They had passed the first beach, which at that hour was black with bathers and by-standers, and had climbed the hill-slope which separates it from the second beach, when Marian suddenly cried, "Mamma, here we are close to Purgatory; can't we stop just a minute and show it to Candace?"
Mrs. Gray looked at her watch.
"Your minute will be at least a quarter of an hour, Marian," she said; "but I think there is time enough. Would any of the rest of you like to go?"
Girls always "want to go." There was a general disembarkation; and Mrs. Gray led the way through a gate and across a rough field which stretched along the top of a line of cliffs, steeper and bolder than those on the Newport Point, and cut here and there into sudden sharp fissures.
The scanty grass, yellow with August sun, was broken everywhere by lumps and boulders of that odd conglomerate which is known by the name of "plum-pudding stone." Golden-rod and the early blue aster were flowering everywhere. A flock of sheep fled at their approach, with a low rushing sound like the wind in boughs.
Purgatory.
The name of "Purgatory" seemed to her to suggest some terrible sort of place.—Page 188.
Candace walked along with the rest, in a little shiver of expectancy. The name of "Purgatory" seemed to her to suggest some terrible sort of place. Presently she saw the girls ahead, as they reached a particular point, diverge sharply to the right with little cries and exclamations; and when she advanced, she found herself on the edge of a chasm deeper and darker than any of those which they had passed. It cut the cliff from its highest point to the sea-level; and the wall-like sides receded toward their base, leaving vaulted hollows beneath, into which the eye could not penetrate. Only the ear caught the sound of thunderous murmurs and strange gurgles and hisses of spray echoing from unseen recesses far underground; and it was easy to imagine that these sounds came from some imprisoned sea-creature, hemmed in by the tide, with no chance of escape, and vexing the air with its groans.
Candace shrank away from the brink with a sensation of affright. "What an awful place!" she said, drawing a long breath. "Do you suppose any one ever fell down there?"
Every member of the party had some tradition of the sort to relate; but none of the stories seemed to rest on a very secure foundation.