Bassett Oliver, whom he knew well enough,
having seen him on and off the stage regularly for the past five years,
had come there the previous morning, and had taken a first-class single
ticket for Scarhaven. He would travel to Scarhaven by the 11.35 train,
which arrived at Scarhaven at 12.10. Where was Scarhaven? On the coast,
twenty miles off, on the way to Norcaster; you changed for it at Tilmouth
Junction. Was there a train leaving soon for Scarhaven? There was--in
five minutes.

Stafford and Copplestone presently found themselves travelling back along
the main line. A run of twenty minutes brought them to the junction,
where, at an adjacent siding they found a sort of train in miniature
which ran over a narrow-gauge railway towards the sea. Its course lay
through a romantic valley hidden between high heather-clad moorland; they
saw nothing of their destination nor of the coast until, coming to a stop
in a little station perched high on the side of a hill they emerged to
see shore and sea lying far beneath them. With a mutual consent they
passed outside the grey walls of the station-yard to take a comprehensive
view of the scene.

"Just the place to attract Oliver!" muttered Stafford, as he gazed around
him. "He'd revel in it--fairly revel!"

Copplestone gazed at the scene in silence. That was the first time he had
ever seen the Northern coast, and the strange glamour and romance of this
stretch of it appealed strongly to his artistic senses. He found himself
standing high above the landward extremity of a narrow bay or creek, much
resembling a Norwegian fiord in its general outlines; it ran in from the
sea between high shelving cliffs, the slopes of which were thickly wooded
with the hardier varieties of tree and shrub, through which at intervals
great, gaunt masses of grey rock cropped out. On the edge of the water at
either side of the bay were lines of ancient houses and cottages of grey
walls and red roofs, built and grouped with the irregularity of
individual liking; on the north side rose the square tower and low nave
of a venerable church; amidst a mass of wood on the opposite side stood a
great Norman keep, half ruinous, which looked down on a picturesque house
at its foot. Quays, primitive and quaint, ran along between the old
cottages and the water's edge; in the bay itself or nestling against the
worn timbers of the quays, were small craft whose red sails hung idly
against their tall masts and spars. A