United States or Isle of Man ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There they stand, for all the world like their neighbours ashore; only the salt water sobbing between them instead of the quiet earth, and clots of sea-pink blooming on their sides instead of heather; and the great sea-conger to wreathe about the base of them instead of the poisonous viper of the land.
Now and then a little cloud of dust would puff out from the cliff-face where the wind dislodged a dry particle of stone or mould; elsewhere Barren saw the sure-rooted samphire and tufts of sea-pink, innocent of flowers as yet; and sometimes little squeaking dabs of down might also be observed below where infant gulls huddled together in the ledges outside their nests and gazed upon a condition of things as yet beyond their experience.
It is the most narrowly local and stay-at-home of all birds, never leaving the very fringe and margin, not of sea, but of land, haunting only the last edge and precipice of the coast, nesting on those upright walls of granite or chalk, and creeping, flying, and twittering among the crumbling stones, the water-worn boulders, and the tufts of sea-pink and samphire.
'Make straight for the burn, he shouted in a hoarse whisper; we'll beat him on the slope. We passed the boulders and slithered over the outcrop of red rock and the patches of sea-pink till we reached the channel of the Dyve water, which flows gently among pebbles after leaving the gully. Here for the first time I looked back and saw nothing.
It was, indeed, originally an igneous protrusion into the enormous masses of black strata, which had since been worn away from the sides of the alien fragment by centuries of frost and rain, and now left it without much support. It moved. Knight seized a tuft of sea-pink with each hand. The quartz rock which had been his salvation was worse than useless now.
'Literally or metaphorically? asked Louis, softly. 'Pshaw! 'You Dynevors don't resemble my sea-pink. See how she stretches her elegant fringes for this very unpleasant bit of meat! There! I won't torment you any more; read, and stop my mouth! 'You are in earnest? 'You seem to think that if a man cannot be a clergyman, he is not to be a Christian.
You see that tuft of sea-pink above you. Get that well into your hand, but don't trust to it entirely. Then step upon my shoulder, and I think you will reach the top. With trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her. The preternatural quiet and solemnity of his manner overspread upon herself, and gave her a courage not her own. She made a spring from the top of his shoulder, and was up.
There they stand, for all the world like their neighbours ashore; only the salt water sobbing between them instead of the quiet earth, and clots of sea-pink blooming on their sides instead of heather; and the great sea conger to wreathe about the base of them instead of the poisonous viper of the land.
There they stand, for all the world like their neighbours ashore; only the salt water sobbing between them instead of the quiet earth, and clots of sea-pink blooming on their sides instead of heather; and the great sea-conger to wreathe about the base of them instead of the poisonous viper of the land.
"One of their look-outs," he said to himself, as he turned again to sit down, but only to start and crouch upon his knees in surprise; for close up to the rock wall, half hidden by a tuft of sea-pink and grey sea holly, was a very old ragged black silk neckerchief, folded and creased as if lately torn off, and bearing strange rusty dark stains, dry and unpleasant-looking, and with very little consideration Aleck settled in his own mind that, if it were not the kerchief Tom had torn from his neck to wind round the smuggler's wound, it was as like it as could be.
Word Of The Day