Devon Boys | Page 8

act, for if I had not snatched at him he would have gone
backwards, but this time he clung to me tightly, and the next minute
was by my side.
"Oh, it's easy enough," he said, forgetting directly the ugly fall he had
escaped.
"Here, now, you two lay hold of the rope and pull me up!" shouted
Bigley. "I want to come too."

We took hold of the rope and tightened it, and there was a severe
course of tugging for a few minutes before we slackened our efforts,
and sat down and laughed, for we might as well have tried to drag up
any of the ton-weight stones as Bigley.
"Oh, I say," he cried; "you don't half pull. I want to come up."
"Then you must climb as we pull," I said, and in obedience to my
advice he fastened the rope round his waist, and tried to climb as we
hauled, with the result that after a few minutes' scuffling and rasping on
the rock poor Bigley was sitting down rubbing himself softly, and
looking up at us with a very doleful expression of countenance.
"You can't get up, Big; you're too heavy," cried Bob, who was now in
the best of tempers. "Here, let's look round, Sep."
That did not take long, for there were only a few square feet of surface
to traverse. We were up at the top, and could see a long way round; but
then so we could fifteen or twenty feet below, and at the end of five
minutes we both were of the same way of thinking--that the principal
satisfaction in getting up to the summit of a rock or mountain was in
being able to say that you had mastered a difficulty.
Bob thoroughly expressed my feelings when, after amusing himself for
a few minutes by throwing dry cushions of moss down at Bigley, he
exclaimed:
"Well, what's the good of stopping here? Come on down again!"
"I'm ready," I said, "only I wish old Big had come up too."
"I don't," said Bob; "what's the good of wishing. I'm not going to make
my hands sore with tugging. He had no business to grow so fat."
"I should like to come up," cried Bigley dolefully.
"Ah, well, you can't!" shouted back Bob. "Serves you right pretending
to be a man when you're only a boy."

"I can't help it," replied Bigley with a sigh.
"Let's have one more try to have him up," I cried.
"Sha'n't. What's the good? I don't see any fun in trying to do what you
can't."
"Never mind: old Big will like it," I said. "Come on."
Bob reluctantly took hold of the rope, and after giving a bit of advice to
our companion, he made another desperate struggle while we pulled,
but the only result was that we all grew exceedingly hot and sticky, and
as Bigley stood below, red-faced and panting with his efforts, Bob put
an end to the project by sliding down the rope to his side, so there was
nothing left for me to do but to follow.
This I did, but not till I had had a good long look round from my high
perch at the deeply-cut ravine with its rugged piled-up masses of cliff,
and tiny river, to which it seemed to me I was now the heir.
CHAPTER THREE.
A GUNPOWDER PLOT.
We three boys sat down at the edge of the steepest side of the crags
after this to rest, and think what we should do next, and to help our
plans we amused ourselves by pitching pieces of loose stone down as
far as we could.
Then the rope was dragged over the Beacon rock and coiled up, while I
tugged and wriggled the iron bar to and fro till I could get it free.
"Let's go down to the shore now, and see if we can find some crabs," I
said. "The tide's getting very low."
"What's the good?" said Bob picking up the iron bar, and chipping this
stone and loosening that. "I say, why don't some of those stones rock?
They ought to."

He began to wander aimlessly about for a few minutes, and then,
finding a piece that must have been about a hundredweight, he began to
prise it about using the iron bar as a lever, and to such good effect that
he soon had it close to the edge.
"Look here, lads," he cried, "here's a game! I'm going to send this
rolling down."
We joined him directly, for there seemed to be a prospect of some
amusement in seeing the heavy rugged mass go rolling down here,
making a leap down the perpendicular parts there, and coming to an
anchor somewhere many hundred feet below where we