‘Well, I am not going to stay and incite you to talk nonsense,’ said Jane, rising to depart; ‘I will let you know my discoveries.’

She found Fergus watching for her at the gate, with the appeal, ’Aunt Jane, there’s been a great downfall of cliff, and I want to see what formations it has brought to light, but they won’t let me through to look at it, though I told them White always did.’

’I do not suppose that they will allow any one to meddle with it at present,’ said Aunt Jane; then, as Fergus made an impatient exclamation, she added, ’Do you know that a poor little boy was killed, and Cousin Rotherwood a good deal hurt?’

‘Yes,’ said Fergus, ‘Big Blake said so.’

’And now, Fergus, I want to know where you took that large stone from that you showed me with the crack of spar.’

‘With the micaceous crystals,’ corrected Fergus.  ’It was off the top of that very cliff that fell down, so I am sure there must be more in it; and some one else will get them if they won’t let me go and see for them.’

‘And Alexis White gave you leave to take it?’

‘Oh yes, I always ask him.’

‘Were you at the place when you asked him, Fergus?’

’At the place on the cliff?  No.  For I couldn’t find him for a long time, and I carried it all the way down the steps.’

‘And you did not tell him where it came from?’

’He didn’t ask.  Indeed, Aunt Jane, I always did show him what I took, and he would have let me in now, only he was not at the office; and the man at the gate, Big Blake, was as savage as a bear, and slammed the door on me, and said they wouldn’t have no idle boys loafing about there.  And when I said I wasn’t an idle boy but a scientific mineralogist, and that Mr. Alexis White always let me in, he laughed in my face, and said Mr. Alexis had better look out for himself.  I shall tell Stebbing how cheeky he was.’

’My dear Fergus, there was good reason for keeping you out.  You did not know it, nor Alexis; but those stones were put to show that the cliff was getting dangerous, and to mark where to put an iron fence; and it was the greatest of mercies that Rotherwood’s life was saved.’

The boy looked a little sobered, but his aunt had rather that his next question had not been:  ’Do you think they will let me go there again!’

However, she knew very well that conviction must slowly soak in, and that nothing would be gained by frightening him, so that all she did that night was to send a note by Mysie to her cousin, explaining her discovery; and she made up her mind to take Fergus to the inquest the next day, since his evidence would exonerate Alexis from the most culpable form of carelessness.

Only, however, in the morning, when she had ascertained the hour of the inquest, did she write a note to Mrs. Edgar to explain Fergus’s absence from school, or inform the boy of what she intended.  On the whole he was rather elated at being so important as to be able to defend Alexis White, and he was quite above believing that scientific research could be reckoned by any one as mischief.