This unprejudiced opinion of my cousin's, adverse as it was to my favourite scheme, was rather disappointing, but we were now engaged in the excitement of descending the Zig-zag, so I had not leisure to think much about it.
"Isn't it a jolly way down?" I exclaimed. "Papa says it's two hundred feet to that piece of rock down below."
"It's not steeper than our hills at home," said Aleck; "only we have not the sea near us--oh, how I wish we had!"
Aleck was quite as good a scrambler as I was, so we were not long in reaching the lodge, where old George seemed to be on the watch for us, and welcomed us both with his wonted heartiness.
"Master told me you'd be coming down, young gentlemen, as he rode by, and that you were to go out as much as you liked in the boat; and so I've been telling my good wife she must keep the look-out for the gate. Ralph's coming along presently, and will be down at the Cove most as soon as we shall."
George wanted Aleck to go into the lodge and see certain objects of interest, which, to use his own words, he "set _great store by_." But I was too eager to allow of this, and insisted upon our setting out at once for the Cove. "I want to show him the greatest treasure I have of all my treasures," I exclaimed.
"Is that the 'Fair Alice' you were telling me of?" asked Aleck.
"Yes; you'll see her presently," I replied; "and you won't wonder that I like her better than all my other things."
I led the way at once by a footpath from the lodge across the sloping green meadow, then through a little tangled copse, and finally a short rocky descent to what was at Braycombe always styled _the_ Cove. Not but that there were many coves on our beautiful indented coast, but this one was the most accessible on our grounds. The boat-house and the bathing-box were both here; and here, too, as being within easy reach, I had from earliest years climbed and scrambled and explored, until every stone was almost as familiar as the letters of my alphabet; and I could tell at what state of the tide certain rocks would be uncovered, and knew at a glance whether it would be safe to cross from one part to another on stepping-stones, or whether, to reach a given spot, we must go round by the side of the hill. How I loved, and do love, every foot of the ground, every stone, every rock, every silvery ripple of that the most charming of all possible play-grounds!
