holidays; all I
remember was, that instead of old Jonas Uggleston being very
disagreeable, and making himself my father's enemy, he grew very civil
and pleasant, and nodded to my father when they met, and called him
"Captain."

He was wonderfully kind to me too, asking me into the house, and seeming
very pleased whenever he knew that Bigley had come over to see me.

The news that there was lead and silver in the Gap soon spread, and a
great many people came to see my father, and wanted to buy the little
estate; but he said no, that he should work it himself, for he wanted
some occupation; and he and the doctor planned it all out, how to begin
in a small way; and men were set to work to wall in the part where the
mine was to be opened, and to build sheds and pumping-house.

But after a few days this became monotonous to us boys, who had plenty
of things to tempt us about the cliffs and the shore, and I'm going to
put down one or two of our bits of adventure which we had about this
time.

Our little bay or cove was one of three or four little bays within one
big bay, formed by Norman's Head at the west and Barn's Nose in the
east, and all round from point to point there was one tremendous wall or
cliff of reddish or bluish rock, nowhere less than a couple of hundred
feet high; and the only places where you could get down to the sea were
at the heads of the coves, or where one of the little streams from the
moor made its way down to the beach. Here and there when the tide was
low lay patches of blackish sand, but the foot of the cliffs nearly all
the way was one jumble of great rocks, beginning with lumps, say as big
as a chest of drawers, and running up to rugged masses as large as
cottages.

They did not look so big when you were up on the cliff path, six or
seven hundred feet above them; but when the tide went down, and we boys
went for a ramble over and among them, it was to find the smaller blocks
nearly as high as our heads, while the big ones made the most
magnificent climbing any lad could wish for who was an enemy to the
knees of his breeches and the toes of his boots.

Of course we could have gone east or west along the cliff path as
peaceably as the sheep; but what was a walk like that to wandering in
and out among the sea-weed-hung masses, full of corners and ways as a
maze; with rock pools amongst them, and chasms and rifts, and rock
arches and hollows, and caves without end?

Some of these blocks w