CHAPTER VI. ON THE DUNES.
“L'indifference est le sommeil du coeur.”
The village of Scheveningen, as many know, is built on the sand dunes, and only sheltered from the ocean by a sea-wall. A new Scheveningen has sprung up on this sea-wall—a mere terrace of red brick houses, already faded and weather-worn, which stare forlornly at the shallow sea. Inland, except where building enterprise has constructed roads and built villas are sand dunes. To the south, beyond the lighthouse, are sand dunes. To the north, more especially and most emphatically, are sand dunes as far as the eye may see. This tract of country is a very desert, where thin maritime grasses are shaken by the wind, where suggestive spars lie bleaching, where the sand, driven before the breeze like snow, travels to and fro through all the ages.
This afternoon, the dunes presented as forlorn an appearance as it is possible in one's gloomiest moments to conceive. The fog had, indeed, lifted a little, but a fine rain now drove before the wind, freezing as it fell, so that the earth was covered by a thin sheet of ice. The short January day was drawing to its close.
To the north of the waterworks, three hundred yards away from that solitary erection, the curious may find to-day a few low buildings clustering round a water-tower. These buildings are of wood, with roofs of corrugated iron; and when they were newly constructed, not so many years ago, presented a gay enough appearance, with their green shutters and ornamental eaves. The whole was enclosed in a fence of corrugated iron, and approached by a road not too well constructed on its sandy bed.
“We do not want the place to become the object of an excursion for tourists to The Hague,” said Roden to Cornish, as they approached the malgamite works in a closed carriage.
Cornish looked out of the window and made no remark. So far as he could see on all sides, there was nothing but sand-hills and grey grass. The road was a narrow one, and led only to the little cluster of houses within the fence. It was a lonely spot, cut off from all communication with the outer world. Men might pass within a hundred yards and never know that the malgamite works existed. The carriage drove through the high gateway into the enclosure. There were a number of cottages, two long, low buildings, and the water-tower.
“You see,” said Roden, “we have plenty of room to increase our accommodation when there is need of it. But we must go slowly and feel our way. It would never do to fail. We have accommodation here for a couple of hundred workers and their families; but in time we shall have five hundred of them in here—all the malgamite workers in the world.”