scared about it, are you?"

"No, I don't think so," replied Mike thoughtfully; "only doesn't it seem
rather--rather queer to go to a place that is strange, and where you
don't know what there may be?"

"Of course it does," said Vince frankly; "and I am just a little like
that. I suppose it's what the men here all feel, and it keeps them
away."

"Yes, that's it," said Mike eagerly.

"But then, you know, they believe lots of things that we laugh at.
There isn't a man or boy here in Crag would go and sit in the churchyard
on a dark night."

"Well, you wouldn't either," said Mike.

"No, I suppose not," said Vince thoughtfully. "I don't think I believe
in ghosts--I'm sure I don't; and I know that if I saw anything I should
feel it was some one trying to frighten us. But I shouldn't like to go
and sit in a churchyard in the dark, because--because--"

"You'd be afraid," said Mike, with a laugh.

"Yes, I should be afraid, but not as you mean," said the lad. "I should
feel that it was doing a mocking, boasting sort of thing toward the dead
people who were all lying asleep there."

"Dead," interposed Mike.

"No: father says asleep--quietly asleep, after being in pain and
sickness, or being tired out from growing very old."

Mike looked at him curiously, and they were both silent for a few
moments, till Mike said quickly:--

"I say, though, don't it seem queer to you that we've been here all our
lives, and grown as old as we are, without ever going to the top of the
cliff here and looking down into the Scraw?"

"Yes, that's just what I've been thinking ever since old Joe talked to
us as he did. But I don't know that it is queer."

"Well, I do," said Mike: "it's very queer."

"No, it isn't. Ever since we can remember everybody has said that you
can't get there, because nobody could climb up; and then while we were
little we always heard people talk almost in a whisper about it, as if
it were something that oughtn't to be named; and so of course we didn't
think for ourselves, and took all they said as being right. But you
know there may be whirlpools and holes and black caverns and sharp
rocks, and I dare say there are regular monsters of congers down in the
deep places that have never been disturbed."

"And sharks."

"No, I don't think there would be sharks. They live out in the open sea
more, where it's not so rough."

"I say, how big have we ever seen a conger?"

"Why, that one Carnach brought in