THE WHITE CLIFF
In the dead of night, Jane Marley came to the side of her daughter's
bed, and asked: 'Why are you tossing so unceasingly?'
'I cannot sleep.'
'What disturbs you?'
'O mother! I have done wrong. I was desirous of procuring a pair of
choughs. No one would trouble himself, and risk his neck to get them
for me but Jack Rattenbury, and he will go over the White Cliff in
search for them. If anything were to happen to him――――' she choked.
'Nothing will happen to him,' said her mother. 'Compose yourself. _He_
would not risk himself for either of us. He hates us too heartily. He
probably knows where are some birds easily reached, or he is fooling
you with a promise to do that which he has no intention of performing.
He will run into no danger on _our_ account, be certain of that.'
Somewhat relieved in mind, Winefred lay quieter. There was reason in
her mother's words. She herself would adventure nothing for Jack, and
why should he run into danger on her account?
Nevertheless she was not wholly reassured, and rising before daybreak
unperceived by her mother, she went down to the ferry, crossed with a
couple of women bound for Seaton with eggs, and made her way to the
White Cliff along the beach; then, turning up a cleft at the junction
of the chalk and the red sandstone, she ascended to the summit,
which rises four hundred and twenty-five feet above the sea, not
perpendicularly, but so as to overhang.
A haze covered the water, and the bald white crag stood up as a horn of
the moon issuing from the clouds.
Winefred was out of breath from the ascent, which was steep, and a
catch came in her throat when she saw three figures, of which one was
Jack, by an old thornbush that grew close to the edge.
As she had walked along the shore she had used the opportunity to
observe the face of the crag more attentively than she had ever
done before, and she had seen how that it had been gnawed into by
the sea-winds till it resembled a piece of old Stilton cheese of
which little save the rind is firm, and how difficult and perilous
it would be for any one to attempt to reach the recesses and ledges
where the birds harboured. To ascend from the beach would be a sheer
impossibility; moreover, the places employed by the sea-birds for
breeding were all near the summit, and were protected by the beetling
brows of that summit.
With quivering lip, Winefred went to the three young men she saw before
her, and singling out Jack, said roughly, 'It is nonsense――I do not
want the choughs.'
'You offered a guinea for them,' he replied.
'Take the guinea. I do not choose to endanger any one's life. I had not
noticed before how the brow overhangs. I will not have the choughs.'
'I am satisfied that they are possible to be got,' said he; 'I can but
try.'
'I will not have you try.'
'You held me to my promise.'
'I hold you no more. I withdraw everything I said. But you shall have
the guinea.'
'I do not want your guinea. I shall go after the birds all the same.'
'I beg you will not go.'
He smiled.
'I,' said he, 'am obstinate, as was my father. It is in our blood. When
I have undertaken to do a thing, I do it.'
'You will not, when I beseech you to desist.'
'Yes. I shall get the choughs if they are to be had.'
She was silent. She saw that it was in vain to use further entreaty,
and yet her alarm was great. Her bosom heaved.
'We are not friends,' she said at last. 'We have been enemies. Perhaps
for that very reason I do not relish that your death should be due to
any fancies of mine.'
'I am not dead yet, nor have I got the choughs.'
She stooped; there was at her feet moss that was studded with dewdrops,
and with it she wiped her hands. 'I am clear of it. I have entreated
you not to venture on this mad expedition. If you go on now, it is due
to your own wilfulness. I am guiltless.'
'You will not be held responsible,' said Jack. Then turning to his
companions, 'Now, mates, slew the cable about the thorn, and mind that
it runs over the roller.'
He indicated a piece of beechwood on the cliff-edge. The rope by which
he was to be suspended was to cross this, so as not to fret on the
edge of the cliff. This also would allow him, when climbing up or
descending, to get his fingers under the cord. Without this contrivance
they would be torn to the bone.
Winefred stood aside panting. She had been heated by climbing, but now
she turned cold; all her nerves tingled as though she had been whipped
with nettles.
'You must have a rope round your waist, Jack,' said one of the lads.
'No, thank you, it would encumber me. I must be free. It is not so bad.
I shall not swing but cling to the rocks and work myself down and along
with my hands. I shall sit astride on the pole and have a crook to help
me along.'
Words of renewed entreaty to desist rose to Winefred's lips, but she
could not speak them, and she knew that further remonstrance was
profitless. Jack threw a bag across his shoulder, and bound it about
his waist.
He stepped to the edge, cast himself flat on the turf and looked over.
The end of the rope, attached to the middle of a short pole, swung in
space.
'All right, lads,' said he, and slipped over the verge.
Winefred's heart rose, and her head swam, as she saw him disappear. As
he went, he looked at her and smiled.
Should the rope give way, should he lose his balance on the crosspole,
there was for him a sheer fall of over four hundred feet.
Below were broken masses of rock, fallen from above, about which the
sea chafed and frothed, and among which it burrowed.
The cable was strong; it was passed twice round the trunk of the thorn,
and was held fast by two lusty youths, who paid out gradually, as
required. One of them, turning his head over his shoulder, said to the
girl, 'Go below, missie, and see how he manages.'
She made no reply, but turned to obey. Her knees trembled under her,
and she was sick at heart. As she descended, tears came coursing down
her cheeks. Tears of vexation and of alarm. How would she feel ever
after should an accident occur? The wiping her hands with dew could not
brush away responsibility. Jack would not have ventured his life had
she not urged him to it.
When she had reached the shore she looked up.
The White Cliff is composed of a cap of chalk, a hundred feet thick,
striated with beds of flint, and this rests on a series of shelving
cherty sandstone beds of a tawny hue. The inclination of these gives to
the whole headland an appearance of lurching to its fall.
Water sinking through the chalk oozes through the sand and dissolves
it, undermining the white bed above till masses of chalk that have lost
all support hurtle down. But the chalk itself is full of cavosities
caused by the soft rock being eaten into by the sea-winds. Consequently
the entire mass is in incessant decomposition and is crumbling down.
The mist had blown away, and Winefred was able, on looking up, to see
the whole cliff towering above her, the white summit caught by the
light of the rising sun.
Jackdaws, gulls, choughs, alarmed at the sight of a man descending
towards their haunts, were wheeling, plunging, screaming.
The cord by which Jack was descending appeared to Winefred but as a
thread of black horsehair.
He had grappled the protuberances of chalk and progressed, creeping
downwards and inwards, about the humps and into corrosions wrought by
the sea blasts. The surface was not only scooped out, but was also
pockmarked, where nodules of flint had dropped away exposing the
sockets in which they had lain. So friable was the rock that there was
ever present the danger of the flints detaching themselves and raining
down on the head of the climber.
There were projections on which the foot might rest and to which the
fingers might cling, but each projection had to be tested before being
used, so deficient in tenacity was the chalk.
Winefred could not distinguish the little steel crook employed by Jack,
but it served him in good stead; he could dig it into the rock, and by
its aid draw himself along.
For a moment he disappeared behind a protruding mass, then he
re-emerged, creeping like a fly. Now he stood balancing himself on a
ledge so narrow as to be imperceptible from below, and seemed to be
studying what looked like a smooth wall along which he purposed to
advance by clinging.
A profile of rock stood out that bore a resemblance to George III. This
the climber had to circumvent, but he was slow in accomplishing his
work.
He penetrated into every recess, searching among the nests of the
sea-birds――so it seemed to Winefred, and so only could she account for
the delay and his occasional disappearances. Then, if too much cord had
been let out, he was constrained to gather it up as he crawled farther
till it was again taut.
He was on the chin of King George, groping in the jaw for some hollow
into which he could insert a foot, some nodule sufficiently firm to
which he could hold. Now he was plastered against His Majesty's cheek,
sliding towards the ear.
Then down came a hail of dislodged flints and a snow shower of chalk,
as Jack slipped.
Next moment a scud of vapour swept past and blotted out the summit of
the cliff.
Winefred had her knuckles pressed into her mouth to check the cry that
she could not otherwise restrain, or the gasp that accompanied every
venturesome movement of the climber.
When the fog passed away she saw him again. He had reached a green
ledge where grew samphire. She wondered what he was about. She could
see that he was shaking the cord. This was passed over projecting ribs
of rock overhead. Clearly at last she made out that he needed more of
the rope to be let out. He was on a terrace that ran in under arches of
rock, and there doubtless nests abounded.
But the line was entangled by the rock over which it passed, and so
strained that no amount of shaking would communicate a signal to those
above.
Winefred could see Jack, his feet at the edge, looking up, shaking
the cord, then desisting, then striving to disengage it, so that the
vibration might be continuous, but all his efforts were ineffectual.
Should she ascend to those aloft, by the thorn tree? It would take
her twenty minutes to reach them, and by that time Jack's object in
signalling would be gained or abandoned.
She saw him stand motionless, considering what his course should be.
Then she saw him release himself from the rope and fix the crosspole
upon which he had been seated and fasten it between two horns of chalk.
At that moment down rushed something that turned and whirled through
the air. It was the roller over which the rope had passed. With the
relaxation of the strain, it had shot over the brink. With the fall of
the roller the cord had become loosened, and, to her horror, Winefred
saw the end with the crosspole dangling free at a distance of several
feet from the shelf on which stood the climber.
The fall of the roller had disengaged the crosspole.
She knew at once that he was a prisoner fast in the face of the
terrible precipice, with fifty feet of impending crag above, and nearly
four hundred of sheer drop below.
With a cry of dismay she cast herself on the pebbles.
Then a hand was laid on her shoulder, and she was shaken, and she heard
her mother's voice, agitated with feeling: 'Winefred, this is too much!
After that I have robbed him, are you about to kill him?'
'Mother!' She started to her knees. 'Mother!'
'On me only is the guilt of the robbery, on you――that of his death.'
'Mother!'
In a tempest of conflicting feelings――fear for Jack, horror at what had
been revealed, she gasped: 'You say that, mother!'
Jane Marley shrank back.
But Winefred could not even now withdraw eyes and mind, save for one
staggering moment, from the swaying rope and the green shelf.
She saw Jack issue from the depths of the cave, come to the verge, and
look at the pole. It was beyond his reach.
Then he tried the side of the rock to which he had adhered as he worked
his way forward to the cave. Apparently that way could not be retraced.
He attempted it, but retreated, foiled.
Then again he stood on the turf, measuring his distance.
There was but one way of escape possible, and that was to reach the
rope and pendent pole.
He drew back.
A piercing shriek burst from the lips of Winefred, as, next moment, she
saw him leap――leap towards the suspended crosspole.
And in that shriek her consciousness went. She fell forward as a log
upon the pebbles, and passed out of knowledge whether his young arms
and accurate eye had saved him, or whether he had missed and had fallen
headlong, or whether, again, he had succeeded in catching, clinging for
a moment, but had been unable to maintain himself swaying as a pendulum
in mid-air.