two pretty yachts, which lay at anchor in the bay.
One of them belonged to Mr Moreton, David's father, and the other to
Captain Rymer, with whose family David was as much at home as with his
own; and he and his sisters looked upon Mary, Captain Rymer's daughter,
quite in the light of a sister. She was, indeed, a very charming little
girl, well worthy of their affections. The first course of the picnic
was concluded--that is to say, the chickens, and hams, and pies, and
cold beef, and tongues, and a few other substantials were pushed back;
the potatoes, which had been boiled in salt water, having been
pronounced excellent. The tarts and cakes and fruit, peaches and figs
and grapes, were brought to the front, and underwent the admiration they
deserved, when suddenly David Moreton, looking up, raised a loud shout,
and, jumping to his feet, clapped his hands and waved them vehemently.
The shout was echoed in different keys by many others, and all turning
their eyes in the direction David was pointing, they saw, on the top of
the cliff a boy, on whose jacket and cap the glitter of a little gold
lace and his snow-white trousers proclaimed him to be that hero in
embryo, a midshipman. Having looked about him for a few seconds, he
began to descend the cliff at so seemingly breakneck a speed, that
several of the ladies shrieked out to him to take care, and Mary Rymer
turned somewhat pale and stood looking anxiously as the young sailor
dropped from one point of rock to another, or slid down a steep incline,
or swung himself by the branches of shrubs or tufts of grass to the
ledge below him, and ran along it as if it had been a broad highway,
though a false step might have proved his destruction. Once he stopped.
To go back was impossible, and to attempt to descend seemed almost
certain destruction. Mr Sowton and Billy Burnaby jumped up, almost
dragging away the tablecloth, upsetting tarts, and fruit-dishes, and
bottles of wine, and all the other things, when Harry gave a tremendous
spring to a ledge which his sharp eye had detected, and was in a few
seconds afterwards standing safe on the sands and shaking hands warmly
with everybody present. When he came to Mr Tom Sowton and Billy
Burnaby, it might have been supposed from the way in which they wrung
each other's hands, that there was a wager pending as to which should
first twist off his friend's fist.

"Fortunately, we haven't eaten up all the good things, Harry," exclaim