nd turned to walk back.

"Given it up as a bad job," he said, merrily. "An old stupid! I could
have found him. Well, I can go now in peace."

He waited till the coast was clear, and then, stooping low, set off at a
trot, getting well down into the gorge-like rift. Striking off
gradually to his right, he attacked the great cliff wall in a perfectly
familiar fashion, and climbed from ledge to ledge till he reached the
top, glanced back to see that the gardener was not in sight, and then
strode away over the short, velvety, slippery turf, with the edge of the
cliff some fifty yards or so to his left, and the rough, rocky slope
that led up to the scattered cottages of the Eilygugg fishermen to his
right.

He soon reached a somewhat similar chasm to that which ended in his own
boat harbour; but this was far wider, and upon reaching its edge he
could look right down it to the sea, where at its mouth a couple of
luggers and about half a dozen rowboats of various sizes were moored.

The cottages lay round and about the head of the creek, and partly
natural, partly cut and blasted out of the cliff side, ledge after ledge
had been formed, giving an easy way down from the cottages to the boats.
But there was not a soul in sight, and nothing to indicate that there
were people occupying the whitewashed cots, save some patches of white
newly-washed clothes which were kept from being blown away by the
playful wind by means of big cobble stones--smooth boulders--three or
four of which were laid upon the corners of the washing.

There was not even one fisherman hanging about the front of the
cottages, where all looked quiet and sleepy in the extreme, so, passing
on, Aleck hurried round the head of the narrow rugged harbour, and was
soon after making his way along the piled-up cliffs, keeping well inland
so as to avoid the great gashes or splits which ran up into the land and
had to be circumvented, where they ended as suddenly as they appeared,
in every case being perfectly perpendicular, with the water running
right up, looking in some cases black, still, deep and clear, in others
floored with foam as the waves rushed in over the black, jagged masses
of rock that had in stormy times been torn from the sides.

To a stranger nothing could have appeared more terrible than these
zigzag jagged gashes or splits in the stern, rocky coast, for they were
turfed to the sharp edge, where an unwary step would have resulted in
the visitor