"Can't I?" said the Urchin. "You watch." Another fling, and horrors! the shore lark rolled over, twittering helplessly and miserably. Fiona was across the rocks like a young goat; and when the Urchin, contrite but defiant, arrived, she had the wounded bird in her hands and was holding it to her breast, feeling gently for its hurt. It lay quite still, panting, and watching her with quick bright eyes. "Broken wing," she said. "I believe it will mend. Urchin, you are a mere beast. You'd better go home; I don't want ever to see you again." The Urchin turned scarlet. "That's just like a girl," he said. "First you tell me I can't hit the old bird, which is the same thing as telling me to hit it; and then when I do hit it you turn round on me and call names; and all the time you're just as bad as I am." And the Urchin turned and stalked off, an heroic figure with the mien of a Marcus Curtius about to save his country by leaping into the gulf. Unhappily there was a real gulf, and the boy, head in air, rolled neatly into it, and emerged from between two rocks, dripping and no longer heroic, rubbing a torn stocking and a scraped shin. It was too much for Fiona's gravity. "Urchin," she called, "come back here, _quick_." And as the unhappy Urchin stood in doubt, hither and thither dividing the swift mind, she slid over the rocks and caught him. "My fault," she said, "and I'm sorry all the way through. Now I'll mend you first, and then we must mend the bird." "And then what'll we do?" said the boy. "Let's do something harmless for a bit, hunt for shells or shrimps or . . ." "Treasure," suggested Fiona, rather shyly. And by the time they had reached the house, and she had repaired the Urchin, and disposed the wounded bird as comfortably as possible, the boy had been put in possession of the essential facts of the case. "Mar-vellous," was the Urchin's comment. "Now, don't you see, Fiona? you can have your treasure when we find it, and I'll have the Spanish treasure when we find it, and there we both are. I want lots and lots and lots of those doubloons." "What for?" said Fiona. "Gun," said the Urchin. "Donald Ruadh has an old gun which he would sell me for two pounds. He says one barrel shoots all right sometimes. And I would use the rest of the doubloons to buy cartridges, and then I could kill curlews." "You little wretch," said the girl. "You won't kill my curlews while I'm about. And anyhow your old gun would probably blow you up first. And anyhow you haven't got the doubloons yet. And they're not yours if you do find them." "Whose would they be?" asked the Urchin. "I suppose my father's," said Fiona. "But it depends on which cave they were in." "Come on, then," said the boy. "I'm going to ask him for them." The Student took the interruption good-humoredly.