So it was arranged that the Ramsays and the Castletons and Fay should go on to St. Morval's Head, while the rest of the company turned back. "It's a pity, but it's no good taking people who turn giddy," commented Mavis. "If they can't manage that piece of cliff, how would they scramble down into the cove?" "They haven't got tennis shoes on for one thing," remarked Merle, "and boots are horribly slippery. You ought to have rubber soles for these rocks. It just makes all the difference. Mavis and I always wear them at Chagmouth." "So do we. We learnt that at Porthkeverne. We're used to scrambling. As for Fay she's a real fairy. I believe she could fly if you gave her a push over the edge to start her off." "Don't try, thanks, or I might turn into a mermaid instead of a fairy or a bird! I often think, though, I'd like a private aeroplane of my own. They're things that are bound to come sooner or later. I only hope I shan't be too old to use one when they do. What a view it is here!" The difficult piece of cliff had led them round a corner, and they were now facing a magnificent sweep of coast-line. Below them, fixed to a buoy that floated on the water, a bell was ringing incessantly, its clanging sound floating over the sea like the knell of a mermaid's funeral. "It's to warn the vessels off the rocks," explained Mavis. "They can hear it in a fog when they can't see quite where they are." Merle and I always call it 'The Inchcape Bell.' Oh, you know the story? 'The worthy abbot of Aberbrothock Had fixed that bell on the Inchcape rock. On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves its warning rung.' Then the pirate, Sir Ralph the Rover, goes and cuts it off, just out of spite, and sails away. Years afterwards his ship comes back to Scotland, and there's a thick fog, and he's wrecked on the very Inchcape rock from which he stole the warning bell. 'Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair; He cursed himself in his wild despair. The waves poured in on every side, And the vessel sank beneath the tide.'" "Serve him right too! It was a sneaking rag to play!" commented Merle. "The bell makes me think of an old hermitage," said Romola. "I expect to see a monk walking along, telling his beads. Who was St. Morval? Didn't he have a little chapel on the cliffs here?"