“Better, I think,” said Arthur, for he had forgotten its existence all through the walk home.
Chapter Eighteen.
Mack’rel in the bay—And the seine fairplay—And a haul for our wives and bairns.
If you want to go to a place where the air you breathe seems to till your veins with joy, and you begin to tingle with a desire to be up and doing something, go down into Cornwall, where the breeze seems to sparkle and effervesce like the waves that beat upon the rocky shore, and from whose crests it bears off the health-giving ozone to mix with the fragrant scent of the wild thyme and heather of the hills and barren moors. The sea never looks two days alike: now it is glistening like frosted silver, now it is as liquid gold. At one time it is ruddy like wine, at another time rich orange or amber, and a few hours after intensely blue, as if the sky had fallen or joined it then and there. Only in storm time is it thick and muddy, as it is in other parts of our coast, and even then it is not long before it settles down once more to its crystal purity.
“Ahoy-ay! Ahoy-ay!”
A musical chorus, softened by distance as it came off the sea, awakened Dick Temple from dreams of boats and mines, and rocks, and caves full of cuttle-fish, crabs, and seals, so big that they seemed monsters of the deep.
The window was open, for he had left it so when he had scrambled out of his clothes and jumped into bed.
Then Arthur, who was calmly folding his garments, or rather his brother’s, had quietly gone across the room and shut the window.