Part 7 (1/2)
Scarlett was silent.
”What are you thinking about!”
”Whether I oughtn't to tell father about that place.”
”I suppose you ought,” said Fred, after a pause; ”but if you do, we shall have no more fun.”
”I didn't see any fun in it,” said Scarlett, slowly.
”Not then; but see what we could do with a secret place of our own to retreat to whenever we liked, and no one knowing where we had gone. I say, don't tell anybody.”
”But I feel as if I ought to tell my father, as it's his place.”
”Yes, I suppose you ought; but let's wait a bit first.”
”Well, we might wait a little while. I say, Fred, what cowards we were!”
”But it was so dark, and I couldn't help thinking that we might never find our way out.”
”Yes; that's just how I felt, and as if something was coming after us out of the darkness.”
”And, of course, there couldn't be anything. You could see by the dust on the steps that n.o.body had been there for years and years.”
There was a long silence here, during which the two lads looked out at the garden flooded with suns.h.i.+ne, where Nat was working very deliberately close by the sun-dial. And beyond him, at the lake, from which the sunbeams flashed whenever a fish or water-fowl disturbed the surface.
”I say,” said Fred at last, ”don't let's sit here any longer. You're as dull as if you had no tongue. What are you thinking about now?”
”I was wondering whether I shall be such a coward when I grow up to be a man.”
”I say, Scar, don't keep on talking like that; it's just as if you kept on calling me a coward too.”
”So you were.”
”No, I was not; but it was enough to frighten anybody. It was all so dark and strange.”
”Should you be afraid to go again?”
”No,” said Fred, stoutly.
”Will you go, then?”
”What, alone?”
”No; both together.”
”I'll go, if you will. When shall we go?”
”Now,” said Scarlett, firmly.
”Now?”