The vivacious Polly, a lively little curly-haired child, of some seventeen summers, was far too happy and thrilled by the adventure of the excursion and the holiday air of the sea-side, to indulge in any jealous fits. She was the first of the two, indeed, to greet the elder girls, both of them quite well known to her, running rapidly after them, in her white stiffly-starched print frock, and hailing them with a shout of joyous recognition.
The girls turned quickly and they all three awaited, in perfect good temper, the stone-carver’s deliberate approach. Never had the spirits of this latter been higher, or his surroundings more congenial to his mood.
Anxious not to lose any single one of the exquisite sounds, sights, smells, and intimations, which came pouring in upon him, as he leisurely drifted out upon the sunny street, he let his little companion run after is two friends as fast as she wished, and watched with serene satisfaction the airy flight of her light figure, with the deep blue patch of sea-line at the end of the street as its welcome background.
The smell of sea-weed, the sound of the waves on the beach, the cries of the fish-mongers, and the coming and going of the whole heterogeneous crowd, filled Luke’s senses with the same familiar thrill of indescribable pleasure as he had known, on such an occasion, from his earliest childhood. The gayly piled fruit heaped up on the open stalls, the little tobacco-shops with their windows full of half-sentimental half-vulgar picture-cards, the weather-worn fronts of the numerous public-houses, the wood-work of whose hospitable doors always seemed to him endowed with a peculiar mellowness of their own,—all these things, as they struck his attentive senses, revived the most deeply-felt stirrings of old associations.
Especially did he love the sun-bathed atmosphere, so languid with holiday ease, which seemed to float in and out of the open lodging-house entrances, where hung those sun-dried sea-weeds and wooden spades and buckets, which ever-fresh installments of bare-legged children carried off and replaced. Luke always maintained that of all mortal odours he loved best the indescribable smell of the hall-way of a sea-side lodging-house, where the very oil-cloth on the floor, and the dead bull-rushes in the corner, seemed impregnanted with long seasons of salt-burdened sun-filled air.
The fish-shops, the green-grocer’s shops, the secondhand book-shops, and most of all, those delicious repositories of sea-treasures—foreign importations all glittering with mother-of-pearl, dried sea-horses, sea-sponges, sea-coral, and wonderful little boxes all pasted over with shimmering shells—filled him with a delight as vivid and new as when he had first encountered them in remote infancy.
This first drifting down to the sea’s edge, after emerging from the train, always seemed to Luke the very supremacy of human happiness. The bare legs of the children, little and big, who ran laughing or crying past him and the tangled curls of the elder damsels, tossed so coquettishly back from their sun-burnt faces, the general feeling of irresponsibility in the air, the tang of adventure in it all, of the unexpected, the chance-born, always wrapped him about in an epicurean dream of pleasure.
That monotonous splash of the waves against the pebbles,—how he associated it with endless exquisite flirtations,—flirtations conducted with adorable shamelessness between the blue sky and the blue sea! The memory of these, the vague memory of enchanting forms prone or supine upon the glittering sands, with the passing and re-passing of the same plump bathing-woman,—he had known her since his childhood!—and the same donkeys with their laughing burdens, and the same sweet-sellers with their trays, almost made him cry aloud with delight, as emerging at length upon the Front, and overtaking his friends at the Jubilee Clock-Tower, he saw the curved expanse of the bay lying magically spread out before him. How well he knew it all, and how inexpressibly he loved it!
The tide was on its outward ebb when the four happy companions jumped down, hand in hand, from the esplanade to the shingle. The long dark windrow of broken shells and seaweed drew a pleasant dividing line between the dry and the wet sand. Luke always associated the stranded star-fish and jelly-fish and bits of scattered drift-wood which that windrow offered, with those other casually tossed-up treasures with which an apparently pagan-minded providence had bestrewn his way!
Once well out upon the sands, and while the girls, with little shrieks and bursts of merriment, were pushing one another into the reach of the tide, Luke turned to survey with a deep sigh of satisfaction, the general appearance of the animated scene.
The incomparable watering-place,—with its charming “after-glow,” as Mr. Hardy so beautifully puts it, “of Georgian gaiety,”—had never looked so fascinating as it looked this August afternoon.
The queer old-fashioned bathing-machines, one of them still actually carrying the Lion and Unicorn upon its pointed roof, glittered in the sunshine with an air of welcoming encouragement. The noble sweep of the houses behind the crescent-shaped esplanade, with the names of their terraces—Brunswick, Regent, Gloucester, Adelaide—so suggestive of the same historic epoch, gleamed with reciprocal hospitality; nor did the tall spire of St. John’s Church, a landmark for miles round, detract from the harmony of the picture.
On Luke’s left, as he turned once more and faced the sea, the vibrating summer air, free at present from any trace of mist, permitted a wide and lovely view of the distant cliffs enclosing the bay. The great White Horse, traced upon the chalk hills, seemed within an hour’s walk of where he stood, and the majestic promontory of the White Nore drew the eye onward to where, at the end of the visible coast-line, St. Alban’s Head sank into the sea.
On Luke’s right the immediate horizon was blocked by the grassy eminence known to dwellers in Weymouth as “the Nothe”; but beyond this, and beyond the break-water which formed an extension of it, the huge bulk of Portland—Mr. Hardy’s Isle of the Slingers—rose massive and shadowy against the west.
As he gazed with familiar pleasure at this unequalled view, Luke could not help thinking to himself how strangely the pervading charm of scenes of this kind is enhanced by personal and literary association. He recalled the opening chapters of “The Well-Beloved,” that curiously characteristic fantasy-sketch of the great Wessex novelist; and he also recalled those amazing descriptions in Victor Hugo’s “L’Homme qui Rit,” which deal with these same localities.
Shouts of girlish laughter distracted him at last from his exquisite reverie, and flinging himself down on the hot sand he gave himself up to enjoyment. Holding her tight by either hand, the two elder girls, their skirts already drenched with salt-water, were dragging their struggling companion across the foamy sea-verge. The white surf flowed beneath their feet and their screams and laughter rang out across the bay.
Luke called to them that he was going to paddle, and implored them to do the same. He preferred to entice them thus into the deeper water, rather than to anticipate for them a return home with ruined petticoats and wet sand-filled shoes. Seeing him leisurely engaged in removing his boots and socks and turning up his trousers, the three exuberant young people hurried back to his side and proceeded with their own preparations.
Soon, all four of them, laughing and splashing one another with water, were blissfully wading along the shore, interspersing their playful teasing with alternate complimentary and disparaging remarks, relative to the various bathers whose isolation they invaded.
Luke’s spirits rose higher and higher. No youthful Triton, with his attendant Nereids, could have expressed more vividly in his radiant aplomb, the elemental energy of air and sea. His ecstatic delight seemed to reach its culmination as a group of extraordinarily beautiful children came wading towards them, their sunny hair and pearl-bright limbs gleaming against the blue water.
At the supreme moment of this ecstasy, however, came a sudden pang of contrary emotion,—of dark fear and gloomy foreboding. For a sudden passing second, there rose before him,—it was now about half-past four in the afternoon,—the image of his brother, melancholy and taciturn, his heart broken by Lacrima’s trouble. And then, like a full dark tide
rolling in upon him, came that ominous reaction, spoken of by the old pagan writers, and regarded by them as the shadow of the jealousy of the Immortal Gods, envious of human pleasure—the reaction to the fare of the Eumenides.
His companions remained as gay and charming as ever. Nothing could have been prettier than to watch the mixture of audacity and coyness with which they twisted their frocks round them, nothing more amusing than to note the differences of character between the three, as they betrayed their naive souls in their childish abandonment to the joy of the hour.
Both Phyllis and Annie were tall and slender and dark. But there the likeness between them ceased. Annie had red pouting lips, the lower one of which protruded a little beyond its fellow, giving her face in repose a quite deceptive look of sullenness and petulance. Her features were irregular and a little heavy, the beauty of her countenance residing in the shadowy coils of dusky hair which surmounted it, and in the velvet softness of her large dark eyes. For all the heaviness of her face, Annie’s expression was one of childlike innocence and purity; and when she flirted or made love, she did so with a clinging affectionateness and serious gravity which had much of the charm of extreme youth.
Phyllis, on the contrary, had softly outlined features of the most delicate regularity, while from her hazel eyes and laughing parted lips perpetual defiant provocations of alluring mischief challenged everyone she approached. Annie was the more loving of the two, Phyllis the more lively and amorous. Both of them made constant fun of their little curly-headed companion, whose direct boyish ways and whimsical speeches kept them in continual peals of merriment.
Tired at last of paddling, they all waded to the shore, and crossing the warm powdery sand, which is one of the chief attractions of the place, they sat down on the edge of the shingle and dried their feet in the sun.
Reassuming their shoes and stockings, and demurely shaking down their skirts, the three girls followed the now rather silent Luke to the little tea-house opposite the Clock-Tower, in an upper room of which, looking out on the sea, were several pleasant window-seats furnished with convenient tables.
The fragrant tea, the daintiness of its accessories, the fresh taste of the bread and butter, not to speak of the inexhaustible spirits of his companions, soon succeeded in dispelling the stone-carver’s momentary depression.
When the meal was over, as their train was not due to leave till nearly seven, and it was now hardly five, Luke decided to convey his little party across the harbour-ferry. They strolled out of the shop into the sunshine, not before the stone-carver had bestowed so lavish a tip upon the little waitress that his companions exchanged glances of feminine dismay.
They took the road through the old town to reach the ferry, following the southern of the two parallel streets that debouch from the Front at the point where stands the old-fashioned equestrian statue of George the Third. Luke nourished in his heart a sentimental tenderness for this simple monarch, vaguely and quite erroneously associating the royal interest in the place with his own dreamy attachment to it.
When they reached the harbour they found it in a stir of excitement owing to the arrival of the passenger-boat from the Channel Islands, one of the red-funneled modern successors to those antique paddle-steamers whose first excursions must have been witnessed from his Guernsey refuge by the author of the “Toilers of the Deep.” Side by side with the smartly painted ship, were numerous schooners and brigs, hailing from more northern regions, whose cargoes were being unloaded by a motley crowd of clamorous dock-hands.
Luke and his three companions turned to the left when they reached the water’s edge and strolled along between the warehouses and the wharves until they arrived at the massive bridge which crosses the harbour. Leaning upon the parapet, whose whitish-grey fabric indicated that the dominion of Leo’s Hill gave place here to the noble Portland Stone, they surveyed with absorbed interest the busy scene beneath them.
The dark greenish-colored water swirled rapidly seaward in the increasing ebb of the tide. White-winged sea-gulls kept swooping down to its surface and rising again in swift air-cutting curves, balancing their glittering bodies against the slanting sunlight. Every now and then a boat-load of excursionists would shoot out from beneath the shadow of the wharves and shipping, and cross obliquely the swift-flowing tide to the landing steps on the further shore.
The four friends moved to the northern parapet of the bridge, and the girls gave little cries of delight, to see, at no great distance, where the broad expanse of the back-water began to widen, a group of stately swans, rocking serenely on the shining waves. They remained for some while, trying to attract these birds by flinging into the water bits of broken cake, saved by the economic-minded Annie from the recent repast. But these offerings only added new spoil to the plunder of the greedy sea-gulls, from whose rapid movements the more aristocratic inland creatures kept haughtily aloof.
Preferring to use the ferry for their crossing rather than the bridge, Luke led his friends back, along the wharves, till they reached the line of slippery steps about which loitered the lethargic owners of the ferry-boats. With engaging alarm, and pretty gasps and murmurs of half-simulated panic, the three young damsels were helped down into one of these rough receptacles, and the bare-necked, affable oarsman proceeded, with ponderous leisureliness, to row them across.
As the heavy oars rattled in their rowlocks, and the swirling tide gurgled about the keels, Luke, seated in the stern, between Annie and Phyllis, felt once more a thrilling sense of his former emotion. With one hand round Phyllis’ waist, and the other caressing Annie’s gloveless fingers, he permitted his gaze to wander first up, then down, the flowing tide.
Par out to sea, he perceived a large war-ship, like a great drowsy sea-monster, lying motionless between sky and wave; and sweeping in, round the little pier’s point, came a light full-sailed skiff, with the water foaming across its bows.
With the same engaging trepidation in his country-bred comrades, they clambered up the landing-steps, the lower ones of which were covered with green sea-weed, and the upper ones worn smooth as marble by long use, and thence emerged upon the little narrow jetty, bordering upon the harbour’s edge.
Here were a row of the most enchanting eighteenth century lodging-houses, interspersed, at incredibly frequent spaces, by small antique inns, bearing quaint names drawn from British naval history.
Skirting the grassy slopes of the Nothe, with its old-fashioned fort, they rounded the small promontory and climbed down among the rocks and rock-pools which lay at its feet. It was pretty to observe the various flutterings and agitations, and to hear the shouts of laughter and delight with which the young girls followed Luke over these perilous and romantic obstacles, and finally paused at his side upon a great sun-scorched shell-covered rock, surrounded by foamy water.
The wind was cool in this exposed spot, and holding their hats in their hands the little party gave themselves up to the freedom and freshness of air and sea.
But the wandering interest of high-spirited youth is as restless as the waves. Very soon Phyllis and Polly had drifted away from the others, and were climbing along the base of the cliff above, filling their hands with sea-pinks and sea-lavender, which attracted them by their glaucous foliage.
Left to themselves, Luke removed his shoes and stockings, and dangled his feet over the rock’s edge, while Annie, prone upon her face, the sunshine caressing her white neck and luxuriant hair, stretched her long bare arms into the cool water.
Leaning across the prostrate form of his companion, and gazing down into the deep recesses of the tidal pool which separated the rock they reclined on from the one behind it, the stone-carver was able to make out the ineffably coloured tendrils and soft translucent shapes of several large sea-anemones, submerged beneath the greenish water. He pointed these out to his companion, who moving round a little, and tucking up her sleeves still higher, endeavoured to reach them with her hand. In this she was defeated, for the deceptive water was much deeper t
han either of them supposed.
“What are those darling little shells, down there at the bottom, Luke?” she whispered. Luke, with his arm round her neck, and his head close to hers, peered down into the shadowy depths.
“They’re some kind of cowries,” he said at last, “shells that in Africa, I believe, they use as money.”
“I wish they were money here,” murmured the girl, “I’d buy mother one of those silver brushes we saw in the shop.”
“Listen!” cried Luke, and taking a penny from his pocket he let it fall into the water. They both fancied they heard a little metallic sound when it struck the bottom.
Suddenly Annie gave a queer excited laugh, shook herself free from her companion’s arm, and scrambled up on her knees. Luke lay back on the rock and gazed in wonder at her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes.
“What’s the matter, child?” he enquired.
She fumbled at her bosom, and Luke noticed for the first time that she was wearing round her neck a little thin metal chain. At last with an impatient movement of her fingers she snapped the resisting cord and flung it into the tide. Then she held out to Luke a small golden object, which glittered in the palm of her hand. It was a weather-stained ring, twisted and bent out of all shape.
“It’s her ring!” she cried exultantly. “Crazy Bert got it out of that hole, with a bit of bent wire, and Phyllis squirmed it away from him by letting him give her a lift in the wagon. He squeezed her dreadful hard, she do say, and tickled her awful with straws and things, but before evening she had the ring away from him. You can bet I kissed her and thanked her, when I got it! Us two be real friends, as you might call it! Phyllis, cried, in the night, dreaming the idiot was pinching her, and she not able to slap ’im back. But I got the ring, and there ’t be, Luke, glittering-gold as ever, though ’tis sad bended and battered.”
Luke made a movement to take the object, but the girl closed her fingers tightly upon it and held it high above his head. With her arm thus raised and the glitter of sea and sun upon her form, she resembled some sweetly-carved figure-head on the bows of a ship. The wind fanned her hot cheeks and caressed, with cool touch, her splendid coils of hair. Luke was quite overcome by her beauty, and could only stare at her in dazed amazement, while she repeated, in clear ringing tones, the words of the old country game.
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