Sunday, September 4th—and we had started on September 1st; was it possible we had only been travelling four days?
It felt like fourteen at least. We had seen so much, taken in so many new interests—nay, made several new friends. Already we began to plan another meeting with John Curgenven, who we found was a relation of our landlady, or of our bright-faced serving maiden, Esther—I forget which. But everybody seemed connected with everybody at the Lizard, and everybody took a friendly interest in everybody. The arrival of new lodgers in the "genteel" parlour which we had not appreciated was important information, and we were glad to hear that Charles had started about four in the morning quite cheery.
And what a morning it was!—a typical Sabbath, a day of rest, a day to rejoice in. Strolling round the garden at eight o'clock, while the dew still lay thick on the grass, and glittered like diamonds on the autumnal spider-webs, even the flowers seemed to know it was Sunday, the mignonette bed to smell sweeter, the marigolds—yes! æsthetic fashion is right in its love for marigolds—burnt in a perfect blaze of golden colour and aromatic scent. The air was so mild that we could imagine summer was still with us: and the great wide circle of sea gleamed in the sunshine as if there never had been, never could be, such a thing as cloud or storm.
Having ascertained that there was no service nearer than Grade, some miles off, until the afternoon, we "went to church" on the cliffs, in Pistol Meadow, beside the green mounds where the two hundred drowned sailors sleep in peace.
STEAM SEINE BOATS GOING OUT.
And such a peaceful place! Absolutely solitary: not a living creature, not even a sheep came near me the whole morning:—and in the silence I could hear almost every word said by my young folks, searching for sea-treasures among the rocks and little pools far below. Westwards towards Kynance, and eastwards towards Landewednack—the church we were to go to in the afternoon—the cliff path was smooth and green, the short grass full of those curious dainty flowers, some of which were new to our eager eyes. At other times the road was so precipitous that we did not wonder at those carefully white-washed stones every few yards, which are the sole guide to the coastguard men of dark nights. Even in daylight, if the wind were high, or the footing slippery with rain, the cliff-walk from the Lizard to Kynance would be no joke to uninitiated feet.
Now, all was so still that the wind never once fluttered the letter I was writing, and so warm that we were glad to escape the white glare of the wall of the Lizard Lights and sit in a cool hollow, watching sky and ocean, with now and then a sea-bird floating lazily between, a dark speck on the perpetual blue.