r afternoon when I was back home,
and had set out to explore the place as I had never explored it before.

That was not saying much, for I pretty well knew the spot by heart, but
it was my father's now--"ours."

We three boys had ridden home together the day before, sitting on our
boxes in Teggley Grey's cart, for he was the carrier from Ripplemouth to
Barnstaple.

I say we rode, though it wasn't much of a ride, for every now and then
the red-faced old boy used to draw the corner of his lips nearly out to
his ears, and show us how many yellow stumps of teeth he had left, as he
stopped his great bony horse, to say:

"I'm sure you young chaps don't want my poor old horse to pull you up a
hill like this."

Of course we jumped down and walked up the hill, and as it was nearly
all hill from Barnstaple to our homes we were always jumping down, and
walked quite half of the twenty miles.

Old Teggley must begin about it too, as he sat with his chin nearly down
upon his knees, whisking the flies away from his horse's ears with his
whip.

"We'm bit puzzled, Mas' Sep Duncan, what your father bought that place
for?"

"It's all for bounce," said Bob Chowne, "so as to be Bigley Uggleston's
landlord. Look out, Big, or Sep 'll send you and your father packing,
and you'll have to take the lugger somewhere else."

"I don't care," said Bigley. "It don't matter to me."

All in good time we got to the Gap Valley, where there was our Sam
waiting with the donkey-cart to take mine and Bigley's boxes, and Bob
Chowne went on to Ripplemouth, after promising to join us next day for a
grand hunt over the new place.

The next day came, and with it Bob Chowne from Ripplemouth and Bigley
Uggleston from the Gap; and we three boys set off over the cliff path
for a regular good roam, with the sun beating down on our backs, the
grasshoppers fizzling in amongst the grass and ferns, the gulls
squealing below us as they flew from rock to rock, and, far overhead
now, a hawk wheeling over the brink of the cliff, or a sea-eagle rising
from one of the topmost crags to seek another where there were no boys.

Now I've got so much to tell you of my old life out there on the wild
North Devon coast, that I hardly know where to begin; but I think I
ought, before I go any farther, just to tell you a little more about who
I was, and add a little about my two school-fellows, who, being very
near neighbours, were also my companions when I was at home.