CHAPTER XI
THE MANOR CAVE
A few days after the school treat, Maxfield Hamilton was sauntering slowly across the Manor grounds. The January sky above shone blue as in a New England June, gay crocuses starred the short green grass, snowdrops and bluebells were already budded. From heights unknown floated the song of a skylark; in the holly hedge sat an English robin.
Max heard the skylark but did not notice the robin as he stopped at the gates to look down to the sea, stretching to shining horizons under the afternoon sun. His face was thoughtful and rather sober.
The robin gave a little cheep and Max turned to discover the bird almost at his elbow, a tiny scrap of olive feathers and bright red breast, considering him with soft wise eyes, head on one side.
"Hello, old chap," Max remarked. "What do you think of this world?"
From the tone, the robin might have inferred that the speaker's opinion was anything but favorable. Considering him for a second, he concluded him inoffensive and began to peck at the glowing holly berries.
Max wandered slowly through the gates and across the Manorhold to the shore, distant at this point about a quarter of a mile. Two or three stone cottages with picturesque straw-thatched roofs lay near the cliffs, property of the Manor and usually occupied by employees.
With the thoughtful expression still on his face, Max passed the cottages to stop on the edge of the cliffs already showing yellow with gorse. Should the tide serve, he had it in mind to revisit a haunt of his boyhood. A moment's scrutiny showed him right in thinking that the tide was on the ebb and he started rapidly down a rough, rather slippery path. As he rounded an outlying rock he came full on Roger Thayne.
Sprawled flat on the sloping cliff, Roger was watching so intently the doings of a spider that he did not look up until a shadow fell squarely across the web.