This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.
SHAKSPEARE
As the grey and misty twilight brightened into the glowing and happy
morn, there were two men prying about and around the otherwise deserted
cavern of the Gull's Nest Crag.
Nothing is more dreary and lonely to look upon than a scene, where
bustle and traffic have but lately been, changed, as if by magic, into a
place of stillness--forsaken by those who gave to it animation and
existence which before it knew not, and may never know again.
Solitude now covered it as with a pall. At the door of the once noisy
and frequented hostelry, instead of the bent but busy figure of old
Mother Hays, two sea-gulls stalked, and flapped their wings, and
screamed, and thrust their bills into the rude cooking-pots that stood
without.
The two persons, who appeared intent upon investigating the mysteries of
the place, could not be seen without bending over the edge of the
topmost cliff. It was then at once perceived that they were occupied in
fulfilling no ordinary or every-day task. They moved in and out of the
lower entrance like bees intent on forming new cells. For a considerable
time no word was spoken by either: at length the object they had in view
appeared accomplished, and, after climbing to the highest cliff, they
sat down opposite each other, so as to command a full prospect of both
sea and land.
"It was only a little farther on--about a quarter of a mile nearer Cecil
Place--that I first set foot on the Isle of Shepey," said the younger,
"and a precious fright I got--a fright that never was clear explained,
nor ever will be now, I guess."
"I little thought matters would have had such an end," replied the
other. "Gad, I'm hardly paid for the powder of the train by the few bits
I've picked up inside. I couldn't believe, unless I'd seen it myself,
that the place was so cleared out: except the furs and shawls belonging
to the women, there wasn't the wrapping round my finger of anything
worth having. Well, Hugh had many friends--I never thought he'd turn
tail."
"Turn tail!" repeated the youth: "who dares to say he turned tail? If
any one repeats that before me, I'll make free to give him a dose of
cold lead without farther ceremony!"
"All our chickens are game-cocks now-a-days!" returned the elder one,
half laughing: "but, Springall, could you swear that the Skipper and
Robin Hays didn't concert it all together?"