Michaels Crag | Page 4

be a first-class climber at school," he said, attempting it,
"especially when you were a little chap. I remember you could
scramble up trees like a monkey. What fun we had once in the doctor's
orchard! And as to the cliffs, you needn't go so near you have to tumble
over them. It seems ridiculous for a landowner not to know a bit of
scenery on his own estate that's celebrated and talked about all over
England."
"I'm not afraid of tumbling over, for myself," Tyrrel answered, a little
nettled by his friend's frank tone of amusement. "I don't feel myself so
useful to my queen and country that I rate my own life at too high a
figure. It's the people below I'm chiefly concerned about. There's
always someone wandering and scrambling about these cliffs, don't you
see?--fishermen, tourists, geologists. If you let a loose stone go, it may
fall upon them and crush them."
The engineer looked back upon him with a somewhat puzzled

expression. "Well, that's carrying conscience a point too far," he said,
with one strong hand on the rock and one sure foot in the first
convenient cranny. "If we're not to climb cliffs for fear of showering
down stones on those who stand below, we won't dare to walk or ride
or drive or put to sea for fear of running over or colliding against
somebody. We shall have to stop all our trains and keep all our
steamers in harbor. There's nothing in this world quite free from risk.
We've got to take it and lump it. You know the old joke about those
dangerous beds--so many people die in them. Won't you break your
rule just for once, and come up on top here to see the view with me?"
Tyrrel shook his head firmly. "Not to-day," he answered, with a quiet
smile. "Not by that path, at any rate. It's too risky for my taste. The
stones are so loose. And it overhangs the road the quarrymen go to the
cave by."
Le Neve had now made good his foothold up the first four or five steps.
"Well, you've no objection to my going, at any rate?" he said, with a
wave of one hand, in his cheerful good-humor. "You don't put a veto on
your friends here, do you?"
"Oh, not the least objection," Tyrrel answered, hurriedly, watching him
climb, none the less, with nervous interest. "It's...it's a purely personal
and individual feeling. Besides," he added, after a pause," I can stop
below here, if need be, and warn the quarrymen."
"I'll be back in ten minutes," Le Neve shouted from the cliff.
"No, don't hurry," his host shouted back. "Take your own time, it's
safest. Once you get to the top you'd better walk along the whole cliff
path to Kynance. They tell me its splendid; the view's so wide; and you
can easily get back across the moor by lunch-time. Only, mind about
the edge, and whatever you do, let no stones roll over."
"All right," Le Neve made answer, clinging close to a point of rock.
"I'll do no damage. It's opening out beautifully on every side now. I can
see round the corner to St. Michael's Mount; and the point at the end
there must be Tol-Pedn-Penwith."

CHAPTER II.
TREVENNACK.
It was a stiff, hot climb to the top of the cliff; but as soon as he reached
it, Eustace Le Neve gazed about him, enchanted at the outlook. He was
not in love with Cornwall, as far as he'd seen it yet; and to say the truth,
except in a few broken seaward glens, that high and barren inland
plateau has little in it to attract or interest anyone, least of all a traveler
fresh from the rich luxuriance of South American vegetation. But the
view that burst suddenly upon Eustace Le Neve's eye as he gained the
summit of that precipitous serpentine bluff fairly took his breath away.
It was a rich and varied one. To the north and west loomed headland
after headland, walled in by steep crags, and stretching away in purple
perspective toward Marazion, St. Michael's Mount, and the Penzance
district. To the south and east huge masses of fallen rock lay tossed in
wild confusion over Kynance Cove and the neighboring bays, with the
bare boss of the Rill and the Rearing Horse in the foreground. Le Neve
stood and looked with open eyes of delight. It was the first beautiful
view he had seen since he came to Cornwall; but this at least was
beautiful, almost enough so to compensate for his first acute
disappointment at the barrenness and gloom of the Lizard scenery.
For some minutes he could only stand with open eyes and gaze
delighted at the glorious prospect.