d, he gave relief to
his feelings in a hearty British cheer that reverberated from cliff to
cliff, causing the startled sea-gulls to drive the very echoes mad with
their clangour.

The botanist, on the other hand, proceeded with the extreme care of a
man who knew that a false step or uncertain grip might send him into the
seething mass of foam and rocks below. But he did not hesitate or
betray want of courage in attempting any difficulty which he had made up
his mind to face.

The proceedings of Nehow, however, seemed little short of miraculous.
He appeared to run up perpendicular places like a cat; to leap where the
others crept, to scramble where his companions did not dare to venture,
and, loosely speaking, to hang on occasionally to nothing by the point
of his nose, his eyelids, or his finger-nails! We say that he appeared
to do all this, but the gulls who watched and followed him in noisy
indignation could have told you, if they had chosen, that his eye was
quick, that his feet and hands were sure, and that he never trusted foot
or hand for one moment on a doubtful projection or crevice.

For some time all went well. The three men soon returned, each with a
few eggs which they laid on the grass in three little heaps, to be
watched and guarded by Sally, and to be stared at in grave surprise by
Charlie. They carried their eggs in three round baskets without lids,
and with handles which folded over on one side, so that the baskets
could be fitted into each other when not in use, or slung round the
necks of the egg-collectors while they were climbing.

The last to return to the children was William Brown. He brought his
basket nearly half full of fine eggs, and set it down beside the two
heaps already brought in.

"Ain't they lovely, Sall?" asked Brown, wiping the perspiration from his
brow with the sleeve of his coat. That same coat, by the way, was very
disreputable--threadbare and worn,--being four years old on the lowest
calculation, and having seen much rough service, for Brown had an
objection to the tapa cloth, and said he would stick to the old coat as
long as it would stick to him. The truth is he felt it, with his worn
canvas trousers and Guernsey shirt, to be in some sense a last link to
"home," and he was loath to part with them.

"Lovely!" exclaimed Sally, "they's jus' bootiful." Nothing could exceed
"bootiful" in Sally's mind--she had paid the eggs the highest possible
compliment.

Charli