"Look, they are wading ashore up to the knees! And we shall have to wade too if we don't make haste back."
So cried the perplexed mother of the six too-adventurous ducklings. But mine, more considerate, answered me from the rocks where they were scrambling, and helped me back through the cave into safe quarters, where we stood watching the waders with mingled excitement and—envy?
Alas! I can still recall the delicious sensation of paddling across the smooth sea-sand, and of walking up the bed of a Highland burn. But "Oh! the change twixt Now and Then," I sat calmly on a stone, dry-shod; as was best. Still, is it not a benign law of nature, that the things we are no longer able to do, we almost cease to wish to do? Perhaps even the last cessation of all things will come naturally at the end, as naturally as we turn round and go to sleep at night?
But it was not night yet. I am proud to think how high and steep was the cliff we re-ascended, all three of us, and from which we stood and looked at sky and sea. Such a sea and such a sky: amber clear, so that one could trace the whole line of coast—Mount's Bay, with St. Michael's Mount dotted in the midst of it, and even the Land's End, beyond which the sun, round and red, was just touching the top of the waves. We should have liked to watch him drop below them—that splendid sea-sunset of which one never tires, but we had some distance to walk, and we began to rejoice in the prospect of Mary Mundy's tea.
"I'll go on ahead and have the carriage ready," said the ever thoughtful Charles. "You can't miss your way, ladies. Just follow the hedges"—that tempting aerial promenade, to which we were now getting accustomed, becoming veritable Blondins in petticoats—"then cross the cornfield; and take to the hedges again. You'll be at the farm-yard directly."
Not quite—for we lingered, tempted by the abundance of corn-flowers, of which we gathered, not handfuls but armfuls. When we reached it, what a picture of an English farm-yard it was! With a regular old-fashioned English milk-maid—such as Izaak Walton would have loved to describe—sitting amidst her shining pails, her cows standing round her, meekly waiting their turn. Sleek, calm creatures they were, Juno-eyed and soft-skinned—of that peculiar shade of grey which I have seen only in Cornwall. And, being rather a connoisseur in cows, I have often amused myself to notice how the kine of each country have their own predominant colour, which seems to harmonise with its special landscape. The curious yellow tint of Highland cattle, the red, white, or brown of those of the midland counties, and the delicate grey of Cornish cows, alike suit the scene around them, and belong to it as completely as the dainty little Swiss herds do to their Alpine pastures, or the large, mild, cream-coloured oxen to the Campagna at Rome.
But we had to tear ourselves away from this Arcadia, for in the midst of the farm-yard appeared the carriage and Charles. So we jolted back—it seemed as if Cornish carriages and horses could go anywhere and over everything—to the Old Inn and Mary Mundy.
She had come home, and everything was right. As we soon found, everything and everybody was accustomed to be put to rights by Miss Mary Mundy.
She stood at the door to greet us—a bright, brown-faced little woman with the reddest of cheeks and the blackest of eyes; I have no hesitation in painting her portrait here, as she is, so to speak, public property, known and respected far and wide.