I have been secretary to a prince, and learnt to interpret cipher, and to watch every pen-stroke; and, young as I am, I think that I am not easily deceived.

Would God I were! Come on, lad; and strike no man hastily, lest thou cut off thine own flesh." So forth the two went, along the park to the eastward, and past the head of the little wood-embosomed fishing-town, a steep stair of houses clinging to the cliff far below them, the bright slate roofs and white walls glittering in the moonlight; and on some half-mile farther, along the steep hill-side, fenced with oak wood down to the water's edge, by a narrow forest path, to a point where two glens meet and pour their streamlets over a cascade some hundred feet in height into the sea below.

By the side of this waterfall a narrow path climbs upward from the beach; and here it was that the two brothers expected to meet the messenger.
Frank insisted on taking his station below Amyas.

He said that he was certain that Eustace himself would make his appearance, and that he was more fit than Amyas to bring him to reason by parley; that if Amyas would keep watch some twenty yards above, the escape of the messenger would be impossible.

Moreover, he was the elder brother, and the post of honor was his right.