

PILGRIMS AT THE LAND'S END 305 



caps drawn well down ; and they sat mostly in de- 

 jected attitudes, bending forward, their hands resting 

 on the handles of their sticks, some with their chins 

 on their hands, but all gazed in one direction over 

 the cold grey sea. Strangers to each other, unlike 

 in life and character, coming from widely separated 

 places, some probably from countries beyond the 

 ocean, yet all here, silently gazing in one direction 

 beyond that rocky foreland, with the same look of 

 infinite weariness on their grey faces and in their dim 

 sad eyes, as if one thought and feeling and motive had 

 drawn them to this spot. Can it be that the senti- 

 ment or fancy which is sown in our minds in child- 

 hood and lies asleep and forgotten in us through most 

 of our years, revives and acquires towards the end 

 a new and strange significance when we have entered 

 upon our second childhood ? The period, I mean, 

 when we recover our ancient mental possessions the 

 heirlooms which cannot be alienated or lost, which 

 have descended to us from our remotest progenitors 

 through centuries and thousands of years. These 

 old men cannot see the objects which appear to 

 younger eyes the distant passing ships, and the land 

 that dim, broken line as of a low cloud on the 

 horizon, of the islands : their sight is altered from 

 what it was, yet is, perhaps, now able to discern 

 things invisible to us other islands, uncharted, not 

 the Cassiterides. What are they, these other islands, 

 and what do we know of them ? Nothing at all ; 

 indeed, nothing can be known to the generality ; 

 only these life-weary ancients, sitting on rocks and 





