Cormorant Crag Part 8

"I don't believe any one's had the pluck to try," said Mike stoutly.

"Ah! you're a unbelievin' young rip," growled Daygo fiercely. "But lookye here: you don't want to upset my lady your mother, Ladle, and you don't--"

"Look here, Joe Daygo, if you call me Ladle again I'll kick you!" cried Mike hotly.

"Nay, don't, lad--not yet, till you've practysed a bit on the rocks, 'cause you might hurten your toes. Look here, young Physic: you don't want to go and break your poor mother's heart, do you?"

"Of course not," said Vince.

"Then don't you go, my lad--don't you go. There--better be off, both on you. Weather's hot, and fish won't keep. Tell 'em to put some salt in the pot with that lobster, Ladle; and you'd better have your fish cooked to-night, Doctor."

Vince turned round and nodded; but the ladle was sticking in Mike's throat, and he stalked on without making a sign.

Daygo stood watching till the lads had climbed up out of his sight, and then he went and sat down on a block of granite, and began to rasp his nose on both sides with his rough, fishy finger, as if engaged in sharpening the edge of a feature which was sharp enough as it was; and as he rasped, he looked straight before him at the great rugged cliff.

But he was not thinking of it in the least; his thoughts were half a mile away, at the most precipitous part of the coast--a spot avoided by sh.o.r.e-goer and seaman alike, from the ill name it bore, and the dangers said to attend those who ventured to go near, either climbing or in a boat.

"Nay," he said at last; "they won't go now."

CHAPTER FOUR.

CINDER HAS DISCOVERY ON THE BRAIN.

"What are you thinking about, Cinder?" said Mike one day, when they were out together, after a long, hard morning's work up at the Ladelles, over algebra and Latin, with the tutor who was resident at the Mount, the Doctor sharing, however, in the cost. "You seem to have been so moony and stupid lately."

"Have I?" said Vince starting.

"Yes, always going into brown studies. I know: you can't recollect that problem in Euclid."

"What, the forty-seventh? Why, that's the one I recollect best.

Guess!"

"What you were thinking about?"

Vince nodded.

"Give it up," said Mike.

"The Scraw."

"What about it? That it's guarded by water goblins and sea serpents and things, as old Joe calls them?"

"No," said Vince quietly: "I've been thinking about it ever since we were out with him that day in the boat."

"Well, and what do you think?" said Mike, who while he talked was trying how far he could jerk the flat pieces of oyster-sh.e.l.l, of which there were plenty near, off the cliff; but with all his skill--and he could throw far--they seemed, in the immensity around, as if they dropped close to the cliff foot.

"I think, as I thought that day, that old Joe doesn't want us to go there."

Mike was about to throw another sh.e.l.l, but he faced round at this with his curiosity roused.

"Why?"

"Ah! that's what I want to know; and I can't think of any reason why he shouldn't want us to go there. It seems so queer."

"Yes, it does seem queer," a.s.sented Mike.

"Of course the fishermen believe in all kinds of old women's tales about ghosts and goblins, and ill-wis.h.i.+ng and that sort of nonsense, just as the women do about old Mother Remming's being a witch; but old Joe always seemed to me to be such a hard, solid old chap, who would laugh at a story about the fairies coming in the night and drying any one's cow."

"Well, I always thought something of that sort; but what he says must be right about the horrible currents among the rocks."

"Yes; there are fierce currents, I suppose, at some times of the tide."

"Well, that means it's dangerous."

"Of course it is, sometimes; but I'm not going to believe all he said."

"n.o.body's ever been there."

"Indeed!"

"Oh yes, that's right," said Mike. "I've often heard the men talk about what an awful place it was, and say they wouldn't go on any account."

"And did that scare you?"

"Well, I don't think it did, because I always felt afterwards that I should like to climb somewhere along there till I could look over down to the sea. But of course you couldn't do it."

"I don't know," said Vince; "I should like to try."

"But after what old Joe Daygo said, you couldn't go there in a boat."

"Couldn't you?"

"No."

"Then how is it that old Joe himself can go?"

Mike dropped down on the cliff turf beside his companion and stared at him. "He never did go!"

"Yes, he did, for I was up on the Gull Cliff one day watching the birds, and I saw Joe go creeping round underneath in the boat, and sail across the bay, and then about the great point right in towards the Scraw."

"You mean it, Cinder?"

"Yes."

"It wasn't fancy?"

"No; I'm sure."