Sparrow matches are a disgrace to our country, and to those who engage in them. Every reader will surely admit this much. As for members of sparrow clubs, I never saw one, and Heaven forbid I ever may.
Chapter Eleven.
On the Breezy Cliff-Top.—Our “Hoggie.”
“Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends—
All my dreams come back to me.”
One of the sunniest memories to all of us is the time we spent on the cliff-tops of romantic old Dunbar. There is nothing more calculated to give pleasure to a true Briton, unless he happens to have been born by the beach, than a few days spent at the seaside; that is, if he or she can have thereat some comfort. Here at Dunbar was no noise, no bustle, no stir, and, to us, not the worry inseparable from living in lodgings. Our little homes were all our own: we could go when we liked, do what we liked, and there was no landlady at the week’s end to present us with a bill including extras.
The only noise was the beating of the waves on the black rocks far beneath us, and the scream of sea-birds, mingling perhaps with the happy voices of merry, laughing children.
Stretching far away eastwards was the ever-changing ocean, dotted with many a sail or many a steamer with trailing smoke. Northwards was the sea-girt mountain called the Bass Rock, whilst south-eastwards we could see the coast-line stretching out to Saint Abbé Head.
We were so pleased with our bivouac on the breezy cliff-tops of Dunbar that we made the place our headquarters, journeying therefrom, up the romantic Tweed, visiting all the places and scenery sacred to the memory of Scott and the bard of Ettrick.