A storm was raging at Brighton the day after my arrival there in the Wanderer. Great seas were thundering in upon the shingly beach and leaping madly over pier and wall.
“Look, look!” cried my little daughter Inez delightedly, “how the waves are smoking!”
“Surely,” she added, “great whales must be in the water to make it wobble so.”
But it was great fun to her to watch them “wobbling,” all the same.
She crowed with joy at the scene.
“Oh! they do make me laugh so,” she cried, clapping her tiny hands, “they are such fun!” Yes, and for weeks afterwards, whenever she thought of that storm-tossed ocean she would laugh.
But really you can find everlasting amusement at the seaside in summer or in autumn—supposing you are a child, I mean. Shingle is not very nice to dig among, perhaps, with a wooden spade, but then you find such quantities of pretty stones and shells among it, and morsels of coloured glass worn round by the action of the waves. You cannot build a very satisfactory house or fortification with the smaller kinds of shingle, but you can throw spadefuls of it in all directions—over your companions or over your nurse, and if a shower of it does fall on that old gentleman’s long hat, what matters it whether he be angry or not? it was fun to hear it rattle, and you would do it again and again if you only dared.
If you are permitted to take off shoes and stockings and tuck up your dress, what a glorious treat to wade on the soft sand, and feel the merry wee waves playing soft and warm about your legs! If you cannot have shoes and stockings off, then you can chase each receding wave, and let the advancing ones chase you. This will make you laugh, and if one should overtake you and go swilling round your ankles, why, what matters it? to listen to the water jerking in your boots at every step is in itself good fun.
There is endless amusement to be got out of seaweed, too, and if you have a big dog the fun will be fast and furious.
Perhaps he is a large Newfoundland, like our Hurricane Bob. By the seaside Bob is always on the best of terms with himself and every other living creature. You can bury him in the sand all but the nose; you can clothe him from head to tail with broad bands of wet seaweed, he enjoys it all, takes everything in good part. He will go splashing and dashing into the sea after a stick or a stone, and if you were to fall plump into the sea yourself he would jump after you, carry you out, and lay you on the beach in the most businesslike fashion imaginable; then shake himself, the water that flies from his great jacket of jet making rainbows all round him in the sunshine.