CHAPTER VIII.
"A little cottage built of sticks and weeds,
In homely wise, and walled with sods around,
In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weedes
And wilful want, all careless of her needes;
So choosing solitairie to abide. Far from all neighbours."
Spenser.
I wish I were a painter, or a poet, to describe a little sheltered nook on the sea-shore, where devotion would retire to worship, love to dwell in thought on the beloved, or sorrow to be soothed to rest. It was a small cove, sheltered on the north by high, overhanging cliffs, that ran out into the ocean in a bold headland. Opposite these rocks the land sloped gently down, and the ocean, lulled to rest, came in like a spent and wearied child, and rippled on a smooth, white sand.
The top of the cliff was covered with many-colored shrubbery. The drooping branches of the birch, the sumac, and the aspen, tinted with the rich coloring of autumn, hung half way down the cliff, and were reflected, like a double landscape, in the water. At sunset, the entire glassy surface was burnished with the red and yellow rays of the setting sun; and when the young moon, like a fairy boat, just rested on the surface, it was a scene of beauty that could not be surpassed in any country.
Immediately under the cliff, and sheltered like a swallow's nest, was the smallest of human habitations; so dark, and old, and moss-grown, that it seemed a part of the rock against which it rested. It consisted of one room: a door and single pane of glass admitted the light, and the nets hanging around, and an old boat drawn up on the beach, indicated that it was the shelter of a fisherman.
The Indian summer still continued, and a few mornings after the little journey, Edith was induced, by the soft beauty of the weather, to visit the cove. It was a walk of two miles, but the inhabitants of the cottage were among the poor of her father's parish, and she was never a stranger in their cottages.
The brilliant sun gave to the ever-changing ocean the tints of emerald green, royal purple, crimson, and sapphire, and made a path of light, fit for angels' footsteps. The tide was out, and the smooth beach glittered in the morning sun. The ocean, as far as the eye could reach, was smooth as glass. It was not then, as now, white with the frequent sail: a solitary vessel was then a rare occurrence, and hailed with rapture, as bringing news from home. The white-winged curlew was wheeling around in perfect security, and the little bay was dotted, in a few spots, with fishermen's boats. The absence of the old boat from the beach showed that the owner of the cottage was among them.