Bob Chowne was the son of an old friend of my father--"captain" Duncan,
as people called him, and lived at Ripplemouth, three or four miles
away. The people always called him Chowne, which they had shortened
from Champernowne, and we boys at school often substituted Chow for Bob,
because we said he was such a disagreeable chap.

I do not see the logic of the change even now, but the nickname was
given and it stuck. I must own, though, that he was anything but an
amiable fellow, and I used to wonder whether it was because his father,
the doctor, gave him too much physic; but it couldn't have been that,
for Bob always used to say that if he was ill his father would send him
out without any breakfast to swallow the sea air upon the cliffs, and
that always made him well.

Bigley Uggleston, my other companion, on the contrary, was about the
best-tempered fellow that ever lived. He was the son of old Jonas
Uggleston, who lived at the big cottage down in the Gap, on one side of
the little stream. Jonas was supposed to be a fisherman, and he
certainly used to fish, but he carried on other business as well with
his lugger--business which enabled him to send his son to the
grammar-school, where he was one of the best-dressed of the boys, and
had about as much pocket-money as Bob and I put together, but we always
spent it for him and he never seemed to mind.

I have said that he was an amiable fellow, and he had this peculiarity,
that if you looked at him you always began to laugh, and then his broad
face broke up into a smile, as if he was pleased because you laughed at
him, and tease, worry, or do what you liked, he never seemed to mind.

I never saw another boy like him, and I used to wonder why Bob Chowne
and I should be a couple of ordinary robust boys of fourteen, while he
was five feet ten, broad-shouldered, with a good deal of dark downy
whisker and moustache, and looked quite a man.

Sometimes Bob and I used to discuss the matter in private, and came to
the conclusion that as Bigley was six months older than we were, we
should be like him in stature when another six months had passed; but we
very soon had to give up that idea, and so it remained that our
school-fellow had the aspect of a grown man, but what Bob called his
works were just upon a level with our own, for, except in appearance, he
was not manly in the slightest degree.

CHAPTER TWO.

OUR CLIFFS.

I believe the sheep began all the creepy paths