Therefore May and Jenny determined to withdraw all opportunity from inquisitiveness by exploring the high cliffs behind Bochyn. They climbed up a steep road washed very bare by the sea wind, but pleasant enough with its turfed hedges fluttering with the cowslips that flourished in a narrow streak of limestone. At the top the road ran near the cliff's edge through gorse and heather and moorland scrub. They found a spot where the cliff sloped less precipitous in a green declivity right down to the sea. This slope was gay with sea-pinks and fragrant with white sea-campion. Primroses patterned the turf, and already ferns were uncrumpling their fronds. Below them the sea was spread like a peacock's tail in every lustrous shade of blue and green. Half-way down they threw themselves full length on the resilient cushions of grass and, bathed in sunshine, listened to the perpetual screaming of the gulls and boom of the waves in caverns round the coast. "Not so dusty after all," said Jenny contentedly. "It's nice. I like it here." "Isn't it lovely and warm?" said May. So they buzzed idly on with their sunlit gossip and drowsy commentaries, until a bank of clouds overtook the sun and the water became leaden. Jenny shivered. "Somebody sitting on my grave," she said. "But it's nice here. Nicer than anywhere we've walked, I think." Chapter XXXIX: _Intermezzo_ Circumstances made it necessary that before the end of the month May should inform old Mrs. Trewhella of Jenny's expected baby. "What did she say?" Jenny inquired when the interview was over. "She said she thought as much." "What a liberty. Why? Nobody could tell to look at me. Or I hope not." "Yes, but her!" commented May. "She's done nothing all her life only make it her business to know. They're all like that down here. I noticed that very soon about country people." "What else did she say?" Jenny went on with for her unusual persistence. She was not yet able to get rid of the idea that there was something remarkable in Jenny Pearl going to have a baby. Not even the universal atmosphere of fecundity which pervaded the farm could make this fact a whit more ordinary. "She didn't say much else," related May, not rising to the solemnity of the announcement, the revolutionary and shattering reality of it. "But she's going to tell him?" Jenny asked. "That made her laugh." "What did?" "Her having to tell him." "Why?" demanded Jenny indignantly. "Well, you know they're funny down here. I tell you they don't think nothing about having a baby. No more than picking a bunch of roses, you might say."