The elasticity was gone out of her step, as she slowly climbed the face of the huge scarped rocks which towered above the cottage—a risky ascent, but one to which she was, as it were, born; and, with her eyes fixed upon the pursuers and the fugitives, she trusted to her hands and feet to take her safely to the top, passing spot after spot where one unused to climbing would have stopped and turned back, so giddy was the ascent. Higher and higher, past clinging ivy, fern, and clusters of yellow ragwort, with patches of purple heath and golden gorse, till the farther side of the rocky point was opened out, with the boat lying like a speck afloat beyond the line of foam.
Mary paused there with her sun-bonnet in her hand to watch the result; but there was no exultation in her eyes, only a look of stony despondency, for from where she stood she could see now that the effort of her brother and his companion was in vain.
They were still on ignorance as they ran on, for they were on the bay side of the point yet, toiling over the loose sand and shingle, where the washed up weed lay thick; but Mary had a bird’s-eye view of what in the clear south air seemed to be close at her feet, as close almost as where the boat lay in shelter from the north and easterly wind.
The pursuers were now all together, and settled down to a steady trot, which pace they increased as Bart and Abel reached the rocks, and, instead of going right round, began to climb over some fifty yards from where the water washed the point.
“We’re too many for him this time, Bart, my lad,” cried Abel. “You weren’t hit, were you?”
“Hit? No. Shot never went within a mile o’ me.”
“Then why are you dowsing your jib like that?”
“I were a-thinking about she, mate,” said Bart, in a low growl.
“Curse her for a woman all over!” said Abel. “They take to a man, and the more he ill-uses ’em, they fight for him the more.”
“Ay, lad; but to think of her putting them on to us! It don’t seem like she.”