Sweethearts at Home

by S. R. Crockett

Well, when I got to him, he said that he would take me to his Cave of Mysteries. This was a great favor, for not even Sir Toady had ever been there before.

"Not a gamekeeper knows it," he said, "and Fuz says I can use his scouting-glass if I take good care not to drop it."

There was a steep wood to climb, all among the fir-trees, some grass fields, then above and quite suddenly we came out on the side of a rugged mountain.

The cave was about half-way up, under a slanting rock. You turned quickly to the side, grabbed a little pine-root and swung yourself in. Then you saw the cave. It was not much of a place for size, not like the self-contained villas they have in story-books. Only you could not be seen. The rain did not come in unless it was driving quite level along from the north, which did not happen often.

But when I turned about—why, it nearly took my breath away. We could see half-a-dozen counties—Edinburgh dusting the little lion of Arthur's Seat with her smoke, the blue firth beyond, little and narrow, the toy towers of the Big Bridge to the left, and the green country all between dotted with towers and towns innumerable.

Oh, it was so unexpected and so fine that I nearly cried. And Hugh John lay watching me, his chin among the heather. But, more than all, he was pleased that his cave had taken me so much by storm.

Then he showed me with his glasses he could "spot exactly where each of the gamekeepers was, also the wood-foresters, and Sir Bulleigh Bunny himself, if he were at home."

And indeed it was quite true. He could pick them all out one by one. Never once did he make a mistake. Then he would show me them, but often all I could see was no more than a little trembling among the green leaves of some far-distant wood.

It was not long till I found the secret of Hugh John's complete security in this his chosen Crusoe's Cave. Chesnay the gamekeeper was passing far below, a gun over his shoulder, and as the wind was blowing off the hill into the valley, it was almost certain that his dogs would scent us.

But Hugh John had thought all this out. Trust him for that. He took a gnawed bone out of an inner pocket, removed the wrapping of newspaper, leaned far over, and threw it with the long, sweeping curve of a boomerang upon the path in front of the dog's nose.