Winefred: A Story of the Chalk Cliffs

by S. Baring-Gould

Then he considered that he had seen Winefred on the edge of the cliff, walking unconcernedly where a false step would precipitate her to the shore. Why had not her foot slipped? Why had not the crumbling chalk yielded beneath her weight? He recalled tales of persons who had turned giddy when on an edge, and he cursed his folly in telling her that the birds had deserted the chalk cliffs on the Bindon side of the estuary, for otherwise she would have leaned over the edge and pried after their nests, and might have overbalanced; she might even have ventured to climb to their places of breeding, and in doing this have fallen.

A fog came on, enveloping everything as in cotton wool, obscuring all sights, deadening all sounds.

Presently Winefred would be on her way back from Seaton, to be put across, and then she would ascend the steep hill opposite and strike across the down to the cottage of her mother.

In such a mist, what more likely than that she should lose her way, stumble over some obstruction, go over the cliff? And yet—no—likely it was not, seeing how familiar the girl was with every inch of the way.

There was a jetty from which a passenger stepped into the ferry-boat. It consisted of planks sustained on poles driven into the mud. The planks were slippery with the distilling vapour. The stage was not particularly secure, as Olver had noticed that morning.

In another half hour the tide would be racing out, swirling about the piles on which the footway rested. It was precisely the swirl that had loosened one of them and made the planks incline and become infirm.

When a passenger arrived and asked to be ferried across, it was Olver's wont to extend a hand and help him into the boat.

But what if the step were missed and there ensued a fall into the water?

In the fog, at the rate at which the tide would be sweeping out, that person who was submerged would be carried away, and the veil of vapour would make it difficult, if not impossible, to recover him.

Olver sat in his boat musing and motionless, with the oar poised in his hand.