el almost every day, having brought him from home
for the good of his health, to gird up his loins, or rather get his
belly girths on, and come along the sands with her, and dig into new
places. But he, though delighted for a while with Byrsa stable, and
the social charms of Master Popplewell's old cob, and a rick of fine
tan-colored clover hay and bean haulm, when the novelty of these
delights was passed, he pined for his home, and the split in his crib,
and the knot of hard wood he had polished with his neck, and even the
little dog that snapped at him. He did not care for retired people--as
he said to the cob every evening--he liked to see farm-work going on, or
at any rate to hear all about it, and to listen to horses who had worked
hard, and could scarcely speak, for chewing, about the great quantity
they had turned of earth, and how they had answered very bad words with
a bow. In short, to put it in the mildest terms, Lord Keppel was giving
himself great airs, unworthy of his age, ungrateful to a degree, and
ungraceful, as the cob said repeatedly; considering how he was fed, and
bedded, and not a thing left undone for him. But his arrogance soon had
to pay its own costs.

For, away to the right of Byrsa Cottage, as you look down the hollow
of the ground toward the sea, a ridge of high scrubby land runs up to
a forefront of bold cliff, indented with a dark and narrow bay. "Goyle
Bay," as it is called, or sometimes "Basin Bay," is a lonely and rugged
place, and even dangerous for unwary visitors. For at low spring tides
a deep hollow is left dry, rather more than a quarter of a mile across,
strewn with kelp and oozy stones, among which may often be found pretty
shells, weeds richly tinted and of subtle workmanship, stars, and
flowers, and love-knots of the sea, and sometimes carnelians and
crystals. But anybody making a collection here should be able to keep
one eye upward and one down, or else in his pocket to have two things--a
good watch and a trusty tide-table.

John and Deborah Popplewell were accustomed to water in small supplies,
such as that of a well, or a road-side pond, or their own old noble
tan-pits; but to understand the sea it was too late in life, though it
pleased them, and gave them fine appetites now to go down when it was
perfectly calm, and a sailor assured them that the tide was mild. But
even at such seasons they preferred to keep their distance, and called
out frequently to one another. They