"
Roy looked a little ashamed of himself. He said no more on the subject,
and shortly after he and Dudley ran home to tea.
They were very disappointed when their aunt refused to let them go out
again that evening.
"It is too damp a night for Jonathan to be wandering through wet grass
and bog. You can go, David, if you like, but he must wait for another
opportunity."
"I shan't go without Roy," said Dudley, sturdily.
"We'll come and make a cave in the attic," suggested Roy, trying to be
cheerful.
And for the rest of that evening they were absorbed in making a great
dust and racket amongst lumber boxes far away from their grandmother's
hearing.
IV
AN AWKWARD VISIT
"And how do you know a river has been here?"
"By the soil and by the relics I have found. Look at this fossil. Do you
see the outline of the fish? Fish don't live on dry ground."
"There might have been a fishman passing by who dropped one out of his
cart."
Old Principle laughed at Dudley's sceptical notion, and went on
shovelling out earth with great alacrity. It was Saturday afternoon: old
Principle had shut up his shop and taken the boys up to the hills
surrounding the little village, where in a ravine between two
precipitous crags, in the midst of a green bower of ferns and moss, he
was hard at work excavating an old cave that had been buried for many
years out of sight.
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