Moreover, there was a certain something in his eyes that was not Gypsy-like—­a something which is not uncommonly seen in the eyes of boys born along that coast, whether those eyes be black or blue or grey; a something which cannot be described, but which seems like a reflex of the daring gaze of that great land-conquering and daring sea.  Very striking was this expression as he momentarily turned his face landward to watch one of the gulls that had come wheeling up the cliffs towards the flinty grey tower of the church—­the old deserted church, whose graveyard the sea had already half washed away.  As his eyes followed the bird’s movements, however, this daring sea-look seemed to be growing gradually weaker and weaker.  At last it faded away altogether, and by the time his face was turned again towards the sea, the look I have tried to describe was supplanted by such a gaze as that gull would give were it hiding behind a boulder with a broken wing.  A mist of cruel trouble was covering his eyes, and soon the mist had grown into two bright glittering pearly tears, which, globing and trembling, larger and larger, were at length big enough to drown both eyes; big enough to drop, shining, on the grass:  big enough to blot out altogether the most brilliant picture that sea and sky could make.  For that little boy had begun to learn a lesson which life was going to teach him fully—­the lesson that shining sails in the sunny wind, and black trailing bands of smoke passing here and there along the horizon, and silvery gulls dipping playfully into the green and silver waves (nay, all the beauties and all the wonders of the world), make but a blurred picture to eyes that look through the lens of tears.  However, with a brown hand brisk and angry, he brushed away these tears, like one who should say, ’This kind of thing will never do.’

Indeed, so hardy was the boy’s face—­tanned by the sun, hardened and bronzed by the wind, reddened by the brine—­that tears seemed entirely out of place there.  The meaning of those tears must be fully accounted for, and if possible fully justified, for this little boy is to be the hero of this story.  In other words, he is Henry Aylwin; that is to say, myself:  and those who know me now in the full vigour of manhood, a lusty knight of the alpenstock of some repute, will be surprised to know what troubled me.  They will be surprised to know that owing to a fall from the cliff I was for about two years a cripple.

This is how it came about.  Rough and yielding as were the paths, called ‘gangways,’ connecting the cliffs with the endless reaches of sand below, they were not rough enough, or yielding enough, or in any way dangerous enough for me.

So I used to fashion ‘gangways’ of my own; I used to descend the cliff at whatsoever point it pleased me, clinging to the lumps of sandy earth with the prehensile power of a spider-monkey.  Many a warning had I had from the good fishermen and sea-folk, that some day I should fall from top to bottom—­fall and break my neck.  A laugh was my sole answer to these warnings; for, with the possession of perfect health, I had inherited that instinctive belief in good luck which perfect health will often engender.