A few minutes more, and we reached a broad piece of open sward, which I knew for the top of Hoar Head.
Hoar Head is the highest of that line of cliffs, which stretches twenty miles from Weymouth to St.Alban's Head, and it stands up eighty fathoms or more above the water.

The seaward side is a great sheer of chalk, but falls not straight into the sea, for three parts down there is a lower ledge or terrace, called the under-cliff.
'Twas to this ledge that we were bound; and though we were now straight above, I knew we had a mile or more to go before we could get down to it.

So on we went again, and found the bridle-path that slopes down through a deep dip in the cliff line; and when we reached this under-ledge, I looked up at the sky, the night being clear, and guessed by the stars that 'twas past midnight.

I knew the place from having once been there for blackberries; for the brambles on the under-cliff being sheltered every way but south, and open to the sun, grow the finest in all those parts.
We were not alone, for I could make out a score of men, some standing in groups, some resting on the ground, and the dark shapes of the pack-horses showing larger in the dimness.

There were a few words of greeting muttered in deep voices, and then all was still, so that one heard the browsing horses trying to crop something off the turf.