HOME IN HOYLE'S MOUTH.
DAVEY said nothing to Tom next morning about his curious dream—if dream
it was. He knew that his companion would laugh and jeer at him, and if
there was one thing that he dreaded more than ghosts, it was ridicule.
But from this night, he began to feel a growing horror of the cave, and
he did his best to persuade Tom to go away, and to let them search for
another place wherein to make their headquarters. But Tom knew that
owing to his theft of the ring, which was sure to be missed sooner or
later, he would be safest in hiding for the present, and that this
lonely cave in the wood was the best spot for purposes of concealment.
So when Davey entreated him to come away, he at first only laughed at
him, treating the matter as a joke, and afterwards, when the younger
lad pressed him to make the change, he flatly refused to leave.
During the daytime, however, the boys explored the neighbouring
country, and though they avoided Tenby, they visited other towns
and villages, frequently receiving gifts of food and pence from the
kind-hearted farmers and peasants, who were touched by Tom's harrowing
tales of woe.
On the day following the appearance of Davey's ghost, it was late in
the evening before the lads returned to the cave, and they were both so
weary that they were glad to lie down as soon as they had eaten their
supper. This time, however, Davey did not occupy the corner where he
had slept the night before, but found another still more sheltered
place farther on in the cave, a tiny cell shut in on all sides but
one, and with only a narrow entrance. In the rock-wall just over his
head, moreover, there was a small crack or fissure, which let in the
fresh air from the outside; and this was a great comfort, as was also
the feeling that he was no longer very near Tom, whose presence was
becoming more and more hateful to him.
The night passed quite quietly; Davey had no dreams, and heard no
noises, save the sighing of the wind in the trees, and the more distant
murmur of the waves breaking upon the sandy beach just below the
village of Penally.
And so passed several nights spent in the cave, while the days found
the lads out in the country, or down on the sands gathering mussels on
the rocks. These shell-fish they ate raw, breaking them open with a
stone, and many a meal they made thus, satisfying their hunger on that
which cost them nothing.
In this sort of savage life Tom Hughes really seemed to revel.
The freedom, the utter absence of restrictions of all kinds, the
uncertainty, the haphazard of every day as it came, amused and excited
him; even a certain element of danger which attended the circumstances
of his life, was not without its attraction, for there are some boys
who have the wild instincts of the outlaw so strongly developed in
them, that they will run risk, and brave danger and even disgrace, to
shake off all the restraints of the usual everyday life.
But for Davey, on the contrary, things were daily growing more
unbearable. First of all, his conscience was never at rest, and was
constantly upbraiding him. His thoughts, too, were always turning
homeward. He well knew how anxious his good old uncle and aunt must be
about him, and he had begun to miss and long for the love and care to
which they had accustomed him.
Then, too, the lad had been brought up to be cleanly and neat in his
person, and now he felt degraded by the impossibility of keeping
himself decent. Still, he did what he could, for every morning he
took his piece of soap and his yard of cotton cloth, and went out to
a little brook that ran down the hill, filling and overflowing, as it
went, a sort of basin worn in the rock. Here he had a good wash, taking
off his clothes and shaking them well to get rid of the dust. Moreover,
he washed his shirt too, after a fashion, hanging it over the brambles
to dry, and then putting it on again, for he had no change of garments.
He had also contrived, by means of Tom's knife, which he borrowed, to
make for himself a kind of substitute for a comb, out of a smooth bit
of wood that he found. And with this, after dipping his head in the
rock basin, and rubbing it well with his towel, he managed to scrape
the tangles out of his thick locks, and reduce them to some sort of
order. But still the boy felt ashamed of these miserable makeshifts,
and yet more so that he should have for his constant companion anyone
so dirty and warped—body and mind—as Tom Hughes. And he never ceased
revolving in his mind plans for getting rid, once for all, of his
companion, and finding his way back to Bristol, even if he had to tramp
it barefoot all the way.
By this time the boys had learned—by talking with the people in the
villages, who readily gave them all the information they could—that
the cave in the wooded hill was called Hoyle's Mouth, and was supposed
to be haunted. For labourers passing down the hill past the cavern at
night had heard, they solemnly declared, strange noises proceeding from
the depths of Hoyle's Mouth, most lamentable cries and howls, horrible
laughter, and clanking of chains, with heavy blows, as of solid metal
upon rock.
There was a tradition, the country folk said, that a succession of
caves of various sizes led from Hoyle's Mouth to a passage which ran
away underground for miles, until it merged in the well-known Hogan
Cave, under the keep of Pembroke Castle. But there was no one who
seemed able to verify this rumour; and as no one, on the other hand,
would contradict it, the tradition only served to render the place more
ghostly and uncanny, and to make Davey increasingly anxious to get away
from it.
What the lad would have done, had the present state of things
continued, it is impossible to say, for he was growing desperate, and
had even thought seriously of giving himself up to the police, rather
than live as he was doing now. But something happened about this time
which turned the whole course of events into another channel, preparing
Davey Coleman for yet greater changes and yet stranger experiences in
the future.
[Illustration]