ed inwards, and,
as I paused in the opening, my shadow, lengthened and dark, fell athwart
the floor--a slim and narrow bar of black--till lost in the gloom of the
inner recess. There was a wild and uncommon beauty in the scene that
powerfully affected the imagination; and I stood admiring it in that
delicious dreamy mood in which one can forget all but the present
enjoyment, when I was roused to a recollection of the business of the
evening by the sound of a footfall echoing from within. It seemed
approaching by a sort of cross passage in the rock, and, in a moment
after, a young man, one of the country people whom I had left among the
cliffs above, stood before me. He wore a broad Lowland bonnet, and his
plain homely suit of coarse russet seemed to bespeak him a peasant of
perhaps the poorest class; but, as he emerged from the gloom, and the
red light fell full on his countenance, I saw an indescribable something
in the expression that in an instant awakened my curiosity. He was
rather above the middle size, of a frame the most muscular and compact I
have almost ever seen, and there was a blended mixture of elasticity and
firmness in his tread, that to one accustomed, as I had been, to
estimate the physical capabilities of men, gave evidence of a union of
immense personal strength with great activity. My first idea regarding
the stranger--and I know not how it should have struck me--was that of a
very powerful frame, animated by a double portion of vitality. The red
light shone full on his face, and gave a ruddy tinge to the complexion,
which I afterwards found it wanted--for he was naturally of a darker hue
than common; but there was no mistaking the expression of the large
flashing eyes, the features that seemed so thoroughly cast in the mould
of thought, and of the broad, full, perpendicular forehead. Such, at
least, was the impression on my mind, that I addressed him with more of
the courtesy which my earlier pursuits had rendered familiar to me, than
of the bluntness of my adopted profession. "This sweet evening," I said,
"is by far too fine for our lugger; I question whether, in these calms,
we need expect her before midnight; but, 'tis well, since wait we must,
that 'tis in a place where the hours may pass so agreeably." The
stranger, good-humouredly, acquiesced in the remark, and we sat down
together on the dry, water-worn pebbles, mixed with fragments of broken
shells and minute pieces of wreck, that strewed the