148 MY DEVON YEAR 



where the precipices towered in opposition to the sun, 

 their mighty eaves, and prominences and planes, re- 

 flected in the water, robbed it of the sky's blue and 

 substituted a sombre shadow of their own darkness. 

 The boulders in this wonderful valley were alive 

 with every hue that iris knows, and the sunlight, 

 like a magician, revealed a thousand shades of 

 olive and chrome, topaz and amethyst, scarlet and 

 snow, here spread on the stones, here shining 

 through the crystal of little pools, here lapped and 

 cradled in the fringes of the oncoming foam as the 

 sea returned again. The rocks were starred with 

 grey patches of young limpets ; and at pool-edges 

 the sand was fabricated into a coral-like fret wherein 

 stuck bright shells, blue and russet and lilac — frag- 

 ments of the strange homes of things now perished, 

 whose habitations were either desolate or tenanted 

 by some soft stranger that did not build his house, 

 but finding it empty, became tenant on a lease to 

 be determined by his own rate of growth or limit 

 of prosperity. 



A wide gamut of colour, from the vivid, riotous 

 rainbow play beneath to the more solemn hues and 

 shadows of the cliffs, made visual music here ; yet, 

 even under this jocund summer sun, while the little 

 children played fearlessly in the lap of the lazy sea, 

 an impression of austerity haunted me. I could not 

 forget, and the terrific crags could not forget, that 

 mighty shriek from the rage of ocean on stormy nights. 

 Each precipice was conscious of the immensity of 



