one tall conical rock after another darkened with its black pyramid
the bright orb of the setting sun. Soon we began to hear the soft
murmur of the snowy surf line; then the merry voices of the children
along the shore; and running straight for the cliff-foot, we shipped
into the little pier, from whence the red-sailed herring-boats were
swarming forth like bees out of a hive, full of gay handsome faces,
and all the busy blue-jacketed life of seaport towns, to their
night's fishing in the bay.


IV.--CLOVELLY.


A couple of days had passed, and I was crawling up the paved stairs
inaccessible to cart or carriage, which are flatteringly denominated
'Clovelly-street,' a landing-net full of shells in one hand, and a
couple of mackerel lines in the other; behind me a sheer descent,
roof below roof; at an angle of 45 degrees, to the pier and bay, 200
feet below, and in front, another hundred feet above, a green
amphitheatre of oak, and ash, and larch, shutting out all but a
narrow slip of sky, across which the low, soft, formless mist was
crawling, opening every instant to show some gap of intense dark
rainy blue, and send down a hot vaporous gleam of sunshine upon the
white cottages, with their grey steaming roofs, and bright green
railings, packed one above another upon the ledges of the cliff; and
on the tall tree-fuchsias and gaudy dahlias in the little scraps of
court-yard, calling the rich faint odour out of the verbenas and
jessamines, and, alas! out of the herring-heads and tails also, as
they lay in the rivulet; and lighting up the wings of the gorgeous
butterflies, almost unknown in our colder eastern climate, which