Acton Chine—the reader may perhaps have seen it—is a seam or chasm in the rocks, rising to the height of four hundred feet or more, sheer from the sea, whose waves for ever roar, toil, and boil in snow-white foam against its base.
Standing where Morley and Hawkshaw did, on the evening in question, one might say with Edgar, but perhaps more truly than he did of Dover:
"How fearful
And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!
The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so large as beetles * * *
The murmuring surge,
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."
There, too, as at Dover, on the dark face of those rocks, the fine green tufts of the samphire grow. The waves outside the chine are white as snow with foam and fury, while within the water is calm, deep, and dark as those of a far-sunk well.
Above, around, and below, the sea-birds wheel and scream, for the clefts and crannies of the rocks are full of their nests. And here, in explanation, we may add that chine is an old Anglo-Norman word, derived from echine—a gash or rent; and these chasms are so named in some parts of England, particularly about the Isle of Wight, where we find Compton Chine, Brook Chine, and the Black Gang Chine.
Morley peeped over into the awful profundity below, and then shrank back instinctively, with an emotion of inexpressible alarm and awe—it seemed so vast, so terrible!
Retiring, he seated himself on the verge of the giddy cliff and removed his hat, that the sea-breeze might play on his hot and flushed forehead. Cool and grateful, it refreshed, soothed, and calmed him.
Impressed by the beauty of the scene and of the evening, a calm joy pervaded Morley's heart, and he prayed a voiceless prayer to God to strengthen him for his destiny.
What put prayer into his head at such a time?
The scene was grandly terrible on one side, and softly serene on the other; but Morley was familiar with both.