--and all for doing nothing.
Doing nothing! Mustn't say that, though, before Uncle Paul, or he'll
go into a rage and begin preaching about Bony and the war, and going on
about the French. Hullo!"

The boy started, for there was a dull thud, apparently from the prison,
miles away, followed by a loud echo which seemed to come from close at
hand, making him turn again as if to look for the spot from which it
came, and seeing it too, for the report of the gun had as it were struck
against the face of the tor above him, and then glanced off to strike
elsewhere.

"How queer echoes are!" he muttered. "Yes, and how queer I feel--all
hollow. That's made me think about it. I suppose that means twelve or
one o'clock dinner-time. Oh, how stupid to go right away from uncle
like this! I wish he'd come. But I won't go till I have made my fifty
trout."

Turning his attention now to the stream, he began whipping away again,
and finding that the little trout were rising as well as ever, with the
result that Rodney Harding once more forgot everything else in his
pursuit and went on up-stream nearer and nearer to the great tor, till
at last he found himself in a little hollow amongst the rocks where the
river had widened into a pool, hollowed out as it were at the base of a
great cliff.

"Why, this is the end of it," he said, pausing to look round and upward
at the towering pile of rocks. "No, it isn't. It must be the
beginning--the source, I suppose they call it. Yes, the stream begins
here, comes right from under that cliff. Why, it's like a little cave
out of which the water streams."

He stopped short and threw his fly once or twice without effect, and
then, moved by curiosity, waded into the shallow rippling water, which
rose a little way above his boots, but as it began to invade his
trousers he rolled them up to his knees, before wading onward till he
was stopped by the piled-up cliff face where the water came gliding out
and rippled about his legs.

"Why, it ought to be quite cold," he muttered, "instead of which it is
warm."

Then, standing up his rod so that the top rested among the stones, he
stooped down, bending nearly double before he could pass in beneath a
rough stony natural arch and slowly force his way along a narrow passage
for a few feet, before stopping short where the water nearly reached his
knees.

"Oh, I say! I am not going to break my back short off at the hips by
squeezing in here," he g