stone go rumbling and bounding
down the precipitous place like a pebble, gathering force moment by
moment, till it seemed to glance from a stone and make one tremendous
leap of quite a couple of hundred feet right into a clump of rugged
masses of rock half-way down the precipice, and these it scattered and
drove before it in one great avalanche of _debris_ down and down and
down till the bottom was reached, and what had increased into quite a
little landslip settled into its new home with a sullen roar.

CHAPTER FIVE.

WE DINE WITH A SMUGGLER.

We three boys stood gazing down at our work with a feeling closely akin
to awe, staring at the rushing stone cataract which kept throwing off
masses of grey foam which were great pieces of rock bouncing and leaping
and bounding down as if delighted at being set free to move after being
fixed to the earth since who could say when? No one spoke, no one moved
till all was still below, and then, while I was wondering what my father
would say, Bigley Uggleston suddenly made us start by tossing up his cap
and shouting "Hooray!"

This roused Bob, who began to smile.

"I thought that would move it," he said coolly. "Why, what's the matter
with you, Sep? Here, Big, look at him; he's quite white. Here's a
game! He's frightened."

"No, I'm not," I said stoutly. "I was only thinking about what my
father will say when he sees what we've done."

"Get out! Hark at him. One can't come down to the Gap now without old
Sep Duncan dinning it into your ears about his father, and what he'll
say, and all to show how proud he is, just because an old chap has
bought a bit of land down by the sea. Why, what harm have we done?"

"Torn all that ragged place down the bottom of the cliff," I said
dolefully. "It wasn't like that before."

"And what of it? Who's to know but what the stone tumbled down by
itself? Nobody heard."

We looked guiltily round, but the Gap was perfectly solemn and silent,
the only thing suggesting life after the two cottages and the lugger
being the vessels out at sea between us and the Welsh coast.

"But it seems such a pity!" I said ruefully. "I didn't think the stone
would make so much of a mark coming down."

"There he goes again!" sneered Bob. "Afraid of spoiling his father's
estate. Oh, arn't we proud of two sides of a hole and a water-gully!"

I had some reason for my remarks, for as I looked down there below us,
where the great mass had stru