Errington slackened his speed and laughed. "It's only curiosity," he said, lifting his hat, and pushing back the clustering dark-brown curls from his brow. "I bet you that sleek Dyceworthy fellow meant the old bonde and his daughter, when he spoke of persons who were 'ejected' from the social circles of Bosekop. Fancy Bosekop society presuming to be particular--what an absurd idea!"
"My good fellow, don't pretend to be so deplorably ignorant! Surely you know that a trumpery village or a two-penny town is much more choice and exclusive in its 'sets' than a great city? I wouldn't live in a small place for the world. Every inhabitant would know the cut of my clothes by heart, and the number of buttons on my waistcoat. The grocer would copy the pattern of my trousers,--the butcher would carry a cane like mine. It would be simply insufferable. To change the subject, may I ask you if you know which way you are going, for it seems to me we're bound straight for a smash on that uncomfortable-looking rock, where there is certainly no landing-place."
Errington stopped pulling, and, standing up in the boat, began to examine the surroundings with keen interest. They were close to the great crag "shaped like a giant's helmet," as Valdemar Svensen had said. It rose sheer out of the water, and its sides were almost perpendicular. Some beautiful star-shaped sea anemones clung to it in a vari-colored cluster on one projection, and the running ripple of the small waves broke on its jagged corners with a musical splash, and sparkle of white foam. Below them, in the emerald mirror of the Fjord, it was so clear that they could see the fine white sand lying at the bottom, sprinkled thick with shells and lithe moving creatures of all shapes, while every now and then, there streamed past them, brilliantly tinted specimens of the Medusae, with their long feelers or tendrils, looking like torn skins of crimson and azure floss silk.
The place was very silent; only the sea-gulls circled round and round the summit of the great rock, some of them occasionally swooping down on the unwary fishes, their keen eyes perceived in the waters beneath, then up again they soared, swaying their graceful wings and uttering at intervals that peculiar wild cry that in solitary haunts sounds so intensely mournful. Errington gazed about him in doubt for some minutes, then suddenly his face brightened. He sat down again in the boat and resumed his oar.
"Row quietly, George," he said in a subdued tone "Quietly--round to the left."