“I think we can get across, and I don't want to go too far up,” she said. “If you don't mind helping Alison—”
“I'll throw the sacks across first,” Festing replied.
He swung them round by the straps and let them go, and when the last splashed into a boggy patch on the other side Miss Jardine laughed.
“I'm selfishly glad that one is yours. If Helen's had fallen a foot short, it would have gone over the fall, but I expect she had a reason for taking the risk. Where our clothes have gone we must follow.”
Helen seized a tuft of heather, and sliding down, reached a narrow shelf four or five feet below. Then a small mountain-ash gave her a fresh hold and she dropped to the top of a projecting stone. Below this there was another shelf and some boggy grass, after which a bank of earth dropped nearly straight to the stream.
“How we shall get down the last pitch isn't very obvious,” Miss Jardine remarked. “I suppose we will see when we arrive. It isn't my resolution that gives way, but my foot. You might go first.”
Festing dropped on to the first shelf, and she came down into his arms. The shock nearly flung him off, but he steadied her with an effort and seized the stem of the small tree.
“Looks like a tight-wire trick,” he said, glancing at the stone. “However, if we miss it, there's another ledge below.”
He reached the stone, and balancing on it with one foot, kicked a hole in the spongy turf. Finding this would support him he held out his hand.
“Now. As lightly as you can!”