"If I tell you, of course you cannot, without seeming mysterious, refuse to tell your companions, and I do not care to say much at present.

It does not matter, but I prefer not to talk." We walked up straight to the caves, which were very beautiful, covered as their mouths were with ivy and ferns, while over each a perfect sheet of dripping rain fell like a screen and threatened to soak anyone who attempted to enter.
We did not attempt it, for my father led us away to the west, and soon after, hammer in hand, he was examining the cliff-face and the various blocks of stone that had fallen down in days gone by.
We walked on for a time, but it soon became too monotonous, and we took to something to amuse ourselves, to my father's great satisfaction, for he evidently now preferred to be alone.
We did not watch him, but to me it seemed evident enough that he was searching for minerals, of which he believed that he had seen some trace.
As for us, we rather enjoyed our ramble, for this was a part of the shore that we had not explored for some time, and the number of pools and hollows among the stones were almost countless, while at every turn we had to lament the absence of our baskets and nets.
Sometimes we climbed on to some difficult-looking pile, at other times we crept in under the cavernous-looking places, where, at high tide, the sea rushed and roared.

Wearying of this, we explored the edge where high-water left its marks, to examine the curious shells washed up, and the varieties of sea-weed driven right under the perpendicular wall of rock, that towered up above us fully two hundred feet before it began to slope upwards as a hill.
Then after laughingly saying that if the French came, they would have to bring very long ladders and use them at low tide if they wanted to get into England, we sauntered back towards where we had left my father, but chose our path as nearly as we could close down by the edge of the water.
The tide was coming up fast, but this was all the better, as it was likely to bring in objects worthy of notice; but we found nothing, and at last the time had so rapidly glided away that evening was coming in as it were on the tide.
We looked about us, and found that we were well inside the little bay where we had first landed, its two arms stretching well out as jagged points on either side, among whose rocks the sea was foaming and plashing, although it was quite calm a little way out.
"No getting back, boys, now," said Bigley, "if it wasn't for the boat." "Yah! Nonsense!" cried Bob.

"If the tide was to catch me in a bay like this, I should make a run and a jump at the cliff, catch hold of the first piece of ivy I could see, and then go up like a squirrel." "Without a tail," I added laughing.
"Hark at clever old Sep Duncan," sneered Bob.

"He'd walk up the cliff without touching.