Thus advised, and being further urged by Ruby himself, and being moreover exceedingly anxious to see this cave, Minnie consented; so the two set off together, and, climbing to the summit of the cliffs, followed the narrow footpath that runs close to their giddy edge all along the coast.
In less than half an hour they reached the Giel or Gaylet Pot.
CHAPTER XIX
AN ADVENTURE—SECRETS REVEALED, AND A PRIZE
The Giel or Gaylet Pot, down into which Ruby, with great care and circumspection, led Minnie, is one of the most curious of Nature's freaks among the cliffs of Arbroath.
In some places there is a small scrap of pebbly beach at the base of those perpendicular cliffs; in most places there is none—the cliffs presenting to the sea almost a dead wall, where neither ship nor boat could find refuge from the storm.
The country, inland, however, does not partake of the rugged nature of the cliffs. It slopes gradually towards them—so gradually that it may be termed flat, and if a stranger were to walk towards the sea over the fields in a dark night, the first intimation he would receive of his dangerous position would be when his foot descended into the terrible abyss that would receive his shattered frame a hundred feet below.
In one of the fields there is a hole about a hundred yards across, and as deep as the cliffs in that part are high. It is about fifty or eighty yards from the edge of the cliffs, and resembles an old quarry; but it is cut so sharply out of the flat field that it shows no sign of its existence until the traveller is close upon it. The rocky sides, too, are so steep, that at first sight it seems as if no man could descend into it. But the most peculiar point about this hole is, that at the foot of it there is the opening of a cavern, through which the sea rolls into the hole, and breaks in wavelets on a miniature shore. The sea has forced its way inland and underground until it has burst into the bottom of this hole, which is not inaptly compared to a pot with water boiling at the bottom of it. When a spectator looks into the cave, standing at the bottom of the "Pot", he sees the seaward opening at the other end—a bright spot of light in the dark interior.
"You won't get nervous, Minnie?" said Ruby, pausing when about halfway down the steep declivity, where the track, or rather the place of descent, became still more steep and difficult; "a slip here would be dangerous."
"I have no fear, Ruby, as long as you keep by me."