The Dragon in the Cliff

The Dragon in the Cliff by Sheila Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: The Dragon in the Cliff by Sheila Cole Read Free Book Online
Authors: Sheila Cole
sliding down. I screamed in terror. Pummeled by falling dirt and rock, I was certain I was falling to my death. But after a moment or two, I realized that I had stopped sliding. Gradually the rocks and dirt stopped falling. I heard someone yelling, “Hold on! Hold on!” Clinging to the rock with my entire being, I lifted my head to look up.
    Several feet above me and a little to one side, were two men leaning over a ledge looking down at me. With a start I recognized one of them as our neighbor Mr. Peel. “Don’t be frightened. You’ve stopped falling,” he reassured me.
    Then after a minute or two, he asked, “Do you think you can get back up again?”
    I nodded weakly. He guided me step-by-step back up the cliff, telling me where to put my feet, coaxing me on. When I was near the ledge on which the two men were standing, Mr. Peel took me by one arm and the other man, who had not spoken, took me by the other and pulled me up.
    No sooner was I standing on the ledge beside him, than Mr. Peel gruffly demanded, “What are you doing here, lass?”
    â€œI was caught by the tide,” I explained, brushing the dirt from my face and hair.
    â€œWorking down there by yourself, were you?” he asked.
    I nodded, too exhausted to wonder what he was doing in this unlikely place.
    â€œWell, you had better move on now and hurry home,” he said. “This is no place for you now. We are expecting a ship before the tide turns.”
    His friend cleared his throat nervously.
    Mr. Peel laughed. “Don’t be shy of her, Isaac,” he said, looking at me. “She’s a good lass. Carrying on her father’s trade. Mr. Anning was often out on the cliffs and knew to keep his mouth shut. You could trust him not to see what he wasn’t meant to.”
    I was relieved that it was Mr. Peel on the cliff. Some other lookout landing a smuggled cargo would have been afraid to help me and would have left me to slide down the cliff.
    I had barely caught my breath when Mr. Peel told Isaac to escort me to the top of the cliff. Isaac, who was a long-legged young man with a dark gypsy look, started off without even looking back to see that I was following. He made his way up the cliff with an expertise born of practice. I scrambled behind as best I could, keeping sight of the green ribbon on his cap. When he reached a bare spot that looked like a path, he stopped to wait for me to catch up. “This will take you to the top,” he said, and without so much as another glance in my direction, he left me to make my way home.
    It was not until I reached the streets of Lyme that I allowed myself to think about how close to drowning I had come. I shivered with the thought. I knew how Mama would carry on if she knew and decided not to say a word about what had happened.
    Ordinarily, I emptied my basket when I returned to the shop and cleaned the curiosities. But on that day I was overcome by exhaustion from my ordeal on the cliffs and I did not think about the curiosity basket. I brushed myself off, turned my skirt so that the tear was covered by my apron, and went directly upstairs to warm myself by the fire.
    Ann was sitting near the window knitting under Mama’s watchful eye and John was sitting by the hearth playing jackstraws. “You moved that one,” I said, watching him pick a straw from the jumble of straws on the hearth.
    â€œPlay with me, Mary,” he begged. “Everyone is busy but me, and it’s no fun picking up straws by myself.” I was only too glad to lose myself in a game.
    The next day was Wednesday, the day the coach came to the Three Cups Inn with its load of travelers and visitors to town. It was not until I was down in the shop that I realized that I did not have the curiosity basket with yesterday’s finds and my tools. My mind raced over the events of the preceding day. Where had I put them down? I had them when I scrambled up to my first

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