any such ideas into their heads. It sounded to me like a sort of fairy tale. I had never come across anything so romantic and strange in real life. Though for that matter, Treluan itself, and the kind of old-world feeling about the place, was quite unlike anything I had ever known before.