Century Magazine/Volume 105/Issue 1/Jeremy and the Ruffians

Jeremy and the Ruffians
By Hugh Walpole

JEREMY sat on a high cliff overlooking the sea. he had never, since he was a tiny baby, had any fear of heights, and now his short, thick legs dangled over a fearful abyss in a way that would have caused his mother's heart to go faint with terror had she seen it.
The sight before him was superb, not to be exceeded, perhaps, in the whole world for strength and even ferocity of outline combined with luxuriance and Southern softness of color.
Here the two worlds met, the worlds of the North and the South; even in the early morning breeze there seemed to mingle the harsh irony of the high Glebeshire uplands and the gentle, caressing warmth of the sheltered coves and shell-scattered shores.
The sea was a vast curtain of silk, pale blue beyond the cove, a deep and shining green in the depths immediately below Jeremy's feet. That pale curtain was woven both of sea and sky, and seemed to quiver under the fingers of the morning breeze. It was suspended between two walls of sharp, black rock, jagged, ferocious, ruthless. Sharp to Jeremy's right, inside the black curve of stone, was a little beach of the palest yellow, and nestling on it, standing almo

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