. Mind you don't fall."

"If it wasn't so dangerous for you, I'd kick you, Sam," said Gwyn.

"Kick away, then, my lad; 'taint the first time I've been on a ladder by
a few thousand times. My hands and feet grows to a ladder, like, and
holds on. You won't knock me off. But I say!"

"What is it?" said Gwyn, who was steadily ascending, with the rope held
fairly taut from above.

"You'll pay for a new hat for me?"

"Oh, yes, of course."

"And another knife, better than the one you pitched overboard?"

"Oh, we can come round in a boat and find that when the tide's down."

"Rocks are never bare when the tide's down here, my lad. There's always
six fathom o' water close below here; so you wouldn't ha' been broken up
if you'd falled; but you might ha' been drownded. That were a
five-shilling knife."

"All right, Sam, I'll buy you another," shouted Gwyn, who was some
distance up now.

"Thank ye. Before you go, though," said Sam Hardock.

"Go? Go where?"

"Off to school, my lad; I'm going to 'tishion your two fathers to send
you both right away, for I can't have you playing no more of your pranks
in my mine, and so I tell you."

Gwyn made no reply, but he went steadily up, while, on casting a glance
below, he saw that the mine captain was making his way as steadily down;
but he thought a good deal, and a great deal more afterwards, for, on
reaching the top of the cliff, there lay Joe on the short grass, looking
ghastly pale, and his father, with Joe's, ready to seize him by the arm
and draw him into safety.

"There must be no more of this," said the Colonel, sternly. "You two
boys are not fit to be trusted in these dangerous places. Now, go home
at once."

The little crowd attracted by the accident had begun to cheer wildly,
but the congratulatory sound did Gwyn no good. He did not feel a bit
like the hero of an adventure, one who had done brave deeds, but a very
ordinary schoolboy sort of personage, who was being corrected for a
fault, and he felt very miserable as he turned to Joe.

"Are you coming home, too?"

"Yes. I suppose so," said Joe, dismally.

There was another cheer, and the boys felt as if they could not face the
crowd, till an angry flush came upon Gwyn's cheeks; for there stood,
right in the front, the big, swarthy fellow who had been caught plumbing
the depth of the mine, and he was grinning widely at them both.

"Ugh!" thought Gwyn, "how I should like to punch that chap's head.