We three boys stood gazing down at our work with a feeling closely akin to awe, staring at the rushing stone cataract which kept throwing off masses of grey foam which were great pieces of rock bouncing and leaping and bounding down as if delighted at being set free to move after being fixed to the earth since who could say when? No one spoke, no one moved till all was still below, and then, while I was wondering what my father would say, Bigley Uggleston suddenly made us start by tossing up his cap and shouting “Hooray!”
This roused Bob, who began to smile.
“I thought that would move it,” he said coolly. “Why, what’s the matter with you, Sep? Here, Big, look at him; he’s quite white. Here’s a game! He’s frightened.”
“No, I’m not,” I said stoutly. “I was only thinking about what my father will say when he sees what we’ve done.”
“Get out! Hark at him. One can’t come down to the Gap now without old Sep Duncan dinning it into your ears about his father, and what he’ll say, and all to show how proud he is, just because an old chap has bought a bit of land down by the sea. Why, what harm have we done?”
“Torn all that ragged place down the bottom of the cliff,” I said dolefully. “It wasn’t like that before.”
“And what of it? Who’s to know but what the stone tumbled down by itself? Nobody heard.”
We looked guiltily round, but the Gap was perfectly solemn and silent, the only thing suggesting life after the two cottages and the lugger being the vessels out at sea between us and the Welsh coast.
“But it seems such a pity!” I said ruefully. “I didn’t think the stone would make so much of a mark coming down.”
“There he goes again!” sneered Bob. “Afraid of spoiling his father’s estate. Oh, arn’t we proud of two sides of a hole and a water-gully!”