I50 MY DEVON YEAR 



ribbon - like communion. They float, frilled and 

 crimped ; they shine, twining, sinuous, and slippery, 

 to the embrace of the water ; they gasp naked under 

 the air on the high and dry rocks at the kiss of the 

 sun. Their tags and tatters and laces spread every- 

 where : here ardent and glowing, here chastened 

 through the clear medium of the water ; and over 

 them dance butterflies — a fritillary or two, and a little 

 blue heath, and the common white pieris — all de- 

 ceived, as it seems, by the rainbow colours in these 

 sea-gardens not spread for them. 



Over all there broods a mist, a delicate and nebulous 

 haze — the very breath of the sea made visible. It 

 softens each craggy shelf and precipice and island 

 rock in the receding perspective of the coast-line ; 

 it blurs the distance gently. It creeps bleak and chill 

 across the rain on leaden days ; it shines radiant 

 beneath the blue of cloudless skies ; it burns on such 

 a summer noon as this — burns and dilates and rarefies 

 under the sun into a glorious and transparent gold. 

 It is ever present, ever changing, ever floating be- 

 tween earth and air, the protean child of old ocean 

 and the West wind. 



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 



