Jerry and I thought of the pirate cave at the same moment, but we didn’t see how we could possibly carry Greg to it in the dark.  We thought that as it wasn’t his legs that were hurt he might be able to walk there, if we helped him.  He was very brave and quite willing to try, though a little dazed about why we wanted him to, but when we stood him carefully on his feet, he said, “Chris—­no—­” and we had to lay him down again.  By this time it was really raining, and I put the skirt over Greg, instead of under him, while we tried to think.

“It might work if we made a chair,” Jerry suggested.

So we stooped down and clasped each other’s wrists criss-cross, the way you do to make a human chair, and got Greg on to it, with the arm that wasn’t hurt around my neck.  The darkness was perfectly pitchy, and we had to feel for every step to be sure that it was a solid place and not the slippery edge that went straight down into the sea.  Greg cried a little and said, “Please—­stop.”  I could feel his hair against my face.  It was all wet, and his cheek was wet, too, and cold.

The rain blew a little way into the cave, but not much, and we put Greg as far back as we could.  The bottom of the cave was very jaggy and not comfortable to lie on, but we made it as soft as we could with the skirt and the jersey.  I tripped and stumbled against Jerry, and when I caught him I felt that he was shivering.  His shirt was quite wet.  When I asked him if he was cold, he said “Not very,” and we crawled into the cave place beside Greg, and sat as close together as possible to keep warm.  We couldn’t see the Headland light, and I was rather glad, because it had made me almost crazy, flashing and flashing so steadily and not caring a bit.

The rain went plop into the pools, and made a flattish, spattery sound on the rock.  I don’t know why I thought of the “Air Religieux” just then, but I suppose it was because of the rain.  I could see the straight yellow candle-flames all blue around the wick, and Father’s head tucked down looking at the ’cello, and his hands, nice and strong, playing it; then I got a little mixed and heard him calling “Christi-ine,” fainter and fainter.  I think I must have been almost asleep, because I know the real rain surprised me, like something I’d forgotten, and a very sharp, cornery rock was poking into my back.

It was then that Greg said: 

“Want—­Simpson.”

That frightened me more than anything almost, for Simpson was a sort of stuffed flannel duck-thing that he’d had when he was very little, and he hadn’t thought of it for years.  None of us ever knew why he called it “Simpson,” but he adored the thing and made it sleep beside him in the crib every night.  But that was when he was three, and “Simpson” had been for ages on the top shelf where we keep the toys that we think we’ll play with again sometime before we’re really grown up.  We never have done it yet, but there are certain ones that we couldn’t possibly give away, not even to the Deservingest poor children.