1 8 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



of an enlarging horizon of experience, these did but pleasantly 

 lead up to the mystery of mysteries on which hearts had so 

 long been set, and of which for months tongues had loved to 

 prattle. The child's wings were rapidly being fledged. To lie 

 down upon a strange bed amidst sea-sounds and unusual 

 bustle was another delight not unreproduced, we may be sure, 

 in dreams. But morn brought crowning bliss, to dash down 

 before breakfast without a hat and regardless of all nursery 

 proprieties, over the scanty turf of the " links," past the black 

 windmill where wooden bowls and spoons were turned, across 

 the deep-rutted sandy land never mended but by wind and 

 weather, with a scramble on the opposite side over the rough 

 stone wall, and then one look, and there lay Fairyland ! 

 Long yellow sands, fringed with fantastically-hung boulders, 

 led down to a vast grey water, heaving and sparkling into in- 

 finity, with here and there a golden ripple, and far away one 

 white sail which was carrying modern Robinson Crusoes to 

 islands of the blest, decked with all the wealth of tropic vege- 

 tation which a child's imagination could conceive. Yes, there 

 at last was the SEA ! 



" It is the sea, it is the sea, 

 In all its vague immensity, 

 Fading and darkening in the distance ! " 



And then came a rush over the blown sandhills amongst dry 

 bladder-wrack and sea-waifs, where the shoes were filled with 

 sand ; the glance at the pink sea-stocks and globe campions 

 (all that at that time could be spared them) ; then the some- 

 what toilsome drag over wet sands dotted with savages' foot- 

 prints to the edge, where (wonder of wonders !) a thin rope of 

 water came rolling up to break into a little sheet of foam, and 

 then another, which went over the ankles, till at length their 

 meaning flashed upon the mind. These were waves ! Then 

 ensued the return with large wistful eyes, and the old domestic's 

 reproachful shout, " Master Philip ! how could you go a- wetting 



