Read Online The Youngest Girl in the Fifth by Angela Brazil - Free Book Online Page B

feeling the short, fine grass under her feet. It was a stiff climb to the top of the plateau, but once up there was a tolerably flat walk of about a couple of miles to the jagged rocks that formed the end of the promontory.
    "Isn't it glorious?" said Gwen, when, the scrambling part finished, they sat for a moment or two on a rock to take breath. Below lay the clear, grey, even, shimmering surface of the sea, a little hazy at the horizon, and changing to deepest green as it neared the cliffs, where the sea-birds wheeled round screaming in sheer joy of life. "Don't you feel as if you could take a jump from the edge and just go sailing down like a gull, and land gently on the water, and float off?"
    "Better not try the experiment unless you provide yourself with a parachute! An aeroplane could make a good start up here. Do you ever get any guillemots' eggs? Or puffins'?"
    "Not often; though sometimes the lighthouse men bring us a few. Are you collecting eggs?"
    "Rather! I've got nearly five hundred. I could do with a razor-bill's or a puffin's."
    "You'll have to wait till next summer. June and July are the best months. I can show you where the birds sit, though. They haven't proper nests, they just squat on the rocks, packed as close together as sardines. It's wonderful to see them. And the noise they make! No, it isn't here, it's over by the chasms; we shall get there soon."
    Half an hour's brisk walking brought them to what must have seemed to the ancient inhabitants of these islands the end of the world. The headland descended in a sheer precipice into the water, while wicked-looking rocks showed a black point here and there among the surf as a warning to any vessel to give them a wide berth. The cliff was hardly less dangerous than the rocks below, for its surface was torn into great rugged chasms, each as deep as the sea level, though often only a few feet in breadth. These curious natural rents wound in tortuous course to the edge of the precipice, sometimes crossing one another, and thus leaving islands stranded between, or long promontories, from the ends of which there would be no escape except by a jump. Gwen and Dick picked their way carefully along. There was scarcely need for Mr. Gascoyne's warning; each felt the entire necessity for extreme caution. Peeping over the edges of the chasms they could see green ferns growing in splendid clumps in clefts of the rock, and farther down darkness or a glint of water.
    "Ugh! It would be horrible to tumble there!" declared Gwen, shivering as she gazed into the dim depths. "You don't feel as if you'd ever come up again, do you? Why, what's that? Did you hear?"
    "Nothing but the gulls."
    "It's like someone shouting. There it is again--behind us."
    "By Jove! it is someone calling. Has anybody slipped down one of these holes? We'd best go and see, but do be careful. Hello, there! We're coming!"
    Walking, as Gwen had said, like cautious cats, they threaded their way along the narrow strips of land till they reached the particular chasm whence the shouts issued. Looking over, they could see on a ledge about six feet down a little corduroyed, blue-jerseyed figure, and a frightened, freckled face that peered upwards. Gwen recognized the urchin in a moment: it was Johnnie Cass, the scapegrace of a family of fisher folk who lived in the village, and the naughtiest boy in Winnie's Sunday School class. He was in no immediate danger, for the ledge was wide, but the wall of rock above him was too steep to admit of his climbing up.
    "Johnnie, what are you doing down there?" she called.
    "Oh! boo-hoo-hoo!" wailed the scared voice from below. "I were reachin' after a sea-gurt with a broke wing and down I cooms!"
    "Serve you right, too! How do you intend getting back?"
    "I don't know--I wish my mother was 'ere!" and again he broke into a howl of woe.
    "I'm glad she's not--she'd make a worse noise than you, from my experience of her," murmured Gwen. "Look here!" she continued, turning to Dick, "I