This was of oak trees and ilex, dwarfed by their position, tortured into every form of gnarled elbow and crookedness by the sea wind, and seldom visited save by the boys, who knew it as a famous spot for rabbits.
It was hard work getting through this dwarf-oak scrub, but they struggled on, descending now into a steep ravine quite in the uninhabited part of the island, and feeling that they might talk and shout as they pleased--for they were not likely to be heard.

But they were very quiet, and when hawk or magpie was started, or an old nest seen, they instinctively called each other's attention to it in a whisper.
After a time they were clear of the sombre wood, and had to commence another fight in the hollow of the slope they had to climb, for here the brambles and furze grew in their greatest luxuriance, and had woven so sturdy a hedge that it was next to impossible to get through.
Perseverance, and a brave indifference to thorns, carried them along; and at the end of half an hour they were at the bottom of a gigantic precipice of tumbled-together masses of granite, suggesting that they were at the beginning of the huge promontory which jutted out into the sea, and round which Daygo had refused to take them; the beautiful little rounded bay which they had skirted being to their right; and forward toward the north, and lying away to their left, being the situation of the unknown region always spoken of with bated breath, and called The Scraw.
The lads stopped now, hot, panting and scratched, to stand gazing upward.
"Tired ?" said Mike.
"Yes.

No," replied Vince.

"Come on." But Mike did not move.

He stood looking before him at the rugged masses of granite, grey with lichen and surrounded by brambles, reaching up and up like a gigantic sloping wall that had fallen in ruins.
Vince had begun to climb, and had mounted a few feet, but not hearing his companion following, he turned back to look.
"Why don't you come on ?" he cried.
"I was thinking that we can never get up there." "Not if you stand still at the bottom," said Vince, laughing; and his cheery way acted upon Mike's spirits directly, for he began to follow.
It was strange, though, that the laugh which had raised the spirits of one depressed those of the other; for Vince felt as if it was wrong to laugh there in that wild solitude, and he started violently as something rushed from beneath his feet and bounded off to their right.
"Only a rabbit," said Mike, recovering from his own start.