And It Was
Only By The Sea That Any Such Sheltered Places Were To Be Found.
Between The Black Worm-
Eaten head-lands there are little bights and
havens, well screened from the wind and the commotion of the
external
Sea, where the sand and weeds look up into the gazer's
face from a depth of tranquil water, and the sea-birds, screaming
and flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb the silence and
the sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on my memory
beyond all others. On a rock by the water's edge, old fighting men
of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the two stood wall
to wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run so high
between their owners, that one, from out of a window, shot the
other as he stood in his own doorway. There is something in the
juxtaposition of these two enemies full of tragic irony. It is
grim to think of bearded men and bitter women taking hateful
counsel together about the two hall-fires at night, when the sea
boomed against the foundations and the wild winter wind was loose
over the battlements. And in the study we may reconstruct for
ourselves some pale figure of what life then was. Not so when we
are there; when we are there such thoughts come to us only to
intensify a contrary impression, and association is turned against
itself. I remember walking thither three afternoons in succession,
my eyes weary with being set against the wind, and how, dropping
suddenly over the edge of the down, I found myself in a new world
of warmth and shelter.
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