"Wery well, William; when you get your 'ed above your 'eels, gae on." "But I'm stuck fast between two stones! Hang the stones!" And Naylor bursts into an old seventeenth century ditty of the days of "three-man glees." "They stoans, they stoans, they stoans, they stoans-- They stoans that built George Riddler's oven, O they was fetched from Blakeney quarr'; And George he was a jolly old man, And his head did grow above his har'. "One thing in George Riddler I must commend, And I hold it for a valiant thing; With any three brothers in Gloucestershire He swore that his three sons should sing. "There was Dick the tribble, and Tom the mane, Let every man sing in his own place; And William he was the eldest brother, And therefore he should sing the base.-- I'm down again! This is my thirteenth fall." "So am I! I shall just lie and light a pipe." "Come on, now, and look round the lee side of this crag. We shall find him bundled up under the lee of one of them." "He don't know lee from windward, I dare say." "He'll soon find out the difference by his skin;--if it's half as wet, at least, as mine is." "I'll tell you what, Naylor, if the poor fellow has crossed the ridge, and tried to go down on the Twll du, he's a dead man by this time." "He'll have funked it, when he comes to the edge, and sees nothing but mist below. But if he has wandered on to the cliffs above Trifaen, he's a dead man, then, at all events. Get out of the way of that flash! A close shave, that! I believe my whiskers are singed." "'Pon my honour, Wynd, we ought to be saying our prayers rather than joking in this way." "We may do both, and be none the worse. As for coming to grief, old boy, we're on a good errand, I suppose, and the devil himself can't harm us. Still, shame to him who's ashamed of saying his prayers, as Arnold used to say." And all the while, these two brave lads have been thrusting their lanthorn into every crack and cranny, and beating round every crag carefully and cunningly, till long past two in the morning. "Here's the ordnance cairn, at last; and--here am I astride of a carving-knife, I think! Come and help me off, or I shall be split to the chin!" "I'm coming! What's this soft under my feet? Who-o-o-oop! Run him to earth at last!" And diving down into a crack, Wynd drags out by the collar the unconscious Elsley. "What a swab! Like a piece of wet blotting-paper. Lucky he's not made of salt." "He's dead!" says Naylor. "Not a bit. I can feel his heart. There's life in the old dog yet." And they begin, under the lee of a rock, chafing him, wrapping him in their plaids, and pouring whiskey down his throat. It was some time before Vavasour recovered his consciousness. The first use which he made of it was to bid his preservers leave him; querulously at first; and then fiercely, when he found out who they were. "Leave me, I say! Cannot I be alone if I choose? What right have you to dog me in this way?"