was very beautiful, but I had watched that too often, so I crossed
the garden and went out into the lane to see if I could find anything
amusing there.

For it seemed to me that it might be very nice for my father to have
found a mine of lead and silver, and that it would be very interesting
to see it dug out and melted, as we had melted those pieces that day--of
course in a large way; but I did not feel as if I wanted to be rich, and
I would a great deal rather then have been wandering out there on the
cliff with Bob Chowne or Bigley Uggleston, when I heard a shout, and,
looking in the direction, there, high up on the cliff path, and coming
towards me with long strides, was my last-named school-fellow.

"Hallo, Big!" I shouted, running towards him; "where are you going?"

"Coming to look after you," he said. "Why didn't you come over again?"

"Because I was wanted at home," I replied. "You might have come over to
me."

"I couldn't. I didn't like to. Father was put out this morning,
because he saw you and your father on our grounds."

"Your grounds!" I said. "Oh, come, that is a good one."

"Well, father always talks about it as if all the Gap belonged to him.
What were you doing there?"

"Having a walk," I was obliged to say.

"Oh, well, you might have stopped."

"Didn't I tell you my father wanted me," I replied in a pettish way.
"I've only just got out again."

"I've been waiting at home to see if my father would come back. He
started off to walk to Barnstaple."

"Your father has?" I cried involuntarily. "Why, that's where my father
has gone."

"What! To Barnstaple, Sep?"

I nodded.

"I say," he said, "I hope they won't meet one another."

"Why?" I exclaimed.

"Because they might quarrel. I say, Sep, I wish your father and my
father were good friends like we are."

I shook my head at that, and felt rather lofty.

"I don't see how that can ever be," I replied; and then I felt quite
uncomfortable as I recalled my father being uneasy about old Jonas
watching us that morning. I felt, too, that it would be much worse now
if Jonas got to know that there was a mine upon the estate, and it
seemed as if we were going to be at the beginning of a good deal of
trouble.

"Father went up the Gap after you had gone," said Bigley, "and I saw him
go right up to the place where we blew down the big rock, and when I saw
him go there I went indoors and got his spy-glass and watched him out of
the