would be looking out for me impatiently, that she might get the meal
over, and the things cleared away, and order restored in her dwelling.
So I quitted my warm nook with a feeling of regret, though I knew I
could return to it in an hour.

But one can never return to any thing that is once left. When we look
for it again, even though the place may remain, something has vanished
from it which can never come back. I never returned to my spring-day
upon the cliffs of Sark.

A little crumbling path led round the rock and along the edge of the
ravine. I chose it because from it I could see all the fantastic shore,
bending in a semicircle toward the isle of Breckhou, with tiny,
untrodden bays, covered at this hour with only glittering ripples, and
with all the soft and tender shadows of the headlands falling across
them. I had but to look straight below me, and I could see long tresses
of glossy seaweed floating under the surface of the sea. Both my head
and my footing were steady, for I had grown accustomed to giddy heights
and venturesome climbing. I walked on slowly, casting many a reluctant
glance behind me at the calm waters, with the boats gliding to and fro
among the islets. I was just giving my last look to them when the loose
stones on the crumbling path gave way under my tread, and before I could
recover my foothold I found myself slipping down the almost
perpendicular face of the cliff, and vainly clutching at every bramble
and tuft of grass growing in its clefts.




CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.