170 Idylls of the Field. 



To the watcher looking seaward there seems at 

 times to come a lull in the mad plunge of the landward 

 rushing breakers. 



Then far out there rises a great green billow that 

 rolls in under the shore j pauses a moment as if to 

 measure its might against the calm brows of the cliff 

 that looks down unmoved on all the tumult ; then hurls 

 itself at the land, leaping far up the steep, in clouds of 

 spray, and, falling back, melts into a hundred tiny 

 rivulets that silver with their white tongues all the dark 

 crannies of the rock. 



What a hungry sound there is in the rush of the 

 foam, as the fierce waves thunder up the shingle ! With 

 what a rattle and a roar of pebbles each wave, after 

 spreading out in a smooth and creamy flood, draws 

 back before returning to the charge ! 



On the right of the cove are heaped high wild 

 masses of serpentine, divided in some cases by straits 

 so narrow that it seems a light thing to leap across ; 

 but more than one adventurer has missed his footing 

 on the slippery verge, and perished in the boiling surf 

 of that cruel chasm. 



The warm red colouring of the rock is relieved by a 

 hundred touches of scanty vegetation — patches of 

 thrift and stains of lichen, and varied by mazy lines of 

 white stone that wander through the heart of the rock. 



Far away to the left sweeps the broken coast line, 

 range after range of dark, stern headlands, and then, 

 running a long way out to sea, is a chain of reefs over 



