unwary pedestrians on the downs above.

As the wind sprung up stronger, white clots could be discerned at the
water level of the cliff, rising and falling against the black band of
shaggy weed that formed a sort of skirting to the base of the wall. They
were the first-fruits of the new east blast, which shaved the face of the
cliff like a razor--gatherings of foam in the shape of heads, shoulders,
and arms of snowy whiteness, apparently struggling to rise from the
deeps, and ever sinking back to their old levels again. They reminded an
observer of a drowning scene in a picture of the Deluge. At some points
the face of rock was hollowed into gaping caverns, and the water began to
thunder into these with a leap that was only topped by the rebound
seaward again. The vessel's head was kept a little further to sea, but
beyond that everything went on as usual.

The precipice was still in view, and before it several huge columns of
rock appeared, detached from the mass behind. Two of these were
particularly noticeable in the grey air--one vertical, stout and square;
the other slender and tapering. They were individualized as husband and
wife by the coast men. The waves leapt up their sides like a pack of
hounds; this, however, though fearful in its boisterousness, was nothing
to the terrible games that sometimes went on round the knees of those
giants in stone. Yet it was sufficient to cause the course of the frail
steamboat to be altered yet a little more--from south-west-by-south to
south-by-west--to give the breakers a still wider berth.

'I wish we had gone by land, sir; 'twould have been surer play,' said Sol
to Mountclere, a cat-and-dog friendship having arisen between them.

'Yes,' said Mountclere. 'Knollsea is an abominable place to get into
with an east wind blowing, they say.'

Another circumstance conspired to make their landing more difficult,
which Mountclere knew nothing of. With the wind easterly, the highest
sea prevailed in Knollsea Bay from the slackening of flood-tide to the
first hour of ebb. At that time the water outside stood without a
current, and ridges and hollows chased each other towards the beach
unchecked. When the tide was setting strong up or down Channel its flow
across the mouth of the bay thrust aside, to some extent, the landward
plunge of the waves.

We glance for a moment at the state of affairs on the land they were
nearing.

This was the time of year to know the truth