"See the rabbits!" We looked, and could see at least a dozen little fellows that had been scared out of their holes, scuttling about among the stones, their white cottony tails showing quite plainly in the clear air.

But these soon disappeared, and the others yielding to my desire to go down and see what mischief had really been done by the fall, we all began to slip and slide and stumble down the precipitous place, keeping as nearly as we could in the course taken by the stone, till we came upon the bare-looking spot.
It was just as it had struck me; the great rock we had sent down had started a number more, and they had literally scraped off all the loose surface pieces and earth, and scoured the valley slope for a space of about three yards wide and fifty feet in depth down to the ancient rock.
Below this the valley grew less steep, and the stone slide had had less force, beginning after a time to leave fragments behind, so that the place seemed little changed, except here half-way up the slope.
"Tchah!" exclaimed Bob; "nobody will notice this, and if they saw it from down below they wouldn't take the trouble to climb up." His words seemed full of truth, for it seemed to me that nothing but the sheep and rabbits was likely to come rambling and climbing up here; so, feeling more at my ease, I began to look about with the eyes of curiosity to see if there was anything to be found.
My companions followed my example, and we examined the places that had been scoured bare, to see that they were very much like the cliffs down by the shore, being evidently of the slate common there, a coarse grey slate, stained with markings of lavender and scarlet pink, which, where it was freshly fractured, glistened in the sun like some portions of a wood-pigeon's breast.
There was nothing else to see, and my companions went on climbing down, while I lingered for a few minutes picking up a bit of broken stone here and another there, to throw them away again, all but one bit which looked dark and shiny, something like a bit of Welsh coal, only it wasn't coal, and that I put in my pocket.
"Come on!" shouted Bob; "we're going down to the shore." I hurried after them, and we went lower and lower till we reached the little river, which ran glistening and rippling over the stones.
We had no tackle but our hands, and so the little trout that revelled in the clear water escaped that day; but we were obliged to stop at every swirling pool where the water grew deep and dark, to have a good stare at the little speckled beauties, and lay plots against their happiness.
These pauses took up a good deal of time, so that it was about one o'clock when we reached Uggleston's cottage, and, as it happened, just as its tenant was coming up from his boat, having just landed from some expedition along the coast.
He was not alone, for old Binnacle Bill, as we called him, was behind, carrying the oars and the mast with the little sail twisted round, so as to put them in Uggleston's lean-to shed.
As we drew nearer I began to wonder what sort of a reception we were going to receive from old Jonas Uggleston; and it struck me very forcibly then, how strange it seemed that he should be the father of my school-fellow, who was always well dressed, that is as school-boys are, while he was just like an ordinary fisherman of the coast, with rough flannel trousers rolled up, big fisherman's boots, blue worsted shirt, and an otter-skin cap, from beneath which his grisly hair stuck out in an untended mass, while his beard, that was more grisly still, half covered his dark-brown face.
He was a stern, fierce-looking man, with large dark eyes that seemed to ferret out everything one was thinking about, and as he came up he looked at us all searchingly in turn.
"Hallo, father! Been along the coast ?" cried Bigley, striding up to him; and there was just a faint kind of smile on Jonas Uggleston's face as his son shook hands and then took his arm in a way that seemed to come like a surprise to me, for it seemed so curious that my school-fellow Bigley could like that fierce, common-looking man.
"Hallo, Big!" growled old Jonas grimly, "keeping your holidays then.
Who've you got here?
Oh! It's you, young Chowne, is it?
Ah! I was coming over to see your father 'bout my foot as I got twisted 'tween two bits o' rock--jumping; but it's got better now.

Home from school ?" "Yes, sir; we came home yesterday," said Bob, staring hard at old Uggleston's mahogany hands.
"And who's this, eh?
Oh, young Cap'n Duncan, eh ?" continued the old fellow, turning to me as if he were not sure.

"So you've come home from school, eh ?" "Yes, sir," I said; "I came with them yesterday." "Well, I know that, don't I ?" he said sharply.

"Think folk as don't go to school don't know nothing, eh ?" "Oh, no, sir," I said apologetically.
"'Cause they do, you know.