Part 22 (1/2)
”Fred!”
”Well, so I am, with the water just over my knees.”
”Oh!”
”Well, if you don't believe it, come down here and try.”
CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE SUBTERRANEAN WAY.
Scarlett hung there from the hazel bough staring, and for a few moments utterly unable to realise that which his companion had said, till Fred gave himself a shake, like a great dog coming out of the water, and by degrees got one leg free, then the other, trampling down the broken wood, and standing at last on a level with his companion.
”Did you think it was deep?” said the lad.
”Deep? Yes; I did not know how deep. Then it is not a well?”
”Why, of course not. Don't you see it's the pa.s.sage we were looking for, and it does go down to the lake.”
”The pa.s.sage?”
”Of course. Look, you can see a little both ways. Of course the top's broken in here. Isn't it droll that we should find it like this. But oh! my head. I gave it such a crack when I fell. It served me just as if I was a rabbit. I don't know how long I've been like that.”
Scarlett could not answer him, so excited had he become at the strange turn things had taken.
”There, my head's better now,” said Fred, as he sat at the edge of the hole after climbing lightly out: and as he spoke he amused himself by kicking down fragments of the side to listen to the echoing splash.
”What do you say to going up to the house for a light? No; let's get Nat's stable lanthorn, and then go down here and see where the way out goes.”
”I know,” cried Scarlett, eagerly.
”Where?”
”Why, down there, right away by the old tree clump--right out yonder.”
”There can't be a way out there, because we should have seen it.”
”Perhaps it's covered up so as to keep it hidden till it was wanted.”
”Let's go and see. But, stop a moment. We don't want another way in, now we've got this.”
”No,” said Scarlett. ”I don't know, though. Let's go and see.”
”All right; it will dry my legs,” replied Fred. And, getting up, the two lads made their way down to the head of the little bay nearest to the house, and then worked along among the alders which hung over the lake till they came to the part of the old forest Scarlett had named--an evergreen patch of about an acre, on which stood a dozen or two of the finest trees in the park.
”Why,” cried Scarlett, ”I remember old Dee--”
”Nat's father?”
”Yes--saying that there once used to be a boathouse down here.”