it to me what your grandfather says?" answered Norman, who
wished to show his independence before his older companions. "Don't you
be coming after us, we don't want your company."

"We had better take care where we go, though," observed one of the boys,
who was wiser than the rest.

"It would be an ugly thing to tumble into that boiling stream, and be
carried off to the loch."

"Oh, nonsense," exclaimed Norman, "I am not afraid, I am going to shoot
tigers when I go back to India. I shall have to go into wild places to
get at them. I have a fancy for climbing up those rocks to see how high
I can get. Who will follow?"

"Oh, do not go, do not go, young gentleman," cried Robby, who saw the
danger they were running. "You may slip and break your legs, or be
drowned if you fall into the water."

The boys disregarded his warnings, and Norman eager to show his bravery
began to climb the rocks. They made one ascent, and perhaps influenced
by Robby's warning, took sufficient care to escape an accident, and all
descended again in safety very nearly to the edge of the loch.

"He did not do any great thing after all," observed one of the boys. "I
thought, Vallery, you were going up to the top."

"So I will, if you will follow me," answered Norman.

"You will be frightened, before you are half way up," cried another.

"You dare not do it," said a third.

"Big as you all are, I will dare anything you can do," exclaimed Norman
proudly, and he began to reascend the rocks.

"Oh, pray do not," cried Robby, who notwithstanding the order he had
received to be off, still kept near. "You will be tumbling down, I know
you will."

The other boys followed Norman, most of them keeping in a safer
direction away from the waterfall.

Robby was running off to call some of the servants, who might he thought
stop the young gentlemen better than he could, when at that instant he
saw his grandfather pulling down the loch and close to the mouth of the
stream formed by the waterfall. Just as he was beckoning to him to make
haste that he might land and stop the boys, he heard a cry, and saw
Norman slipping down the side of a smooth rock wet with the spray of the
waterfall. In vain he shouted to him to hold on to any thing he could
grasp. Norman shrieked out with terror, but the sound of the cascade
prevented any one but his boyish companions from hearing his words.
Horror-struck, they could do nothing to help him. Robby ran up al