CHAPTER VIII THE RUFFIANS I Jeremy sat on a high cliff overlooking the sea. He had never, since he was a tiny baby, had any fear of heights, and now his short, thick legs dangled over a fearful abyss in a way that would have caused his mother’s heart to go faint with terror had she seen it. The sight before him was superb, not to be exceeded perhaps in the whole world for strength and even ferocity of outline combined with luxuriance and Southern softness of colour. Here the two worlds met, the worlds of the north and the south; even in the early morning breeze there seemed to mingle the harsh irony of the high Glebeshire uplands and the gentle, caressing warmth of the sheltered coves and shell-scattered shores. The sea was a vast curtain of silk, pale blue beyond the cove, a deep and shining green in the depths immediately below Jeremy’s feet. That pale curtain was woven both of sea and sky, and seemed to quiver under the fingers of the morning breeze. It was suspended between two walls of sharp black rock, Jagged, ferocious, ruthless. Sharp to Jeremy’s right, inside the black curve of stone, was a little beach of the palest yellow, and nestling on to it, standing almost within it, was a little old church with a crooked grey tower and a wandering graveyard. Behind the church stretched a lovely champaign of the gentlest, most English countryside: hills, green as brightly coloured glass, rising smoothly into the blue, little valleys thickly patched with trees, cottages from whose stumpy chimneys smoke was already rising, cows and sheep, and in the distance the joyful barking of a dog, the only sound in all that early scene save the curling whisper of the tide. Jeremy had arrived with his family at Caerlyon Rectory the night before in a state of rebellious discontent. He had been disgusted when he heard that this summer they were to break the habit of years and to abandon his beloved cow farm in favour of a new camping ground. And a rectory too! When they always lived so close to churches and had so eternally to do with them! No farm any more! No Mrs. Monk, Mr. Monk and the little Monks, no animals, no cows and pigs, no sheep and no horses; above all no Tim. No Tim with the red face and the strong legs; Tim, perhaps the best friend he had in the world, after, of course, Riley and Hamlet. He had felt it bitterly, and during that journey from Polchester to the sea, always hitherto so wonderful a journey, he had sulked and sulked, refusing to notice any of the new scenery, the novel excitements and fresh incidents (like the driving all the way, for instance, from St. Mary Moor in a big wagonette with farmers and their wives), lest he should be betrayed into any sort of disloyalty to his old friends.