Devon Boys | Page 8

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 were perched.
For there was not even a sheep in sight, the side of the valley below us being a rugged mass of desolation, only redeemed by patches of whortleberry and purple heath with the taller growing heather.
"Over with it, Bob," cried Bigley; "shall I help?"
"No, no, you needn't help neither," said Bob. "I'm going to do it all myself scientifically, as Doctor Stacey calls it. This bar's a fulcrum."
"No, no," I said; "that isn't right."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bigley.
"Then what is it, please, Mr Clever? Doctor Stacey said bars were fulcrums, and you put the end under a big stone, and then put a little one down for a lever--just so, and then you pressed down the end of the bar--so, and then--"
"Oh! Look at it," cried Bigley.
For Bob had been suiting the action to the word, and before he realised what he was doing the effect of the lever was to lift the side of the big stone, so that it remained poised for a few moments and then fell over, gliding slowly for a few feet, and then gathering velocity it made a leap