5

CHAPTER I.

THE COTTAGE ON THE SHORE.

'Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm;
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands;

And high in heaven behind it a grey down
With Danish barrows; and a hazel wood,
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes
Green in a cup-like hollow of the down.'

TENNYSON's Enoch Arden.

WAS a little girl then,-a very lonely little

girl, for I had no brothers or sisters, and

knew but few playfellows. I had a father, it is true, but he was rarely at home, and my time was chiefly spent alone with my mother during the day. My father was the captain and part owner of a small trading brig, and was continually at sea. I daresay his frequent long absences from home made him less thoughtful than he would otherwise have

A

been; and besides, as he said, he was but a rough sailor after all.

So when he came back from a longer voyage than usual, and found my dear mother had been ill during his absence, and I had grown a little peevish child, who fretted and cried incessantly, it is hardly to be wondered at that he felt, as he said he did, 'like a fish out of water,' and was glad to set off again. I can now see what a little cross, discontented girl I must have been, and what a source of trouble to every one around me ; but at the time I only understood and felt my own troubles and sorrows. And they were not such very light ones after all, for such a young child as I was ; for I missed my dear mother sorely, having always hitherto been her chief care and treasure.

We lived in a desolate little hamlet on the eastern coast, whose inhabitants principally consisted of fishermen, and their half-fed, miserably clothed wives and children. It was a dreary place, the coast stretching for miles in an endless succession of low chalky cliffs and reaches of sand, unvaried by any bolder feature of hill or rock. The very winds swept dismally over the long low stretches of shore with melancholy moans and whistles, and the waves came and went with a slow creeping monotony that made one feel tired out with only looking at them. Why

my parents had chosen this place for their home I do not know, unless it arose from any morbid wish of my poor mother, for she was naturally of a very retired and melancholy temperament, and no doubt her ill health increased the feeling. My father's vessel always came in at the small shipping town of Brackley, which lay about two miles inland on the shore of the little river Brack. Our cottage stood about a mile from the mouth of the river, and we could therefore see all the shipping that went up the river, by dint of climbing the cliff above our garden.

Our little cottage was unfortunately not sheltered by this cliff from the bleak sea winds, for just facing us it had been either worn away by the elements, or destroyed by the work of man, for a space of nearly a hundred feet. Through this gap in the natural wall the wind used to rush with the fury of a hurricane, shaking our frail windows, and effectually preventing any egress at, what we called by a figure of speech, our front door.' Indeed, occasionally in exceptionally rough weather, the tide used to be driven in what to strange eyes must have seemed rather an unpleasant nearness to our cottage, while the spray came dashing over it in a perfect cascade, driving in through the ill-fitting casements, and pouring down over the back door. On these occasions, my mother would sit in her old arm-chair by

the side of the fire, with her open Bible on her knees, and her white wan face turned towards the sea, in what I imagined must have been an agony of terror. Now that I am older and can realize her feelings more perfectly, I can see how strong her mental effort must have been to seem even so outwardly calm, and how hard she strove to be patient and brave.

I was myself a very wayward child, and had been from my birth somewhat weak and sickly; and I hope, now, from this arose some of my fretfulness and peevish tempers; for although it was no excuse for giving way to them, it had doubtless some share in producing them. I have, therefore, little doubt but my ungovernable wilfulness was the cause of much incessant harass to my mother, and that it was so has been a source of lifelong repentance since. For when we have grown old ourselves, and gone through the anxiety and care, we learn the real value of the deep love of the mother, so lightly prized in our careless days of childhood.

I believe, in spite of my ill health and nervous fancies, I was constitutionally a brave child, and ought to have been a hardy, healthy one; but the lonely life and indulgence fostered all my habits of self-pleasing, and I therefore lazily toddled in-doors at one time, and braved all kinds of tempestuous