A WHITE ROCK-ROSE 99 



the open eyes of scarlet pimpernels scan the sky for 

 promise of desired rain, and, seeing none, stare un- 

 winking on. With their leaves and blossoms the plants 

 fret the masonry that man has deserted ; they fill the 

 embrasures fashioned for old-time cannon ; find life 

 in the crumbling mortar, suck life from the stone. 

 Many familiar friends one might count, both on open 

 down and amid the desolation of these ruins ; but 

 such I passed with mere recognition and regard, for 

 my mark was the cliff ledges — the great sloping 

 shields of the limestone that, like armour of scales 

 on some primeval dragon, overlap around the front 

 this headland opposes to the sea. 



Here, amid steep slopes subtending cliffwards, grew 

 common things and others not seen daily by man. 

 Upon abrupt undulations, shattered and broken by 

 steps of stone, dwelt furzes and brambles and gnarled 

 blackthorns, tree-mallows, teasels, dyer's rocket, huge 

 crucifers, with pale violet blossoms, the everlasting 

 pea, hounds-tongue, dying grasses, and trailing briars. 

 It was the home of rabbits and the haunt of raptorial 

 birds. Seed from thistle and hawkweed scattered in 

 down upon the air ; great heat brooded everywhere, 

 and only a solitary sheep track, marked by flecks of 

 wool on the trailing thorns, indicated any method of 

 advance. A stridulation of young grasshoppers was 

 music proper to the visible tremor of the air along 

 these sun-baked slopes ; once a heath-lark sprang up 

 from under my feet ; once a wire-haired terrier joined 

 me for a while, nosed hither and thither, performed 



