“The sea-road, I should say,” he replied, “decidedly so. Shall we lead the way?” he went on, addressing Betty as he hastened forward to where she, Eira, and Miss Charlemont were standing; and in a moment or two, Frances, who by this time had attached herself to Madeleine and the two other men, heard by the sound of their merry voices that Horace’s spirits were at their highest.
“How considerate he is!” she thought to herself, “so careful not to involve me in any kind of notice. I wish I could—I do hope—” but then she put it all resolutely aside for the moment; the time had not yet come for a good thorough “thinking out” of it all, and in spite of Madeleine’s evident readiness to leave her undisturbed should she wish it, she joined with seeming interest in the talk going on around her, thereby winning still more golden opinions from her friend as to her unselfishness and self-control. For the little manoeuvres by which her brother had cleverly secured the coveted tête-à-tête had been by no means unperceived by his sister.
A few minutes’ quick walking now brought the party on to what was called the sea-road; another quarter of an hour and the queer little village lay close before them. Unanimously they came to a halt.
“It is indeed picturesque,” said Gertrude, whose taste lay in the direction of sketching.
“If only it were summer—not too cold for sitting still!”
“Wait till we have gone a little farther,” said Horace. “It isn’t only the place, the people themselves will tempt you still more.”
And when they found themselves in the one straggling street, where the reddish sandstone cottages looked much as they might have done at any time since the famous Armada days, when—so ran the legend—the strange little colony had first been founded, Miss Charlemont fully agreed with him. Here and there swarthy-faced men were seated at their cottage doors, occupied in the never-failing resource of a fisherman’s “off-hours”—mending their nets. A few women looking out, or here and there gossiping with each other, had a strangely un-English air, not only as to their, in most cases, black hair and eyes, but in the very colour and tone of their carelessly adjusted garments, in which a vivid blue and almost orange-scarlet, however stained and faded, still predominated. The very children, from the tumbling-about babies to the bare-legged, brown-skinned urchins of both sexes, who, considering the cold especially, seemed to take life uncommonly easily, all shared the same distinct and peculiar characteristics.
The strangers were much struck.
“Curious,” said Mr Charlemont meditatively, “how the Southern strain is still so predominant. It reminds me of—” but his daughter interrupted him.
“It’s worth coming any distance to see,” she said enthusiastically. “Even the very smell of the place isn’t like an English village! Do you often come here?” she went on, turning to the Morion sisters.