handkerchief. "However, I shall get that fern I was
after, though, in spite of all the prickles and thorns in the world!"

So saying, in he dashed again, stooping under the thorny network, and
came out ere long with a beautiful specimen of the shuttlecock fern,
which elicited as expressive an "Oh" from Nellie as the sight of his
scratched face had just previously done--an "Oh" of admiration and
delight. But, as with Bob, her joyful exclamation was quickly followed
by an expression of woe.

As she stepped forward to inspect the fern more closely, she put her
foot on a rotten branch of the oak-tree, which had become broken off
from its parent stem and lay stretched across the dell, forming a sort
of frail bridge over the prickly chasm below up to the higher ground on
which she stood.

Alas! the decayed wood gave way under her weight, slight as that was,
and Nellie, uttering a wild shriek of terror, disappeared from Bob's
astonished gaze.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

IN A SAD PLIGHT!

The Captain, who had remained on the plateau above, in company with Mrs
Gilmour and Dick--the latter still in charge of the precious hamper--
pricked up his ears at the sound of poor Nellie's scream and Bob's
expressive cry of alarm.

"Hullo!" he sang out in his sailor fashion-- "I wonder what's the row
now? By Jove, I thought it wouldn't be long before those two young
persons got into mischief when we left them alone together."

"I hope to goodness they haven't come to any harm," said Mrs Gilmour
dolefully. "Sure and will you go and say what's happened?"

"Sure an' I'm just a-going, ma'am," replied the Captain, keeping up his
good-humoured mimicry of her accent so as to reassure her; adding, as he
scrambled down the slope cautiously with the aid of his trusty malacca
cane-- "You needn't be alarmed, ma'am, `at all at all,' for I don't
believe anything very serious has occurred, as children's calls for
assistance generally mean nothing in the end. They are like, as your
countryman said when he shaved his pig, `all cry and little wool!'"

He chuckled to himself as he went on down the declivity, turning round
first, however, to see whether Mrs Gilmour appreciated the allusion to
"poor Pat"; while Dick, leaving the hamper behind, followed, in case his
assistance might also be needed in the emergency.

Arrived at the bottom of the dell the old sailor found it impossible at
first to tell what had happened; for, Bob was trying to force hi