then no one need hold it."

"No, I sha'n't stop," grumbled Bob sourly. "Where's the use o' stopping
with chaps as always want to quarrel?"

"I don't want to quarrel," I said.

"And I'm sure I don't," said Big. "I hate it."

"More don't I," growled Bob. "It's Sep Duncan; he's always trying to
have a row with somebody."

"Here, come on," cried Big. "I've got the rope and the bar."

"No," said Bob, sticking his hands farther into his pockets and sidling
off; "I'm going home."

"Oh, I say, don't spoil our fun, Bob," I cried.

"'Taint me; it's you," he said. "I sha'n't stay."

"Oh, if it's me I'm very sorry," I said, "I didn't mean to be
disagreeable."

"Oh, well, if you're sorry and didn't mean to be disagreeable I'll
stay," he said. "Only don't you do it again."

"Say you won't," whispered Big.

"Well, I won't do it again," I cried, though I felt all the time as if I
wanted to laugh outright.

"Then I sha'n't say any more about it," said Bob, relenting all at once.
"I say, Big, is that rope strong?"

"Strong enough to hold all of us," he replied. "Here, come along.
It'll soon be dinner-time. I'm getting hungry now."

"Why, you're always hungry, Big," cried Bob as we began to climb the
steep slope diagonally.

"Yes, I am," he assented. "I do eat such a lot, and then I always feel
as if I wanted to eat a lot more."

It was a stiff climb over the loose slates and in and out among the
rough masses of stone that projected every here and there; but the air
grew fresher and cooler as we made our way from sheep-track to
sheep-track, where the little brown butterflies kept darting up in our
path; and as we stopped again and again, it was to get a wider view of
the sail-dotted sea all rippling and sparkling like silver in the sun,
while as we climbed higher still we began to get glimpses of the high
hills along the coast to the west, and the great moor into which the Gap
seemed to run like a rugged trough.

At last after many halts we reached the piled-up mass of rocks known as
the Beacon--a huge heap of moss-grown grey fragments that stood on the
very crest of the ridge.

It was a favourite place with us, and many an expedition had been made
here to sit under the shelter of the great lump of rock that crowned the
heap, a mass about fifteen feet high, and as many long and broad, the
whole forming just such a cube as you find in the sugar basin, and whose
sides were so perpendicular that we had never