Stalky Co. | Page 5

"I'm an ass, Stalky!" he said, guarding the afflicted part. "Pax, Turkey.
I'm an ass."
"Don't stop, Turkey. Isn't your Uncle Stalky a great man?"
"Great man," said Beetle.
"All the same bug-huntin's a filthy business," said McTurk. "How the
deuce does one begin?"
"This way," said Stalky, turning to some fags' lockers behind him.
"Fags are dabs at Natural History. Here's young Braybrooke's
botany-case." He flung out a tangle of decayed roots and adjusted the
slide. "'Gives one no end of a professional air, I think. Here's Clay
Minor's geological hammer. Beetle can carry that. Turkey, you'd better
covet a butterfly-net from somewhere."
"I'm blowed if I do," said McTurk, simply, with immense feeling.
"Beetle, give me the hammer."
"All right. I'm not proud. Chuck us down that net on top of the lockers,
Stalky."
"That's all right. It's a collapsible jamboree, too. Beastly luxurious
dogs these fags are. Built like a fishin'-rod. 'Pon my sainted Sam, but
we look the complete Bug-hunters! Now, listen to your Uncle Stalky!
We're goin' along the cliffs after butterflies. Very few chaps come there.
We're goin' to leg it, too. You'd better leave your book behind."
"Not much!" said Beetle, firmly. "I'm not goin' to be done out of my fun
for a lot of filthy butterflies."

"Then you'll sweat horrid. You'd better carry my Jorrocks. 'Twon't
make you any hotter."
They all sweated; for Stalky led them at a smart trot west away along
the cliffs under the furze-hills, crossing combe after gorzy combe. They
took no heed to flying rabbits or fluttering fritillaries, and all that
Turkey said of geology was utterly unquotable.
"Are we going to Clovelly?" he puffed at last, and they flung themselves
down on the short, springy turf between the drone of the sea below and
the light summer wind among the inland trees. They were looking into
a combe half full of old, high furze in gay bloom that ran up to a fringe
of brambles and a dense wood of mixed timber and hollies. It was as
though one-half the combe were filled with golden fire to the cliff's
edge. The side nearest to them was open grass, and fairly bristled with
notice-boards.
"Fee-rocious old cove, this," said Stalky, reading the nearest.
"'Prosecutedwiththeutmostrigourofthelaw. G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P.,' an'
all the rest of it. 'Don't seem to me that any chap in his senses would
trespass here, does it?"
"You've got to prove damage 'fore you can prosecute for anything!
'Can't prosecute for trespass," said McTurk, whose father held many
acres in Ireland. "That's all rot!"
"Glad of that, 'cause this looks like what we wanted. Not straight across,
Beetle, you blind lunatic! Anyone could spot us half a mile off. This
way; and furl up your beastly butterfly-net."
Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a pocket, shut up the
handle to a two-foot stave, and slid the cane-ring round his waist.
Stalky led inland to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile
from the sea, and reached the fringe of the brambles.
"Now we can get straight down through the furze, and never show up at
all," said the tactician. "Beetle, go ahead and explore. Snf! Snf! Beastly
stink of fox somewhere!"

On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into
the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had
found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky
pinched him atergo. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a
highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their inexpressible
joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in a few square feet of dry turf
walled and roofed with impenetrable gorse.
"By gum! There isn't a single thing to do except lie down," said Stalky,
returning a knife to his pocket. "Look here!"
He parted the tough stems before him, and it was as a window opened
on a far view of Lundy, and the deep sea sluggishly nosing the pebbles
a couple of hundred feet below. They could hear young jackdaws
squawking on the ledges, the hiss and jabber of a nest of hawks
somewhere out of sight; and, with great deliberation, Stalky spat on to
the back of a young rabbit sunning himself far down where only a
cliff-rabbit could have found foot-hold. Great gray and black gulls
screamed against the jackdaws; the heavy-scented acres of bloom
round them were alive with low-nesting birds, singing or silent as the
shadow of the wheeling hawks passed and returned; and on the naked
turf across the combe rabbits thumped and frolicked.
"Whew! What a place! Talk of natural history; this is it," said Stalky,
filling himself a pipe. "Isn't it scrumptious? Good old sea!" He spat