fulness,
but still with the most perfect satisfaction--among the hidden things of
nature which lay in pools, and under stones, and away in dark caves where
none but he had been.

And all these things he introduced us to with very great enjoyment,
revealing to us at a stroke, as it were, the wonders which had taken him
years to find out for himself.

With him we lay gazing into the wonderful rock gardens under the Autelets
when the tide was out;--watching the phosphorescent seaweeds flame in the
darker pools; seeking out the haunts where the sea anemones lay in
thousands, waving their long pale arms hungrily for food and closing them
hopefully on anything that offered, even on one's fingers, which they
presently rejected as unsatisfying.

He would silently point out to us the beauties of the sea ferns and
flowers, and the curious ways and habits of the tiny creeping things and
fishes, and we three would lie by the hour, flat on the rocks, chin in
fist, watching the comedies and tragedies and the strange chancy life of
the pools. And they were absorbing enough to keep even Carette quiet,
although her veins seemed filled with quicksilver and her life went on
springs.

And at times he would take us up the cliffs, to points of vantage from
which we could look down into the sea-birds' nests and watch them tending
their young.

And--greatest wonder of all, and only when we had solemnly promised, finger
on lip, never to disclose the matter under any conditions to anyone
whatsoever--he led us right into the granite cliffs themselves, sometimes
through dark mouths that gaped on the shore, sometimes by narrow clefts
half-way up, sometimes down strange rough chimneys from the heights above.

Hand in hand we would creep, stumbling and slipping, clinging tightly to
one another for protection against ghosts, spirits, and fairies, in all of
which we half believed in spite of all wiser teaching, and never daring to
speak above a whisper for fear of we knew not what, but always in mortal
terror of losing Krok, and so being left to wander till we died, or fell
into some, dark pool and were drowned, or, more horrible still, were caught
by the tide and driven back step by step into far dark corners till the end
came.

I can hear, now as I write, the uncouth croak from which Krok got his name,
but which to us, in those awesome places, was sweeter than music. And I can
hear the beating of his stick on the rocks to guide us in the dark