all four to take fresh counsel as to choosing a fresh
couch.

Terence had been especially annoyed by these repeated disturbances; and
proclaimed his determination not to submit to them any longer. He would
go in search of more "comfortable quarters."

He had arisen to his feet, and appeared in the act of starting off.

"We had better not separate," suggested Harry Blount. "If we do, we may
find it difficult to come together again."

"There's something in what you say, Hal," said the young Scotchman. "It
will not do for us to lose sight of one another. What does Bill say to
it?"

"I say stay here," put in the voice of the sailor. "It won't do to
stray the wan from the tother. No, it won't. Let us hold fast, thin,
where we're already belayed."

"But who the deuce can sleep here?" remonstrated the son of Erin. "A
hard-worked horse can sleep standing; and so can an elephant, they say;
but, for me, I'd prefer six feet of the horizontal, even if it were a
hard stone, to this slope of the softest sand."

"Stay, Terry!" cried Colin. "I've captured an idea."

"Ah! you Scotch are always capturing something, whether it be an idea, a
flea, or the itch. Let's hear what it is."

"After that insult to ma kintree," good-humouredly rejoined Colin; "I
dinna know whuther I wull."

"Come, Colin!" interrupted Harry Blount, "if you have any good counsel
to give us, pray don't withhold it. We can't get sleep, standing at an
angle of forty-five degrees. Why should we not try to change our
position by seeking another place?"

"Well, Harry, as you have made the request, I'll tell you what's just
come into my mind. I only feel astonished it didn't occur to any of us
sooner."

"Mother av Moses!" cried Terence, jocularly adopting his native brogue;
"and why don't you out with it at wanse? You Scatch are the thrue
_rid-tape_ of society."

"Never mind, Colly!" interposed Blount; "there's no time to listen to
Terry's badinage. We're all too sleepy for jesting: tell us what you've
got in your mind?"

"All of ye do as you see me, and I'll be your bail, ye'll sleep sound
till the dawn o' the day. Goodnight!"

As Colin pronounced the salutation he sank down to the bottom of the
ravine, where, stretched longitudinally, he might repose, without the
slightest danger of being awakened by slipping from his couch.

On seeing him thus disposed, the others only wondered they had not
thought of the thing before.

They were t