Menhardoc Part 56

"There!" cried d.i.c.k. "I told you so. It has come on to blow again.

Let's get back to the edge."

Will made no objection, but walked back quickly with d.i.c.k; but before they reached the cliff edge it was nearly calm once more.

"Look at that, now," cried d.i.c.k pettishly. "Did you ever see such a stupid, obstinate old wind in your life? It's blowing everywhere but here."

Will smiled so meaningly that d.i.c.k turned upon him.

"Why, what do you mean?" he cried.

"I'll try and show you," said Will. "Lie down here. It's quite dry."

d.i.c.k threw himself on the short soft turf, and Will pulled out a pocket-book, took the pencil from its loop, and, spreading the book wide, began after a fashion to draw what learned people call a diagram, but which we may more simply speak of as a sketch or figure of what he wished to explain.

It was very roughly done in straight lines, but sufficiently explanatory, especially as Will carefully followed the example of the sign-painter, who wrote underneath his artistic work, "This is a bear."

Will began by drawing a horizontal line, and under it he wrote, "The sea." Then he turned the horizontal line into a right angle by adding to it a perpendicular line, by which he wrote: "The cliff." From the top of that perpendicular he drew another horizontal line, and above that he wrote, "Top of the cliff."

"Now, then," he said, "these little arrows stand for the wind blowing right across the sea till they come to the face of the cliff;" and he drew some horizontal arrows.

"Yes, I see," said d.i.c.k, helping with a finger to keep down the fluttering leaves.

"Well; now the wind has got as far as the cliff. It can't go through it, can it?"

"No," said d.i.c.k.

"And it can't go down for the sea."

"Of course not."

"It can't go backwards, because the wind is forcing on the wind."

"Yes," said d.i.c.k. "Hold still, stupid!" This last to the fluttering leaf.

"Where is the wind to go, then?" asked Will.

"Why, upwards of course," cried d.i.c.k.

"To be sure," said Will. "Well, it strikes against the face of the cliff, and that seems to make it so angry like that it rushes straight up to get over the top."

"Of course it does," said d.i.c.k; "any stupid could understand that."

"Well," said Will, "the top's like a corner, isn't it?"

"No!" cried d.i.c.k; "how can it be?"

"Yes, it is," said Will st.u.r.dily; "just like a corner, only lying down instead of standing up."

"Oh! very well; just as you like," cried d.i.c.k.

"Now suppose," said Will, "you were running very fast along beside a row of houses like they are at Corntown."

"Very well: what then?"

"And suppose you wanted to run sharp round the edge of the corner, and I was hiding behind it, and you wanted to catch me."

"Well, I should catch you," said d.i.c.k.

"No, you would not. You couldn't turn short round, because you were going so fast; and you'd go some distance before you did, and you'd be right beyond me, and you'd make quite a big curve."

"Should I? Well, suppose I should," said d.i.c.k, rubbing one ear.

"Well," said Will, making some more arrows up the perpendicular line which represented, the face of the cliff, "that's how the wind does. It goes right up here, and gets some distance before it can stop, and then it curves over and flies right over the land, getting lower as it goes, till it touches the ground once more. There, that's it; and those two dots are you and me."

He drew some more arrows, with d.i.c.k looking solemnly on, and the result was that Will's sketch of the wind's action against a cliff was something like the following arrangement of lines and arrows, which ill.u.s.trate a curious phenomenon of nature, easily noticeable during a gale of wind at the edge of some perpendicular cliff.

d.i.c.k felt disposed to dispute his friend's scientific reasoning; but Will showed him by throwing his handkerchief down from the edge of the cliff, when it was caught by the gale before it had gone down a dozen feet, and whisked up above their heads and then away over the land.

A handful of gra.s.s was treated the same, and then d.i.c.k sent down his own handkerchief, which went down twice as far as Will's before the wind took it and blew it right into a crevice in the face of the cliff, where it stuck fast.

"There's a go," cried d.i.c.k. "Oh! I say, how can we get it?"

Will went to the edge of the cliff and looked over before shaking his head.

"We can't get it now," he said. "I'll ask Josh to come with a rope when the wind's gone down, and he'll lower me over."

"What--down there--with a rope?" said d.i.c.k, changing colour. "No, don't."

"Why not?" said Will. "That's nothing to going down a mine-shaft."

d.i.c.k shuddered.

"Or going down the cliff after eggs as I do sometimes. We have gentlemen here now and then who collect eggs, and I've been down after them often in places where you can't climb."

"But I shouldn't like you to go down for me."

"Why not?"

"You might fall," said d.i.c.k.

"I shouldn't like to do that," said Will, smiling. Then in a thoughtful, gloomy way--"It wouldn't matter much. I've no one to care about me."

"How can you say that?" cried d.i.c.k sharply. "Why, your uncle seemed to think a deal of you."

"He's very kind to me," said Will sadly; "but I've always been an expense to him."

"Then," cried d.i.c.k boldly, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"What--for being an expense to him?" said Will wistfully.