“I shall take my skipping-rope,” she said.
Thus provided, they set forth at three o’clock with the grave Buskin in attendance. Susan jumped, and laughed, and chattered with pleasure, she was so glad to think that she was going on the sands at last, and Sophia Jane, though she never showed high spirits in the same manner, was in a cheerful and agreeable mood.
Soon they came to the little cove. The sea was as she had expressed it, very far out indeed, and had left the great black rocks wet and shining, all ready to be played on. Between them there were deep quiet pools, so clear that you could see down to the very bottom, and watch all sorts of cunning live things, which darted, or or lay motionless in them; shrimps, tiny pale crabs, pink star-fishes, and strange horny shells clinging so tightly to the rock that no small fingers could stir them. Some of the rocks were bare, and others covered with masses of dark sea-weed which made a popping noise when it was trodden on, like the sound of little pistols. Here and there were spaces of sand, so white and firm that it made you long to draw pictures on it, or at least to write your name there. Could there, altogether, be a better playground than this on a sunny day? Sophia Jane had been quite right; it was a lovely place!
It offered so many attractions, and was so new to Susan, that she did not know where to begin first, but stood still uttering exclamations of delight and wonder. Sophia Jane, however, had made the best of her time already. As soon as Buskin disappeared, she at once removed her shoes and stockings, and now stood bare-legged in the middle of a deepish pool poking out crabs from under a ledge of rock.
“You’d better begin to collect things,” she called out to Susan, “or you’ll waste all your time.”
Susan felt that this was true, but the difficulty now was what to put into the basket, and what to leave out; there were so many lovely things she wanted to keep, and yet it would not hold them all She wandered from rock to rock finding something fresh and curious every minute, and calling out to Sophia Jane to ask what it was. Sometimes she knew, sometimes she did not, but she always gave some sort of name to it which satisfied her companion. So the time went by, and Susan’s little basket had been full and empty over and over again, but she had at last firmly determined to keep the treasures that were now in it, and not to be tempted to change them for anything new; she sat down on a comfortable flat rock, and spread them all out beside her to examine them. At a short distance was the witch-like form of Sophia Jane, bent nearly double in her efforts to peer into the dwelling-place of some sea-creature amongst the rocky crevices; she was very successful in these sharp-eyed inquiries, a match even for the little scurrying crabs, whose only chance of escape was to bury themselves hurriedly deep in the wet sand. All at once she gave a short shriek of surprise and rapture which was evidently wrung from her by some startling discovery. Susan hastened to join her, tumbling over the slippery rocks, and leaving all her possessions behind. It was indeed a very strange and a very beautiful thing that Sophia had found sticking on to the ledge of a rock. Something like a jelly, something like a flower, with crimson petals which stirred faintly about as if moved by the wind.
“Oh, what is it?” said Susan in great excitement, “is it a sea-weed?”
“Of course not,” answered Sophia Jane. “I’ve found ’em before, often. It’s a ‘Seen Enemy.’”
“I’ve heard of a flower with a name something like that,” said Susan.
“That’s a ‘Wooden Enemy,’” replied Sophia Jane with scorn; “this isn’t a plant, it’s an animal.”