"Ducks in winter. We got one once."
"Had to lie in the rushes all day," said Jack, with a reminiscent shiver.
"It was a good duck," said Jim.
And the next afternoon the Rev. Charles set out for the cottage, with Grace skipping about him in search of treasure-trove of beach and sand-hill.
It was a stoutly-built little wooden house, standing back in a hollow of the sand-hummocks, and its solitariness was enhanced by reason of the vast and lonely expanse of Wyn Mere, which lay just behind it. The shore of the Mere was thick with reeds and rushes. The long unbroken stretch of water silently mirroring the blue sky, with its margin of rustling reeds, possessed a beauty all its own, but something of sadness and solemnity too.
Grace, standing on top of a sand-hill, with a high tide dancing merrily up the flats on the one side and the long silent Mere on the other, put it into words.
"How unhappy it looks, Charlie! I like the sea best. It laughs."
"It laughs just now, my dear, but sometimes it roars and thunders."
"All the same, I like it best. This other looks as if it drowned people."
"I don't suppose it ever drowned as many people as the sea, Gracie."