Le Neve gazed around him with a certain slight shudder of unspoken disapprobation. This place didn’t suit his sunny nature. It was even blacker and more dismal than the brown moorland above it. Tyrrel caught the dissatisfaction in his companion’s eye before Le Neve had time to frame it in words.
“Well, you don’t think much of it?” he said, inquiringly.
“I can’t say I do,” Le Neve answered, with apologetic frankness. “I suppose South America has spoilt me for this sort of thing. But it’s not to my taste. I call it gloomy, without being even impressive.”
“Gloomy,” Tyrrel answered; “oh, yes, gloomy, certainly. But impressive; well, yes. For myself, I think so. To me, it’s all terribly, unspeakably, ineffably impressive. I come here every day, and sit close on the sands, and look out upon the sea by the edge of the breakers. It’s the only place on this awful coast one feels perfectly safe in. You can’t tumble over here, or...roll anything down to do harm to anybody.”
A steep cliff path led up the sheer face of the rock to southward. It was a difficult path, a mere foothold on the ledges; but its difficulty at once attracted the engineer’s attention. “Let’s go up that way!” he said, waving his hand toward it carelessly. “The view from on top there must be infinitely finer.”
“I believe it is,” Tyrrel replied, in an unconcerned voice, like one who retails vague hearsay evidence. “I haven’t seen it myself since I was a boy of thirteen. I never go along the top of the cliffs on any account.”
Le Neve gazed down on him, astonished. “You BELIEVE it is!” he exclaimed, unable to conceal his surprise and wonder. “You never go up there! Why, Walter, how odd of you! I was reading up the Guidebook this morning before breakfast, and it says the walk from this point on the Penmorgan estate to Kynance Cove is the most magnificent bit of wild cliff scenery anywhere in Cornwall.”
“So I’m told,” Tyrrel answered, unmoved. “And I remember, as a boy, I thought it very fine. But that was long since. I never go by it.”
“Why not?” Le Neve cried.
Tyrrel shrugged his shoulders and shook himself impatiently. “I don’t know.” he answered, in a testy sort of voice. “I don’t like the cliff top... It’s so dangerous, don’t you know? So unsafe. So unstable. The rocks go off so sheer, and stones topple over so easily.”