Cutlass and Cudgel Part 49

Just then she heard Grip again barking very faintly.

"Stupid dog!" she said to herself, with a little laugh. "He has followed a rabbit to its hole. If he would only catch a few more, how useful they would be!"

Then she moved a little to follow the slow-worm, which was making for a patch of heath, and she was still watching it when, some time after, Grip came running up quickly, snarling and growling, and pausing from time to time to look back.

"Oh, you coward!" she said, sitting down and pulling his ears, as he thrust his head into her lap. "Afraid of a fox! Was it a fox's hole, then, and not a rabbit's, Grip?"

The dog growled and barked.

"Poor old fellow, then. Where is it, then?"

The dog leaped up, barked, and ran a few yards, to stop, look back at her, and bark again.

"No, no, Grip; I don't want to see," she said; and she began idly to pick up sc.r.a.ps of wild thyme and toss at the dog, who vainly kept on making rushes toward the slope of the great cliff.

"No, sir," she said, shaking her finger at him. "I am not going to be led to one of your discoveries, to see nothing for my pains."

The dog barked again, angrily, and not until she spoke sharply did he obey, and followed her unwillingly up the slope and then down into a hollow that looked as if at one time it might have been the bed of some great glacier.

The dog tried again to lead her away toward the sea, but she was inexorable; and so he followed her along unwillingly, till, low down in the hollow, as she turned suddenly by a pile of great blocks of weather-worn and lichened stone, she came suddenly upon Dadd and Ram, the former flat on his back, with his hat drawn-down over his eyes, the latter busy with his knife cutting a rough stick smooth.

"How do, Miss Celia?" said Ram, showing his white teeth.

"Quite well, Ram. How is your head now?"

"Oh, it's all right agen now, miss. On'y a bit sore."

"You tumbled off the cliff, didn't you?"

"Off a bit of it," said Ram, grinning. "Not far."

"But how foolish of you! Mrs Shackle said you might have been killed."

"Yes, miss, but I wasn't."

"What were you doing in such a dangerous place?"

"Eh?" said Ram, changing colour; "what was I doing?"

"Yes, to run such a risk."

"I was--I was--"

Ram was completely taken aback, and sat staring, with his mouth open.

"Lookin' after a lost sheep," came in a deep growl from under Jemmy Dadd's hat.

"Oh! And did you find it?"

"Yes; he fun' it," said the man, "but it were in a very dangerous place.

It's all dangerous 'long here; and Master Shackle wouldn't let young Ram here go along these here clift slopes without me to take care on him."

Ram grinned.

"And you take my advice, miss, don't you come 'bout here. We lost four sheep last year, and come nigh losing the missuses best cow not long ago. Didn't you hear?"

"Yes; old Mary told me, and Mrs Shackle mentioned it too."

"Ay," continued Jemmy, without removing his hat, "she fell slip-slap into the sea."

"Poor thing."

"Ay, little missus; and, if I were you, I wouldn't come along top o'

they clifts at all. Gra.s.s is so short and slithery that, 'fore you knows where you are, your feet goes from under you, and you can't stop yourself, and over you goes. And that aren't the worst on it; most like you're never found."

"Yes, 'tis very slippy, Miss Celia," said Ram, beginning to hack again at his stick.

"I do not come here very often, Ram," she said, quietly. "It is a long time since I came."

"Ay, and I wouldn't come no more, little missus," continued Jemmy, from under his hat, "for if you did not go off, that there dog--"

Grip had been looking on uneasily, and turning his head from one to the other, as each spoke in turn; but the minute he heard himself mentioned, he showed his teeth, and began to growl fiercely at the man.

"Look ye here," cried Jemmy, sitting up quickly and s.n.a.t.c.hing away his hat, "if you comes at me--see the heel o' that there boot?"

He held up the great heavy object named, ready to kick out, and Grip bared his teeth for an attack.

"Down, Grip! Come here, sir. How dare you?"

But Grip did dare, and he would have dashed at the labourer if Celia had not caught him by the loose skin of his neck, when he began to shake his head and whine in a way that sounded like protesting.

"And me giving a bit of advice too," said Jemmy in an ill-used tone.

Grip barked fiercely.

"Be quiet, sir!"

"And going to say, little missus, that if that there dog comes hanging about here, he'll go over them there cliffs as sure as b.u.t.tons, and never be seen no more."

"Come away, Grip. Thank you, Mr Dadd," said Celia, hurrying the dog away, and giving him a run down along the hollow; while Jemmy Dadd threw himself back, rolled over on to his face, and laughed hoa.r.s.ely.

"I say, young Ram," he cried, "what a game!"

"What's a game?" said the boy sharply.

"That there dog; he won't forget that whack I give him on the ribs for long enough."

"Needn't have thrown so hard."