ring, none knew
when. They felt half inclined to identify me with these mysterious
visitors--to consider me as some being, a stranger to the whole human
family, who had come to waste away under a curse, and die ominously and
secretly among them. Even the person to whom I first paid money for
my necessaries, questioned, for a moment, the lawfulness and safety of
receiving it!

But these doubts gradually died away; this superstitious curiosity
insensibly wore off, among my poor neighbours. They became used to my
solitary, thoughtful, and (to them) inexplicable mode of existence.
One or two little services of kindness which I rendered, soon after my
arrival, to their children, worked wonders in my favour; and I am
pitied now, rather than distrusted. When the results of the fishing are
abundant, a little present has been often made to me, out of the nets.
Some weeks ago, after I had gone out in the morning, I found on my
return, two or three gulls' eggs placed in a basket before my door.
They had been left there by the children, as ornaments for my cottage
window--the only ornaments they had to give; the only ornaments they had
ever heard of.

I can now go out unnoticed, directing my steps up the ravine in which
our hamlet is situated, towards the old grey stone church which stands
solitary on the hill-top, surrounded by the lonesome moor. If any
children happen to be playing among the scattered tombs, they do not
start and run away, when they see me sitting on the coffin stone at the
entrance of the churchyard, or wandering round the sturdy granite
tower, reared by hands which have mouldered into dust centuries ago. My
approach has ceased to be of evil omen for my little neighbours. They
just look up at me, for a moment, with bright smiles, and then go on
with their game.

From the churchyard, I look down the ravine, on fine days, towards the
sea. Mighty piles of granite soar above the fishermen's cottages on each
side; the little strip of white beach which the cliffs shut in, glows
pure in the sunlight; the inland stream that trickles down the bed of
the rocks, sparkles, at places, like a rivulet of silver-fire; the round
white clouds, with their violet shadows and bright wavy edges, roll on
majestically above me; the cries of the sea-birds, the endless, dirging
murmur of the surf, and the far music of the wind among the ocean
caverns, fall, now together, now separately on my ear. Nature's
voice and Nature's beauty--G