head ache. Nor of the coming day;
that is too difficult: nor of the day which is past; that is too near.
Wood paths, quiet seas, running streams--these are better.

"Any lazy man can swim
Down the current of a stream."

Or the wind in trees, or owls crying, or waves beating on warm shores.
The waves beat now; ran up whisperingly with the incoming tide, broke,
and sidled back, dragging at the wet sand.... Nan, hearing them, drifted
at last into sleep.

CHAPTER IX

THE PACE

1

The coast road to Land's End is like a switchback. You climb a mountain
and are flung down to sea level like a shooting star, and climb a
mountain again. Sometimes the road becomes a sandy cliff path and you
have to walk.

But at last, climbing up and being shot down and walking, Nan and Barry
and Gerda and Kay reached Land's End. They went down to Sennan Cove to
bathe, and the high sea was churning breakers on the beach. Nan dived
through them with the arrowy straightness of a fish or a submarine, came
up behind them, and struck out to sea. The others behind her, less
skilful, floundered and were dashed about by the waves. Barry and Kay
struggled through them somehow, bruised and choked; Gerda, giving it
up--she was no great swimmer--tranquilly rolled and paddled in the surf
by herself.

Kay called to her, mocking.

"Coward. Sensualist. Come over the top like a man."

Nan, turning to look at her from the high crest of a wave, thought
"Gerda's afraid in a high sea. She is afraid of things: I remember."

Nan herself was afraid of very little. She had that kind of buoyant
physical gallantry which would take her into the jaws of danger with
a laugh. When in London during the air raids she had walked about the
streets to see what could be seen; in France with the Fannys she had
driven cars over shelled roads with a cool composure which distinguished
her even among that remarkably cool and composed set of young women; as
a child she had ridden unbroken horses and teased and dodged savage bulls
for the fun of it; she would go sailing in seas that fishermen refused to
go out in; part angry dogs which no other onlooker would touch; sleep out
alone in dark and lonely woods, and even on occasion brave pigs. The kind
of gay courage she had was a physical heritage which can never be
acquired. What can be acquired, with blood and tears, is the courage of
the will, stubborn and unyielding, but always nerve-racked, proudly and
tensely