lost my wits and gone to the bottom, if there were any.

But suddenly a robin sang (as they will do after dark, towards spring)
in the brown fern and ivy behind me. I took it for our little Annie's
voice (for she could call any robin), and gathering quick warm comfort,
sprang up the steep way towards the starlight. Climbing back, as the
stones glid down, I heard the cold greedy wave go japping, like a blind
black dog, into the distance of arches and hollow depths of darkness.

[Illustration: 069.jpg Tailpiece]




CHAPTER IX

THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME

[Illustration: 070.jpg Illustrated Capital]

I can assure you, and tell no lie (as John Fry always used to say, when
telling his very largest), that I scrambled back to the mouth of that
pit as if the evil one had been after me. And sorely I repented now of
all my boyish folly, or madness it might well be termed, in venturing,
with none to help, and nothing to compel me, into that accursed valley.
Once let me get out, thinks I, and if ever I get in again, without being
cast in by neck and by crop, I will give our new-born donkey leave to
set up for my schoolmaster.

How I kept that resolution we shall see hereafter. It is enough for me