Ruffun, afore I was put in the Coastguards, and I knowed him well when
we was both together on the Mediterranean Station. Always the same
grand old Cornish gentleman, with them gracious manners, so haughty
like, an' yet so condescending, wherever they put him. A gentleman
born. No gentleman on earth more THE gentleman all round than
Trevennack of Trevennack."

"Then he's staying down here on a visit?" Le Neve went on, curiously,
peering over the edge of the cliffs, as he spoke, to observe the
cormorants.

"Don't you go too nigh, sir," the coastguard put in, warningly. "She's
slippery just there. Yes, they're staying down in Oliver's lodgings at
Gunwalloe. He's on leave, that's where it is. Every three or four
years he gets leave from the Vittling and comes home to England; and
then he always ups and runs down to the Lizard, and wanders about on
the cliffs by himself like this, with Miss Cleer to keep him company.
He's a chip of the old rock, he is--Cornish granite to the core, as
the saying goes; and he can't be happy away from it. You'll see him
any day standing like that on the very edge of the cliff, looking
across over the water, as if he was a coastguard hisself, and always
sort o' perched on the highest bit of rock he can come nigh anywhere."

"He looks an able man," Le Neve went on, still regarding the stranger,
poised now as before on the very summit of the tor, with his cloak
wrapped around him.

"Able? I believe you! Why, he's the very heart and soul, the brains
and senses of the Vittling Department. The navy'd starve if it wasn't
for him. He's a Companion of St. Michael and St. George, Mr.