“I came there in a boat,” said he.
“I thought it was quite dangerous,” said Agnes, eagerly.
“So it would have been,” returned Mr. Russell,—for that was the name of the young gentleman,—“if we had not contrived to pass the Needles when the tide was full.”
“And how did you manage that?” asked Mrs. Merton.
“By leaving Freshwater Gate at three o’clock in the morning,” returned he: “and, I assure you, it was anything but agreeable. The night air blew excessively chill; and the sea was wrapped in such a thick gloom that it required some courage to plunge into it. However, the fishermen pushed off the boat; and, though there was such a heavy swell, that we were alternately mounted on the crest of the billows, and lost in the hollows between them, after about an hour’s hard pulling, we found ourselves under the highest point of the cliff. The face of the rock is there nearly perpendicular, and it is six hundred and fifteen feet high.”
“But did you see the caverns?” asked Agnes.
“Oh! yes; but I had seen them before. The best is Freshwater Cavern: surely you saw that?”
“No, we did not. Pray tell us all about it.”
“It is an opening in the rocks about a hundred and twenty feet deep; and the principal entrance is by a bold, rugged arch about thirty feet high. It has a very curious effect when you look through this arch, as it is just like a church-window; and, when the tide is in, the water looks very beautiful, from the manner in which it seems to tremble in the irregular gleams of light which penetrate through the projections of the rocks. Then, there is Scratchell’s Bay, with the grand arch three hundred feet high; and the Wedge Rock, where there is a great mass of rock detached from the cliff, which looks as though it had lodged between the rocks, just as it was falling down. It is the shape of a wedge; and, when you look at it, you can’t help thinking every moment that it will fall.”
“But the waiter at Freshwater talked of Lord Holmes’s Parlour and Kitchen: what can they be?”