“Letter and papers received; believe I have dropped into the clue of the whole affair. Will write particulars.”
Mr. Morgan caressed his heavy moustache with the end of his penholder.
“That young man,” he said, “goes about the world with his eyes remarkably wide open, ha-ha!”
Mr. Bodery rolled the telegram out flat with his pencil silently.
Stanley Carew was so anxious that the inspection of the boat should not be delayed, that an expedition to the Cove was arranged for the same afternoon. Accordingly the five young people walked across the bleak tableland together. Huge white clouds were rolling up from the south-west, obscuring every now and then the burning sun. A gentle breeze blew gaily across the bleak upland—a very different breath from that which twisted and gnarled the strong Scotch firs in winter-time.
“You would not care about climbing down there, I should think,” observed Sidney, when they had reached the Cove. “It is a very different matter getting up.”
He was standing, gazing lazily up at the brown cliffs with his straw hat tilted backwards, his hands in his pockets, and his whole person presenting as fair a picture as one could desire of lazy, quiescent strength—a striking contrast to the nervous, wiry townsman at his side.
“Hardly,” replied Christian, gazing upwards at the dizzy height. “It is rather nasty stuff—slippery in parts and soft.”
He turned and strolled off by Hilda's side. With a climber's love of a rocky height he looked upwards as they walked, and she noted the direction of his gaze.