XXXV. ["Would she see their Signals?"]
TWO SAILOR LADS.
CHAPTER I.
"HUSH! DO YOU HEAR THAT CRY?
WHAT CAN IT BE?"
There is no more beautiful bay than that of Methlin on all the wild west shores of Scotland; there is no quainter or more old-fashioned little town than the fishing village that clusters around its shores, its wee little whitewashed cottages half hidden in the green of waving elders and drooping silver birch trees. Behind the village is a wealth of woodland, stretching for miles away up the valley, between hills so high that at sunrise they cast their darkling shadows far across the sea.
But our story opens at eventide. The sun has already gone down behind the waves, leaving a sky and sea of such gorgeous and startling colours—such a mad mixture of crimson, orange, purple, and grey—as never surely was seen on artist's canvas.
And not only from the water, but even from the wide expanse of wet sand, are these colours reflected.
The sea is very calm, yet the Atlantic Ocean, that swells and heaves and breaks along this coast, never falls quite asleep; and if you glance to-night across the sands at the far-receding tide, you may note long moving lines of orange, and hear the gentle boom of the breaking wavelets.
Right in the centre of this mixed mass of radiant light and colour—darkling against it, and throwing long shadows on the wet flat beach—are two figures. How tall they look! Yes; but they are but boy and girl. Even the sea-gulls that run across the sands appear gigantic birds in that painted haze. Children both they are; he but ten, and she but six.
In looking seaward there is something else one will not fail to note; namely, a long dark wall of rocks, forming the southern horn of the bay, and running straight out into the ocean a mile and more.