20 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



Wearied with hammering, clambering, and stooi^ing in 

 this bhizing sunlight of a summer noon, we seat ourselves on 

 a convenient boulder, for half-an-hour's repose. My com- 

 panion, whose legs are lolling in a shallow pool, brings out 

 a pocket-pistol of sherry and a bag of biscuits. To this " re- 

 past wc do ample justice " (as detestable writers with unerr- 

 ing unanimity always say when they want to describe 

 eating and drinldng), and then the blue lazy curl of a 

 mild havannah rises into the warm air, making contentment 

 more content. The waves are crawling over the boulders, 

 and rushing up the gullies with a soothing sound. A few 

 white sails dot the blue breadth before us. Out there on 

 the strip of sand in the creek, a row of lazy gulls, motionless 

 as stones, and looking like them, seem as if they too were 

 resting from their hunt. A sense of pleasant weariness 

 gives its dreamy calmness to the scene. We are silent, or 

 wander into idlest chat, as if we had fairly reached that 

 land 



" Wherein it seemed always afternoon." 



It was enough that our glance should fall upon the stealthy 

 sea, and follow wave after wave as each grew out of the 

 swell and ran along, a curling line of foam, to plunge upon 

 the shore. We wanted nothing more. There is a peculiar 

 chann about the sea ; it is always the same, yet never mono- 

 tonous. Mr Gosse has well observed, that you soon get 

 tired of looking at the loveliest field, but never of the rolling 

 waves. The secret, perhaps, is that the field does not seem 

 alive ; the sea is life-abounding. Profoundly mysterious as 

 the field is, with its countless forms of life, the aspect does 



