44 THE CALT, OF THE SEA 



of the sea. Setting sunlight gilds their slaty shale, 

 and brightens it into polished ebony and into 

 gold ; they frown at the evening light until its 

 glory dies and the foam-ridges glimmer grey ; then 

 familiar darkness huddles down upon them, and 

 they wait alert, watchful, for the first sigh of the 

 awakened enemy, the first throb and spout of 

 some giant wave at their feet. These cliffs im- 

 press some spirits with aversion, yet from others 

 they win such sympathy in their struggle as Pro- 

 metheus himself won, but seldom the scorched 

 and blasted crags of Caucasus that made his 

 pillow. . . , 



There came now a growing growl from the 

 waters, and here and there, against some solitary 

 seaward rock, a sheaf of silver feathers shone 

 upwards, then fell with a sigh to fret the wave that 

 brought it. The tide came in again, and as it 

 returned, sweeping the ledges one by one, lifting 

 their shaggy weeds, pouring pure sea into each 

 pool, sliding nearer and nearer with gentle, hog- 

 backed waves that hid their strength, I passed 

 before it and retreated by cliff-ways where the 

 honeysuckle, the golden-rod, and the burnet-rose 

 flourished together aloft, and made no quarrel with 

 the wind that dwarfed and stunted them and 



robbed them of adult shape. 



Eden Phillpotts. 



