say."
"I hope so. But, Fred, how everybody seems to be talking now about thetroubles in the east."
"Well, let them," laughed Fred. "We don't want any of their troubles inthe west. What do you say to an afternoon's nutting?"
"The nuts are not half ripe."
"Well, let's get your Nat's ferret, and try for a rabbit."
"He would not lend it to us."
"Let's go down on the shore, and collect shells for your Lil."
"She has more than she wants now."
"Well, let's do something. I vote we go down and hunt out the way intothat passage. We can do that without getting our heads full of slate."
Scarlett acceded readily, the more so that ever since their adventure inthe passage, the place had had a peculiar fascination for both lads.They often stopped in the middle of some pursuit to talk about thecurious idea of making a door to be entered by lying down, andcontriving it out of a stair. Then there were the ingeniouspeculiarities of the old passage, and the strange gloom of the oakchamber, and the dark vault, with its heap of old arms, which theyregretted not to have brought out to try and restore to something liketheir former condition.
For, in spite of previous failure, the idea of discovering the secondentrance to that passage was often suggesting itself to the lads; and,in consequence, they began to haunt the edge of the lake, feeling surethat some day or another accident would direct them to the very spotthey had searched for so long.
Scarlett insisted that they would find the opening right down in thewater, while, on the other hand, Fred maintained the opposite.
"Nobody would be such a noodle as to build his back-door right down inthe water," he said, "unless he meant the place for a bath. No; weshall find that doorway out in the wood somewhere, you mark my words,Scar. I dare say, if we were to take billhooks and cut and hack awaythe branches, we should find it soon enough."
Scarlett shook his head, but joined in the search, one which, in spiteof their peering about, proved to be in vain, and, after being wellscratched by brambles and briars, Scarlett had his own way again, andthey began to hunt the shore.
The broad sheet of water ran up in quite a bay toward the fine oldEnglish mansion, and round this bay were dense clumps of hazels, patchesof alder, and old oak-trees grew right on the edge of the perpendicularbank, their roots deep down beneath the black leaf-mould, which hereformed the bottom of the clear water.
"It must be here somewhere," said Scarlett, one sunny afternoon, as theysat on the mossy roots of one of the great oaks, and idly picked offsheets of delicate green vegetable velvet and flakes of creamy and greylichen to throw into the water.
"Yes, it must be here somewhere, of course; but I don't see any use ingetting scratched by briars for nothing. We never seem to get anynearer to it. Perhaps we were wrong, and it's only a kind of well,after all."
"No," said Scarlett; "they would not make a well there."
"Then we got muddled over the way we went, and, perhaps, while we arelooking for the entrance this side, it's over the other."
"No," said Scarlett again, "I don't think that."
"But if there had been a way in here from the lake, some one must haveseen it before now. We should have noticed it when we were fishing ornesting. Or, if we had not seen it, your Nat or one of the othergardeners must have found it."
"No, they must not. I don't see any must about it. Perhaps it's toocleverly hidden away, or I shouldn't wonder if, since it was made, atree had grown all over the entrance, and shut it right up."
"And we shall never find it."
"Not unless we cut the tree down."
"And, of course, we don't know which tree to cut."
"And if we did, my father would not have a tree touched on any account.Remember how angry he was with the wind?"
"What, when it blew down the big elm?"
"Yes."
There was a pause.
"I say," said Fred, yawning, "let's give it up. What do we care aboutwhere the passage comes out! We know where it goes in."
"Foxes always have two holes," said Scarlett, dreamily.
"So do rabbits. Lots of holes sometimes. But we're not foxes, andwe're not rabbits."
"No; but you'll be like a water-rat directly, if you sit on that moss.It's as slippery as can be close to the edge. Come and get some nuts."
"Not ripe enough," said Fred, idly.
"Never mind; let's get some, whether or no."
"Where shall we go? We've got all there are about the edge of thelake."
"Let's go down there by the big oaks. There's a great clump of nutsjust beyond, where we have not been yet."
"Oh yes, we have," said Fred, laughing; "leastwise, I have--one day whenI came over and you weren't at home."
"That's always your way, Fred. I never come over to your place and takeyour things."
"Halloa!" laughed Fred, rising slowly from where he had lounged upon themossy, buttress-like roots. "Who came and helped himself to mygilliflower apples?"
Scarlett laughed. "Well, they looked so tempting, and we were to havepicked them that day. Come along."
They went crushing and rustling through the woody wilderness for about ahundred yards from the side of the lake. It was a part sacred to thebirds and rabbits, a dense dark thicket where oaks and beeches shut outthe light of day, and for generations past the woodman's axe had neverstruck a blow. Here and there the forest monarchs had fallen from oldage, and where they had left a vacancy hazel stubs flourished, springingup gaily, and revelling on the rotten wood and dead leaves which coveredthe ground, and among which grew patches of nuts and briar, with thedark dewberry and swarthy dwale.
Here, as they walked, the lads' feet crushed in the moss-covered, rottenwood, and at every step a faint damp odour of mould, mingled with thestrong scent of crushed ferns and fungi, rose to their nostrils.
"Never mind the nuts," said Fred; "let's get out in the sunshine again.Pst! there he goes."
He stopped short as he spoke, watching the scuttling away of a rabbit,whose white cottony tail was seen for a moment before it disappeared ina tunnel beneath a hazel clump.
"No; we'll have a few while we are here," said Scarlett, making a boundon to the trunk of a huge oak which had been blown down and layhorizontally; but while one portion of its roots stood up shaggy andweird-looking, the rest remained in the ground, and supported the lifeof the old tree, which along its mighty bole was covered with sturdyyoung shoots for about thirty feet from the roots. There it forked intotwo branches, each of which was far bigger than the trunk of an ordinarytree; but while one was fairly green, the other was perfectly dead, andsuch verdure as it displayed was that of moss and abundant patches ofpolypody, which flourished upon the decaying wood.
Opposite the spot where Scarlett leaped upon the tree-trunk--that is tosay, on the other side--the thicket was too dense to invite descent, andthe lad began to walk along toward the fork, pressing the young branchesaside as he went, followed by Fred, who had leapt up and joined him.
"Here, I'm getting so hot," cried the latter. "What's the good ofslaving along here! Let's go back."
"I don't like going back in anything," replied Scarlett, as he walked ontill he reached the fork, and continued his way along the living branchof the old tree, with Fred still following, till they stood in the midstof a maze of jagged and gnarled branches rising high above their heads,and shutting them in.
These dead boughs were from the fellow limb to that on which they stood,the two huge trunks being about six feet apart.
"There, now we must go back," said Fred.
"No. It looks more open there," cried Scarlett. "If we could jump onto the other trunk, we could go on beyond."
"Well, anybody could jump that," said Fred.
"Except Fred Forrester," replied Scarlett, mockingly.
"What! not jump that? I'll soon show you."
"No, no; you can't do it, Fred, and you may hurt yourself."
"Well, that will
not hurt you. Here goes."
"Mind that branch there."
"Oh yes, I'll mind the branches; and you have to do it when I've done.Way he!"
Fred stooped down, with his feet close together and his arms pressed tohis sides, bent forward and jumped cleverly quite over the interveningspace, and came down upon the great dead moss-covered trunk.
There was a crash, and it seemed to Scarlett for the moment that hiscompanion's heels had slipped, and that he had gone down on the otherside among the bushy growth that sprung up; but