_On the Face of the Cliff: Wherein Billy Topsail Gets
Lost in a Perilous Place and Sits Down to Recover His
Composure_
IN summer, when there chanced to be no fish, or when no bait was to
be had, and the fish were not to be jigged, Billy Topsail had idle
time, which he was not slow to improve for his own amusement. Often
he wandered on the cliffs and heads near the harbour--not always for
gulls' eggs: sometimes for sheer love of the sky and space and sunlit
air. Once, being bound for Breakheart Head, to watch the waves beat on
the rocks below, he came across old Arch Butt.
"Wonderful sea outside," said the old fisherman. "Wonderful sea, Billy.
'Tis as big a tumble as ever I seed stirred up in a night."
"An' you'll not be takin' the punt t' the grounds?" Billy asked, in
surprise.
"I'm not able, lad. 'Tis too much for any paddle-punt. Sure, the sea's
breakin' right across the tickle. 'Tis so much as a man's life is worth
t' try t' run out."
"Isn't you got a salmon net off Shag Rock?"
"I is that," Arch answered; "an' I'm wantin' bad t' get to it. 'Tis set
off the point of Shag Rock, an' I'm thinkin' the sea will wreck it, for
'tis a wonderful tumble, indeed. 'Tis like I'll not be able t' get out
afore to-morrow mornin', but I'm hopin' I will."
"An' I hopes you may, Skipper Arch," said Billy.
It was a fine wish, born of the fresh breeze and brightness of the
day--a word let drop from a heart full of good feeling for all the
world: nothing more. Yet within a few hours Billy Topsail's life hung
upon the possibility of its fulfillment.
"Ay," he repeated, "I hopes you may."
Billy Topsail followed the rocky road to the Bath Tub, climbed the
Lookout, and descended the rough declivity beyond to the edge of the
sea, meanwhile lifted to a joyous mood by the sunlight and wind and
cloudless sky. Indeed, he was not sorry he had come; the grim cliffs
and the jagged masses of rock lying at their feet--the thunder and
froth where sea met rock--the breaking, flashing water to seaward;
all this delighted him then, and were not soon forgotten. Best of
all, the third submerged rock off Shag Cliff--the rock they call the
Tombstone--was breaking; the greater waves there leaped into the air
in fountains of froth.
"I 'low I'll get closer t' the Tombstone," thought he.
Thus he was led along the coast to the foot of Shag Cliff. It was a
hard climb, in which hands and feet were both concerned. There were
chasms to leap, sharp points to round, great rocks to scale, narrow
ledges to pass over on the toes of his boots; and all the while the
breakers were crashing and foaming below him, and now and again
splashing him with spray.
Had the day been drear, it may be he would not have ventured so far;
but the sun was out, the day long, the gulls quietly soaring over the
sea, and on he went, giving no thought whatever to his return.
Once under the cliff, he ventured farther. Detached from it, there lies
Nanny's Rock, which must long ago have fallen from above; the breakers
surrounded but did not sweep it when they rose and broke.
His wish to lie there in the sunshine, with the blue sky above him and
the noise of the water in his ears, led him to dash across the dripping
space between when the wave fell back, even though he must scramble
out of the way of the returning water.
In a few minutes he was deep in an enchanting day-dream, which, to his
subsequent peril, soon changed to sleep.
The tide was rising. A few drops of spray, falling upon his face from a
great breaker, awoke him. On the instant he was wide awake and looking
desperately about. Then he laughed to think that the breakers were
reaching for him--that they would have had him fast in the trap had he
slept much longer; for, in a glance, he thought he had made sure that
his escape from the rock was not yet cut off. But his laugh was touched
with some embarrassment when he found, upon trial, that the sea had
blocked the path by which he had reached the foot of Shag Cliff.
"I must go 'tother way," he thought.
There was no other way; to right and to left the sea was breaking
against overhanging juts of rock. He could pass from jut to jut, but he
could round neither.
"Sure, I'll be late for dinner," he thought; "an' dad won't like it."
It was all very well to exclaim vexatiously, but he was forced to
abandon the hope of returning by way of the foot of the cliffs. The
tide had cut him off.
"I'll scale Shag Cliff," he determined.
He was not alarmed; the situation was awkward, but it promised the
excitement of an adventure, and for a time he was rather glad that he
had fallen asleep. To scale the two hundred feet of Shag Cliff--that
was something to achieve! His father would say that he was "narvy," and
forget that he had kept him from his dinner. Scale Shag Cliff, by all
means!
He knew well enough that he had but to seek higher ground and wait for
the tide to fall, if he wanted an unexciting return; but it pleased him
to make believe that his situation was desperate--that the rising water
would overwhelm him if he did not escape over the brow of the cliff: an
indulgence which his imagination did not need half an hour later. When
he looked up, however, to choose a path of ascent, he found that, from
where he stood, close against the cliff at the base, there seemed to be
no path at all.
"I 'low I'll have t' go back t' Nanny's Rock for a better squint," he
told himself.
Back to Nanny's Rock he went, at no small risk, for the occasional
flow of foam, which had cut it off from the mainland when first he
crossed, had swollen to a strait of some depth and strength. He must
make the leap, but he dreaded it. There was a moment of terror when his
foot slipped, and he came near falling back into the very claws of the
breaker which followed him; on that account, perhaps, his survey of
the face of the cliff was a hurried one, and his return to safe ground
precipitate and somewhat flurried.
He had seen enough, however, to persuade him that the ascent would be
comparatively easy for at least a hundred feet, and that, for the rest
of the way, it would not, probably, be much more difficult.
In point of fact, he knew nothing whatever of what lay beyond the first
hundred feet. But the element of probability, or rather improbability,
did not disconcert him. He could at least make a start.
If you have ever climbed about a rocky sea-coast, you will know
that an ascent may be comparatively simple where a descent is quite
impracticable; you will know that the unwary may of a sudden reach
a point where to continue the climb is a nauseating necessity.
There are times when one regrets the courage that led him into his
difficulty--the courage or the carelessness, as the case may be.
Experience had long ago taught Billy Topsail that; but the lesson had
not been severe--there had been no gulf behind him; the whip of life or
death had not urged him on. Indeed, he had never attempted a climb of
such height and ugly possibilities in the way of blind leads as Shag
Cliff, else possibly he should not have made the start with a sense of
adventure so inspiring.
Up he went--up and still up, his cheeks glowing, his nerves pleasurably
tingling! Up--up and still up, until he could hear the whiz of gulls'
wings near him, and the feeling of space below began to try his nerves.
At last he stopped to rest and look about. Down deep lay the breakers,
so far off, it seemed, that he marvelled he could hear the roar and
crash so distinctly.
"An' they says 'tis a hundred feet!" thought he. "Hut! 'Tis two hundred
if 'tis an inch. An' I isn't but half way up!"
Beyond that point his difficulties began. The cliff was bolder; it was
almost bare of those little ledges and crevices and projections upon
which the cliff-climber depends for handhold and foothold. Moreover,
the path was interrupted from time to time by sheer or overhanging
rock. When he came to these impassable places, of course, he turned to
right or left, content with his progress if only he mounted higher and
higher. Thus he strayed far off the path he had picked out from Nanny's
Rock; indeed, he was climbing blindly, a thoughtless course, for--had
he but stopped to think--there was no knowing that the cliff did not
overhang at the end of the way he had taken.
Meanwhile, time was passing. He had climbed with such caution, retraced
his steps, changed his course so often that noon was long past. So when
next he came to a roomy ledge he sat down to rest before proceeding
farther.
"Wonderful queer!" he thought, after a look about. "But where is I?"
It was a puzzling question. The cliff, projecting below him, cut off
his view of the breakers; and the rock above, which came to an end in
blue sky, was of course unfamiliar. At what part of Shag Rock he then
was he could not tell.