“Yes, it is sheltered here,” replied Dick; “but wait a few minutes and you will feel the wind again.”
“Yes. I want to feel it just as it comes off the sea. I’m going to stand right at the edge. It won’t blow me down, will it?”
“No; not there,” said Will smiling. “Here we are. Now come and try.”
As soon as they emerged from the shelter of the rift and stood upon the storm-swept cliff, Dick had to clap his hand to his head to keep on his hat, for the wind seized it and swept it to the extent of the lanyard by which it was fortunately held, and there it tugged and strained like a queerly-shaped kite.
The wind now was terrific, coming in deafening gusts, and more than once making Dick stagger. In fact if he had set off to run inland it would have almost carried him off his legs.
“Didn’t—know—blow—so—hard,” he panted, turning his back so that he could breathe more freely, when the wind immediately began to part the boy’s hair behind in two or three different ways, but only to alter them directly as if not satisfied with the result.
“Come along,” shouted Will. “Let’s get to the edge.”
Dick turned round, caught at Will’s extended hand, and leaning forward, tramped with him step for step towards the edge of the cliff, which went sheer down a couple of hundred feet to the shore.
They had to force their way sturdily along for about a hundred yards with the wind as it came right off the Atlantic shrieking by their ears, and deafening and confusing them. The short wiry grass was all quivering, and it was plain enough to understand why trees found it so hard to grow where they were exposed to the fury of the sea breezes that blew so many months in the year.
Step—step—step by step, the wind seeming really to push them back. Now and then, when it came with its most furious gusts, the lads regularly leaned forward against it as if it were some strange elastic solid; and then, as they nearly reached the edge, it lulled all at once, and right at the verge all was calm.