Part 36 (1/2)
Well, I shan't say any h, but there's the treasure in the cave: we found it; and half's yours and half's mine Now then, what did the Doctor say?”
”That he never heard of any s here”
”There!” cried Mike triuled goods, and nothing here to sle”
”Of course not: the other's the idea, and I vote we go down and properly examine our treasure after dinner”
”That is curious,” said Vince, ”about the tradition of the pirate shi+p disappearing, because it proves that there is a channel big enough for a s to believe, then, now?”
”No, I'oods But, Mike, wethere ourselves”
”He wouldn't lend it to us”
”Then I knoe'll do--”
”Now, gentleht, Mr Deane; we're co,” cried Mike ”Now, Cinder, what shall we do?”
”Go and ask the old chap to lend us his boat, and if he won't we'll coood of that?”
”Slip round another way and borrow her You and I could e her myself”
”Of course you could We shouldn't hurt the boat; and we could feel our way in, and see frolers' place or no”
”That's it,” said Mike; and fivehard with the tutor, as if they had nothing on their hter and the sea and sky looking bluer than ever, the two boys were off for their afternoon expedition, h lane that was very beautiful and very bad It was bad from the point of view that the fisher-farmers of the island looked upon it as a sort of ”nodonkey-cart loads of pebbles or broken granite to fill up the holes trodden in by cows in eather, or the tracks made by carts laden with vraick, the sea-weed they collected fortheir potato and parsnep fields Consequently, in bad seasons Vince said it was ”squishy,” and Mike that it was ”squashy” But in fine summer weather it was beautiful indeed, for Nature seemed to have made up her mind that it was nonsense for a roadway to be made there to act like a scar on the landscape, just to acco up sea-weed, sand and fish froh carts to do the hen they h windlass, such as they had over their wells, and dragging all they wanted directly up the cliff face to the top--a plan which would have done in fifty yards what the donkeys had to go round nearly half akept up solely because old Joe Daygo had a cottage down in a notch in the granite walls overlooking the sea, that seeularly every year to do aith that road, and she set all her children to help The gorse bushes hung fro out their prickly sprays covered with orange and yellow blossom and encroached all they could; the heather sprouted and slowly crept here and there, in corass that would have made a lover of s, and furze the dodder wreathed and wove its delicate tangle, and the thrift raised its lavender heads to nod with satisfaction at the way in which all the plants and wild shrubs were doing their work
But there were two things which left all the rest behind, and did by far the hed at the two brionies, black and white; for though they lorious shoith their convolvulus and deeply cut leaves, and sent forth strands of wonderfully rapid growth to run over the sturdy blackthorn, which produced such splendid sloes, and then hung down festoons of glossy leaves into the lane that quite put theivy to the blush, still these lovely trailing festoons died back in the winter, while their rival growths kept on These rivals were the brarew in friendly e feet, by shaking hands across the road; the cle and tangling themselves up till rudely broken apart by the passers-by--notably by old Joe Daygo, when he went that way ho, out of sheer aardness, across somebody's field or patch
”I wish father would buy old Joe's cottage,” said Vince, as the two lads trudged down the lane that afternoon ”We could h,” said Mike, pausing in whistling an old French air a good deal affected by the people
”Oh yes, and I shouldn't like to leave it; but I always like this bit down here; the lane is so jolly Look”
”What at?”
”T-tail butterflies Let's have the toout in the boat Besides, we haven't got any of your father's pill boxes to put 'eron here! Look at that fern and the bracken”