that coast, whether those eyes be black or blue or
grey; a something which cannot be described, but which seems like a
reflex of the daring gaze of that great land-conquering and daring
sea. Very striking was this expression as he momentarily turned his
face landward to watch one of the gulls that had come wheeling up the
cliffs towards the flinty grey tower of the church--the old deserted
church, whose graveyard the sea had already half washed away. As his
eyes followed the bird's movements, however, this daring sea-look
seemed to be growing gradually weaker and weaker. At last it faded
away altogether, and by the time his face was turned again towards
the sea, the look I have tried to describe was supplanted by such a
gaze as that gull would give were it hiding behind a boulder with a
broken wing. A mist of cruel trouble was covering his eyes, and soon
the mist had grown into two bright glittering pearly tears, which,
globing and trembling, larger and larger, were at length big enough
to drown both eyes; big enough to drop, shining, on the grass: big
enough to blot out altogether the most brilliant picture that sea and
sky could make. For that little boy had begun to learn a lesson which
life was going to teach him fully--the lesson that shining sails in
the sunny wind, and black trailing bands of smoke passing here and
there along the horizon, and silvery gulls dipping playfully into the
green and silver waves (nay, all the beauties and all the wonders of
the world), make but a blurred picture to eyes that look through the
lens of tears. However, with a brown hand brisk and angry, he brushed
away these tears, like one who should say, 'This kind of thing will
never do.'

Indeed, so hardy was the boy's face--tanned by the sun, hardened and
bronzed by the wind, reddened by the brine--that tears seemed
entirely out of place there. The meaning of those tears must be fully
accounted for, and if possible fully justified, for this little boy
is to be the hero of this story. In other words, he is Henry Aylwin;
that is to say, myself: and those who know me now in the full vigour
of manhood, a lusty knight of the alpenstock of some repute, will be
surprised to know what troubled me. They will be surprised to know
that owing to a fall from the cliff I was for about two years a
cripple.

This is how it came about. Rough and yielding as were the paths,
called 'gangways,' connecting the cliffs with the endless reaches of
sand b