Her way led under and around fragmentary masses of chalk crag belted with flints; and where the flints had fallen out, leaving the surface pockmarked, gulls and guillemots flew about chattering and screaming, and now and again a nimble tern, the swallow of the sea, glanced by. White Cliff was, in fact, a paradise of birds. The tooth of the storm had gnawed into its friable surface, and bitten out chunks, and scooped caves so as to afford for the birds dry and abundant, and, above all, secure lodging-places where to breed. The brow overhung, rendering their nesting shelves inaccessible from above, and from below a scramble up the lower sandstone beds was absolutely impracticable owing to their friability. The white face of the cliff was incessantly changing, though by slow degrees; masses fell off, fresh indentations were formed, and at the base lay a mass of broken rock about which the waves churned; under which and over which, by tunnels and by furrows, the water rushed and returned of a milky tinge. Upon the headland, looking seaward, was the youth of whom the girl was in quest. He paid no attention to her as she approached, indeed did not appear to observe her till she named him, when he turned and confronted her. 'What! Winny, the peddler woman's child?' Somewhat nettled, the girl stiffened her neck. 'It is more honourable to peddle than to lounge,' she said. 'The peddler does something, and if she were away would be missed, but the loafer is no good to any one, and is bad company to himself.' 'You are sharp of tongue,' said the lad, laughing. 'I am an unstrung bow just now. If you had been kept with your nose to a Latin grammar, you would wish to lift it to sniff the sea breeze.' 'Well,' she said, and laughed also, 'I have been idling all the morning, and my work now is no more than to bring you a pair of socks from your father, and with it a message.' 'Thank him from me for the socks.' 'Oh! and no thanks for the message?' 'I have not heard it.' 'Well――he says you are to shut up the Latin grammar for a bit, and sit under David Nutall and take instructions from him.' An expression of dissatisfaction came over the boy's face. 'And,' continued Winefred, looking straight into his eye, 'Thursday night at eleven, at Heathfield Cross.' 'I thought as much,' muttered Jack. 'Well, am I to have thanks for the message?' 'I don't know,' he returned, brooding. 'Jack,' said Winefred, 'put your foot down and say――I won't.' 'What do you mean?' he asked, looking at her in surprise.