“It’s all dark ... it’s like a little tunnel.... I’m going right to the end to see what’s there ... well, anyway if that wasn’t a salmon I bet there are salmons there and I bet I’ll catch one too one of these days, and——”
His voice died away in the distance. They waited rather anxiously.... They heard nothing and saw nothing more. William seemed to have been completely swallowed up by the rock.
******
William slowly and painfully (for the aperture was so small that occasionally it grazed his back and head) travelled along what was little more than a fissure in the rock. The spirit of adventure was high in him. He was longing to come upon a cave full of swarthy men with coloured handkerchiefs tied round their heads and gold ear-rings, quaffing goblets of smuggled rum or unloading bales of smuggled silk. Occasionally he stopped and listened for the sound of deep-throated oaths or whispers or smugglers’ songs. Once or twice he was almost sure he heard them. He crawled on and on and on and into a curtain of undergrowth and out into a field. He stopped and looked around him. He was in the field behind the cave. The curtain of undergrowth completely concealed the little hole from which he had emerged. He was partly relieved and partly disappointed. It was rather nice to be out in the open air again (the tunnel had had a very earthy taste); on the other hand he had hoped for more adventures than it had afforded. But he consoled himself by telling himself that they might still exist. He’d explore that passage more thoroughly some other time—there might be a passage opening off it leading to the smugglers’ cave—and meantime it had given him quite a satisfactory thrill. He’d never really thought he could get through that little hole. And it had given him a secret. The knowledge that that little tunnel led out into the field was very thrilling. He looked around him again. Within a few yards from him was the wall surrounding the house about which they had just been making surmises. Was it a prison, or an asylum or—possibly—a Bolshevist headquarters? William looked at it curiously. He longed to know. He noticed a small door in the wall standing open. He went up to it and peeped inside. It gave on to a paved yard which was empty. The temptation was too strong for William. Very cautiously he entered. Still he couldn’t see anyone about. A door—a kitchen door apparently—stood open. Still very cautiously William approached. He decided to say that he’d lost his way should anyone accost him. He was dimly aware that his appearance after his passage through the bowels of the earth was not such as to inspire confidence. Yet his curiosity and the suggestion of adventure which their surmises had thrown over the house was an irresistible magnet. Within the open door was a kitchen where a boy, about William’s size and height and not unlike William, stood at a table wearing blue overalls and polishing silver.
They stared at each other. Then William said, “Hello.”
The boy was evidently ready to be friendly. He replied “Hello.”
Again they stared at each other in silence. This time it was the boy who broke the silence.
“What’ve you come for?” he said in a tone of weary boredom. “You the butcher’s boy or the baker’s boy or somethin’? Only came in this mornin’ so I don’ know who’s what yet. P’raps you’re the milk boy?”
“No, I’m not,” said William.
“Beggin’?” said the boy.