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.