s upon it, a dim
sense of pity and warning; when there comes, or seems to come, a
shadow across the waves, with never a cloud in the sky to cast it;
when there comes a shuddering as of wings that move in dread or ire,
then such a child feels as if the bloodhounds of calamity are let
loose upon him or upon those he loves; he feels that the sea has told
him all it dares tell or can. And, in other moods of fate, when
beneath a cloudy sky the myriad dimples of the sea begin to sparkle
as though the sun were shining bright upon them, such a child feels,
as he gazes at it, that the sea is telling him of some great joy near
at hand, or, at least, not far off.'

One lovely summer afternoon a little boy was sitting on the edge of
the cliff that skirts the old churchyard of Raxton-on-Sea. He was
sitting on the grass close to the brink of the indentation cut by the
water into the horse-shoe curve called by the fishermen Mousetrap
Cove; sitting there as still as an image of a boy in stone, at the
forbidden spot where the wooden fence proclaimed the crumbling hollow
crust to be specially dangerous--sitting and looking across the sheer
deep gulf below.

Flinty Point on his right was sometimes in purple shadow and
sometimes shining in the sun; Needle Point on his left was sometimes
in purple shadow and sometimes shining in the sun; and beyond these
headlands spread now the wide purple, and now the wide sparkle of the
open sea. The very gulls, wheeling as close to him as they dared,
seemed to be frightened at the little boy's peril. Straight ahead he
was gazing, however--gazing so intently that his eyes must have been
seeing very much or else very little of that limitless world of light
and coloured shade. On account of certain questions connected with
race that will be raised in this narrative, I must dwell a little
while upon the child's personal appearance, and especially upon his
colour. Natural or acquired, it was one that might be almost called
unique; as much like a young Gypsy's colour as was compatible with
respectable descent, and yet not a Gypsy's colour. A deep undertone
of 'Romany brown' seemed breaking through that peculiar kind of ruddy
golden glow which no sunshine can give till it has itself been
deepened and coloured and enriched by the responsive kisses of the
sea.

Moreover, there was a certain something in his eyes that was not
Gypsy-like--a something which is not uncommonly seen in the eyes of
boys born along