CHAPTER IV

PHILIP HEPBURN





The coast on that part of the island to which this story refers is
bordered by rocks and cliffs. The inland country immediately
adjacent to the coast is level, flat, and bleak; it is only where
the long stretch of dyke-enclosed fields terminates abruptly in a
sheer descent, and the stranger sees the ocean creeping up the sands
far below him, that he is aware on how great an elevation he has
been. Here and there, as I have said, a cleft in the level land
(thus running out into the sea in steep promontories) occurs--what
they would call a 'chine' in the Isle of Wight; but instead of the
soft south wind stealing up the woody ravine, as it does there, the
eastern breeze comes piping shrill and clear along these northern
chasms, keeping the trees that venture to grow on the sides down to
the mere height of scrubby brushwood. The descent to the shore
through these 'bottoms' is in most cases very abrupt, too much so
for a cartway, or even a bridle-path; but people can pass up and
down without difficulty, by the help of a few rude steps hewn here
and there out of the rock.

Sixty or seventy years ago (not to speak of much later times) the