Bevis, who had readily accepted the office of guide, seemed doing his best to make himself agreeable. He led the way along a path across some fields and on to the headland that skirted the sea. There was a track here among the gorse and dead bracken, so faint indeed that the girls would not have found it for themselves, though Bevis walked along confidently. Below them lay the sea, and great jagged rocks, round which crowds of gulls were whirling and calling, and here and there flew a cormorant, like a black sheep among the white flock, diving occasionally under the waves in quest of fish. There could hardly be a pleasanter companion than Bevis. He knew the names of all the birds, and could tell where he had found their nests. He pointed out two distant black specks, that to the girls might have been anything, but which he assured them represented a pair of choughs that built every year on the cliffs.
"We tried to get some eggs," he explained, "but the nest was in such an awkward place, we couldn't reach it even with a rope."
"Do you mean to tell me you'd let yourself dangle over the edge there to collect eggs?" asked Mavis. "Don't you turn dizzy?"
"Not a bit. As long as I know the rope isn't frayed, I'm all right. There's something rather jolly about hanging in mid-air. I feel like a bird myself. I once got a hooded crow's egg from that cliff over there. I gave it to our school museum."
"Do you go to school near here?" asked Merle, hoping to draw some information. But Bevis shook his head.
"I've left now," he said briefly, and changed the subject.
As they neared Chagmouth the track they had followed led them down the side of the cliff to where some allotment gardens lay under the shelter of the headland. Many of these were neglected and uncultivated, but a few showed signs of recent digging. Bevis, pausing by a small wooden gate, pointed downwards.
"That's ours," he explained, "and if you don't mind I want to fetch my knife. I believe I left it there yesterday when I was working. I won't be a minute if you can wait."
"Oh, do let us come too, please!" urged the girls.
So they all went down, scrambling along a kind of sheep track till they reached the level patch of rich soil below. The little plot of land was mostly devoted to vegetables, but it also held a few fruit-trees and some flowers. There was a fallen stump in its midst, which made a capital seat, and here the girls settled themselves to rest while Bevis looked for his knife. Snowdrops grew in profusion around them, lifting tall stalks and pure white heads above the herbage through which they had pushed. The late afternoon sun just touched the roofs of the little fishing-town below, though the beach lay in shadow. Up among the woods some glass windows gleamed like gold.