There was no answer, and leaning over, Wright saw the young boy outstretched on the stones three hundred feet below.  For some minutes he was horrorstruck beyond expression, and made wild attempts to descend the cuff and reach him.  But he soon gave up the attempt in despair.  There was a tradition in the school that the feat had once been accomplished by an adventurous and active boy, but Wright at any rate found it hopeless for himself.  The only other way to reach the glen was by a circuitous route which led to the entrance of the narrow gorge, along the sides of which it was possible to make way with difficulty down the bank of the river to the place where it met the sea.  But this would have taken him an hour and a half, and was far from easy when the river was swollen with high tide.  Nor was there any house within some distance at which assistance could be procured, and Wright, in a tumult of conflicting emotions, determined to wait where he was, on the chance of seeing the boat as it returned from St. Catherine’s Head.  It was already three o’clock, and he knew that they could not now be longer than an hour at most; so with eager eyes he sat watching the headland, round which he knew they would first come in sight.  He watched with wild eager eyes, absorbed in the one longing desire to catch sight of them; but the leaden-footed moments crawled on like hours, and he could not help shivering with agony and fear.  At last he caught a glimpse of them, and springing up, began to shout at the top of his voice, and wave his handkerchief and his arms in the hope of attracting their attention.  Little thought those blithe merry-hearted boys in the midst of the happy laughter which they sent ringing over the waters, little they thought how terrible a tragedy awaited them.

At last Wright saw that they had perceived him, and were putting inland, and now, in his fright, he hardly knew what to do; but feeling sure that they could not fail to see Vernon, he ran off as fast as he could to Starhaven, where he rapidly told the people at a farm-house what had happened, and asked them to get a cart ready to convey the wounded boy to Roslyn school.

Meanwhile the tide rolled in calmly and quietly in the rosy evening, radiant with the diamond and gold of reflected sunlight and transparent wave.  Gradually gently it crept up to the place where Vernon lay; and the little ripples fell over him wonderingly, with the low murmur of their musical laughter, and blurred and dimmed the vivid splashes and crimson streaks upon the white stone on which his head had fallen, and washed away some of the purple bells and green sprigs of heather round which his fingers were closed in the grasp of death, and played softly with his fair hair as it rose, and fell, and floated on their undulations like a leaf of golden-colored weed, until they themselves were faintly discolored by his blood.  And then, tired with their new plaything, they passed on, until the swelling of the water was just strong