"You will soil it,--what matter?"
"But why put it on? it is my best."
"Bless the child! don't you see that I tell you to put it on because it is your best, or rather because you look best in it? Don't be dull, Midge, I want Cornelius to like you and your looks too."
There was no resisting an argument so plainly stated. Still when Kate went down on some mysterious errand into the kitchen, and I hastened to the parlour with my scarf on my arm and my bonnet in my hand, in order not to keep Cornelius waiting, I was under a nervous apprehension that he would think me very vain and fond of dress. He did look at me, and very fixedly too. I exclaimed, deprecatingly--
"I knew you would think it odd to go and put on a white dress for a walk in the country, but Kate would have it so."
He laughed, and gave me an amused look.
"What a strange girl you are, Daisy! I never noticed your dress. I was studying the effect of that bright sunlight on your hair, and thinking how it made it look more rich and deep than the hues Titian loved to paint."
It was my turn to laugh.
"How like an artist, to be always thinking of effects!"
"Now don't stand giggling and chatting there," said Miss O'Reilly, appearing with an ample provision of sandwiches neatly packed up, "but go out whilst the day is still pleasant. Cornelius, take these; you are to stay out the whole day. Daisy, why don't you take his arm? you are tall enough for that now."
He held out his arm for me with a smile, and as I took it and looked up into his face, I felt a proud and happy girl. The time had been when the hand of Cornelius was as much as I could claim, and I longed in vain for the present privilege and honour.
We left Rock Cottage by the garden gate. As we walked arm in arm down the path that led to the beach, I saw Miss O'Reilly stand on the door-step, and, shading her eyes with her hand, look after us, until the winding of the path concealed us from her sight.
CHAPTER V.
We went down to the beach. A deep line of shade still extended at the foot of the cliffs; the sky had not a cloud; the sea lay calm beneath; it looked one of Nature's happy days. I said so to Cornelius, adding, in the fulness of my joy, "How kind of Kate to tell you to take me!"
"Yes," he replied, wilfully misunderstanding me, "she always was a good sister."
"Now, Cornelius, you know very well she did it to please me."
He smiled without looking at me.
"One to please you, Daisy, and a great deal more to please me. You will ascertain it thus: state that D is to C in K's estimation, what 1 is to _x_ in figures: then multiply by C (that's me) and divide by D (that's you), and you will know all about it."
"I don't want to multiply by you and to divide by myself, to know why Kate told you to take me."
"She's as obstinate as the other one," said Cornelius, stopping short to look at me.
I replied, "Is she?" and we went on, until a promontory of steep rock barred our passage.
"We must cross that," I said.
"Humph! Can you manage it, Daisy?"
"Can you, Cornelius?"
He told me I was very saucy. I laughed and ran up the rocks so fast, he could scarcely overtake me. When we reached the highest peak, we stood still, and thence looked down on a wild narrow spot below, shut in between cliff and wave. Long ridges of sharp rocks, stretching out far into the sea, and impassable when the tide was full, enclosed it on either side. The cliffs at the back stood steep and perpendicular within a few yards of the breaking surf, but the strata of earth that ran through them in slant and undulating lines, gave them a distant and receding aspect, which, like the glamour of enchantment, vanished with a closer view; then they suddenly rose on the eye, near, stern, and threatening. Undermined by the high spring tides, rocks had fallen from above, and now lay thickly strewn about the beach, as if tossed there by the sea in angry or sportive mood. From the deep gap thus made in the cliff descended a narrow stream, which spread on a flat advancing ledge of rock, fell again a wide and clear stream of sparkling water, into a basin which itself had made, and thence glided away with a low splash and faint murmur, through worn-out old stones green with slime, until it lost itself for ever in the great rush of the wide waters.
We descended silently; when we stood within the enclosed space, Cornelius said--
"Of all wild and barren spots this is the gem."
"It is sterile, Cornelius, and that is its beauty."
It was indeed a desolate place. Shell-fish in serried ranks, and weeds in dark and slippery masses, clung to the sea-washed rocks. A few crabs and shrimps had remained captive in the shallow pools of water, where they waited the returning tide. Long algae, all wet and tangled, and light feathery sprigs, delicate enough to be wreathed in the green hair of pale mermaids, were strewn on the beach, but other tokens of life and vegetation there were none. The sea breeze, which moaned along that wall of rock and cliff, fanned and stirred not one blade of yellowish grass on its way. Here ceased the freshness and verdure of earth; here began a nature other than that of the poets, yet not without its own beauty, contrasts, and harmonies.
"It is grand, but wonderfully dreary," said Cornelius, "let us go back, Daisy."
"Not yet. Do you see that hollow nook perched up there between earth and sky, close by the fountain?"
"Well, what about it?"
"There is a very fine prospect from it."
"How do you know?"
"I often go there."
"You!" he exclaimed, with an astonished look that amused me, "and pray how do you get there?"
"Look!"
I sprang up a steep path in the rock; every step of it was familiar to me; I had reached the hollow, and was laughing down at Cornelius, before he recovered from his amazement. He followed me lightly, but chid me all the way.
"What could tempt you to do such a mad thing and to come to such an eyrie as this?" he asked as he stood by me in the wide hollow and under the broad shelter of an overhanging rock.
"Look at that glorious prospect, Cornelius," I replied, sitting down and making him sit down by me.
I remember well both the day and the spot. The blue sky, the sea of a blue still more deep, the yellow beach, the brown wall of rock, gave back the same ardent glow; the place seemed enchanted into the quietness of noon, save when some solitary raven suddenly left a cleft in the rock and, descending with a swoop, hovered a black speck over the beach in search of prey. We sat pleasantly within reach of the cool spray of the spring; a breeze from above brought us the sweet scent of unseen fields of gorse in bloom; below us the sea boiled in white and angry surf amongst the rocks, and thence spread away in seemingly unbroken smoothness, until it met and mingled with the distant horizon.
"What do you think of my eyrie, Cornelius?" I said, after a long pause.
"So you come here often?" was his reply.
"Yes, very often."
"What can attract you to such a wild spot?"
"Its wildness."
He looked me in the face and smiled. I resumed--
"I was born by the sea, Cornelius, and I love it, ay, very dearly; this barren spot seems pleasanter to me than any sunny landscape. I could listen for hours to the wind sweeping down the coast and the dash of the heaving waves. Could not you?"