In the same leisurely fashion he proceeded to eat his egg and chop, and to dip his toast. Occasionally he set his glass to his eye, and raked the walls, to take cognisance of the hunting pictures that decorated them. Having finished his meal, he straightened his back, shook his legs, contemplated himself, and above all the roll of his whiskers, in the mirror; took out a note-book, twisted forward the lead in his gold pencil-case, applied it to his tongue, opened his notes, recollected that he had as yet no account to enter, no remark to jot down, and returned the book to his pocket, and drew back the lead of the pencil. Then he rang for his beaver and overcoat, was fitted into the latter, ordered lunch, was handed his umbrella, and sallied forth. He was shy of going to the ferry, and letting Dench see that he had failed to catch the coach, so he engaged a boatman to row him to Lyme Regis. 'I will walk back along the shore,' said he. 'You will find it unpleasant walking, sir,' said the boatman; 'there are no sands, nothing but shingle.' 'Ah, well! Not so far as Lyme. You may set me down short of it. I will walk thence. I rather like shingles. Indeed, I prefer them.' After he had been on the water for a while, Mr. Holwood said, 'Put me down at the dip of the cliffs by Rousdon.' 'You know the coast, sir?' 'Ah!――hem!――Yes, I have studied a map. When you have set me on shore, row back and await me at the mouth of the Axe opposite the Chesil Ridge. Then carry me across. I do not choose to make use of the ferry.' 'Very well, sir.' The row was comparatively short, and Mr. Holwood stepped ashore at a pretty piece of wooded undercliff, where it dipped and allowed a path to descend to the beach. 'I will pay you on the Chesil Bank, at my return,' said Mr. Holwood, and the boatman touched his cap and turned. When the man was at a distance, Mr. Holwood, who had watched his departure, looked around him, and took a few steps along the strand. All was much as it had been years agone, save that then the shrubs, the trees, the herbage had been thrilling with life, and now life had ebbed away, leaves were fallen and strewed the ground, and the grass was grey and sapless. The sky was not so blue, nor the sea so alive with twinkles, nor the gulls so full of jocund play now as then. But the outlines of the cliffs, the features of the shore, were the same; reef and rubble, the line of torn seaweed and pounded shells still marking the receding tide, the savour of the sea, the murmur of the waves, these were the same. There lay a mass of fallen rock a little way off――chalk with some flints in it, and behind that there was wont of old to be a pool left by the retreating tide, in which delicate pink and green weed-lace floated, and where a few left crabs ran along the bottom. He looked at it with a swelling heart.