“’Pon my honour, Wynd, we ought to be saying our prayers rather than joking in this way.”

“We may do both, and be none the worse.  As for coming to grief, old boy, we’re on a good errand, I suppose, and the devil himself can’t harm us.  Still, shame to him who’s ashamed of saying his prayers, as Arnold used to say.”

And all the while, these two brave lads have been thrusting their lanthorn into every crack and cranny, and beating round every crag carefully and cunningly, till long past two in the morning.

“Here’s the ordnance cairn, at last; and—­here am I astride of a carving-knife, I think!  Come and help me off, or I shall be split to the chin!”

“I’m coming!  What’s this soft under my feet?  Who-o-o-oop!  Run him to earth at last!”

And diving down into a crack, Wynd drags out by the collar the unconscious Elsley.

“What a swab!  Like a piece of wet blotting-paper.  Lucky he’s not made of salt.”

“He’s dead!” says Naylor.

“Not a bit.  I can feel his heart.  There’s life in the old dog yet.”

And they begin, under the lee of a rock, chafing him, wrapping him in their plaids, and pouring whiskey down his throat.

It was some time before Vavasour recovered his consciousness.  The first use which he made of it was to bid his preservers leave him; querulously at first; and then fiercely, when he found out who they were.

“Leave me, I say!  Cannot I be alone if I choose?  What right have you to dog me in this way?”

“My dear sir, we have as much right here as any one else; and if we find a man dying here of cold and fatigue—­”

“What business of yours, if I choose to die?”

“There is no harm in your dying, sir,” says Naylor.  “The harm is in our letting you die; I assure you it is entirely to satisfy our own consciences we are troubling you thus;” and he begins pressing him to take food.

“No, sir; nothing from you!  You have shown me impertinence enough in the last few weeks, without pressing on me benefits for which I do not wish.  Let me go!  If you will not leave me, I shall leave you!”

And he tried to rise:  but, stiffened with cold, sank back again upon the rock.

In vain they tried to reason with him; begged his pardon for all past jests:  he made effort after effort to get up; and at last, his limbs, regaining strength by the fierceness of his passion, supported him; and he struggled onward toward the northern slope of the mountain.

“You must not go down till it is light; it is as much as your life is worth.”

“I am going to Bangor, sir; and go I will!”

“I tell you, there is fifteen hundred feet of slippery screes below you.”

“As steep as a house-roof, and with every tile on it loose.  You will roll from top to bottom before you have gone a hundred yards.”

“What care I?  Let me go, I say!  Curse you, sir!  Do you mean to use force?”