“There’s better to come,” I murmured, blushing. He nodded, and went on-- “A hill, called the Abbot’s Mitre, as much from its associations, perhaps, as from its peculiar conformation, overlooks the modern village, and is crowned on its seaward edge by the remains of the ancient foundation from which it takes its name. Some business is done in the catching and curing of sprats and herrings. There is an annual fair. Morant states that after violent storms, when the shingle-drifts are overturned, bushels of coins, Roman and other, and many of considerable value, may be picked up for the seeking.” Uncle Jenico’s face came slowly round to stare into mine. His hair seemed risen; his jaw was a little dropped. “Richard!” he whispered, “our fortune is made.” “Yes,” I thrilled back, delighted. “That’s why I chose it. I thought you’d be pleased.” He looked out the direction eagerly on the map. It was distant, by road, some twenty-five miles north-east by north from Ipswich; by sea, perhaps ten miles further. But the weather was fine, and water-transport more suited to our finances. So two days later we had started for Dunberry, in one of the little coasting ketches that ply between Harwich and Yarmouth carrying farm produce and such chance passengers as prefer paying cheap for a risk too dear for security. It was lovely April weather, and a light wind blowing up the shores from the south-east bowled us gaily on our way. I never so much as thought of sickness, and if I had, Uncle Jenico, looking in his large Panama hat like a benevolent planter, would have shamed me, with his rubicund serenity, back to confidence again. Our sole property, for all contingencies, was contained in the despatch-box and a single carpet bag; and with no more sense of responsibility than these engendered, we were committing ourselves to a future of ravishing possibilities. Throughout the pleasant journey we hugged the coast, never being more than a mile or two distant from it, so that its features, wild or civilized, were always plain to us. It showed ever harsher and more desolate the farther we ran north, and the tearing and hollowing effect of waves upon its sandy cliffs more evident. All the way it was fretted, near and far, with towers--a land of churches. They stood grey in the gaps of hills; brown and gaunt on solitary headlands. Sometimes they were dismantled; and once, on a deserted shore, we saw a belfry and part of a ruined chancel footing the tide itself. It was backed by a great heaped billow of sand, which--so our skipper told us--had stood between it and the sea till storms flung it all over and behind, leaving the walls it had protected exposed to destruction.