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Updated: June 12, 2025
I could not help feeling sorry when Thursday came, which was to be my last day at Runswick Bay. It had been such a happy and so eventful a time. I seemed to have passed through so much, and to have learnt so much unknown to me before, that I felt very reluctant to bring my holiday to a close. As for Duncan and Polly, they were quite melancholy as the time for my departure drew near.
Most of the visitors had left Runswick Bay now, for it was late in the season, but the shore was covered with the village children boys and girls without shoes and stockings, wading in the pools and running far out into the shallow sea. It was a pretty sight, the grey, quiet water, the strips of yellow sand, and the cliff covered with grass and flowers.
It was an interesting sight, and I had reason to remember it afterwards, as you will see. The evening concert went off as well as the sports had done, and Duncan came in at night rather tired, but well satisfied with the day's proceedings. I enjoyed all the sights at Runswick Bay, but I think I was particularly charmed with what happened on the day after the sports.
In East Anglia and the southern counties even the smallest hamlets have often a good church, with a conspicuous tower or spire; but in how many villages in this riding do you find no church at all, as in the case of Staithes and Runswick?
And whenever the question came back to me, the question which the speaker had repeated so often, 'What are you? I answered it by saying to myself, 'I am a poor artist, having a holiday in Runswick Bay, and I am not going to trouble my head with gloomy thoughts. Polly had prepared an excellent dinner in honour of the day, and I did full justice to it.
The villagers recovered some of their property by digging, and some pieces of broken crockery from one of the cottages are still to be seen on the shore near the ferryman's hut, where the path joins the shore. This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one of the finest spots on the rocky coast-line of Yorkshire.
The steep paths and flights of roughly-built steps that wind above and below the cottages are the only means of getting about in Runswick. The butcher's cart every Saturday penetrates into the centre of the village by the rough track which is all that is left of the good firm road from Hinderwell after it has climbed down the cliff.
If I had been a prince, I think they could not have made more of me, and I believe I should have been altogether spoiled if I had stayed in Runswick Bay much longer. I had not touched my picture the whole of that week, for whilst our anxiety lasted I had no heart or desire to paint. On Saturday I saw Marjorie and little Jack giving out their pink papers, and I went to meet them.
At times I wished I had never come to Runswick Bay to be made so uncomfortable; at other times I wondered if I had been brought there on purpose to hear those words. I went back to dinner, but I could not enjoy it, much to Polly's distress. The rain fell fast all the afternoon, and as I lay on my bed upstairs I heard Polly washing up, and singing as she did so the hymn we had had at the service
It was the yellow ragwort that did it! I have discovered the clue at last. All night long I have been dreaming of Runswick Bay. I have been climbing the rocks, talking to the fishermen, picking my way over the masses of slippery seaweed, and breathing the fresh briny air. And all the morning I have been saying to myself, 'What can have made me dream of Runswick Bay?
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