Shortly after, the plashing ceased, and along with it the laughter. He could still hear the voices of the two girls engaged in conversation—at intervals intermingled with that of the negress.
“They are out now, and dressing,” he joyfully conjectured. “I wonder how long they’ll be about that. Not another hour, I hope.”
He took out a fresh cigar. It was his third.
“By the time I’ve finished this,” reflected he, “they’ll be gone. At all events, they ought to be dressed; and, without rudeness, I may take the liberty of slipping past them.”
He lit the cigar, smoked, and listened.
The conversation was now carried on in an uninterrupted strain, but in quieter tones, and no longer interspersed with laughter.
The cigar became shortened to a stump, and still those silvery voices were heard mingling with the hoarse symphony of the sea—the latter, each moment growing louder as the tide continued to rise. A fresh breeze had sprung up, which, brought shoreward by the tidal billow, increased the noise; until the voices of the girls appeared like some distant metallic murmur, and the listener at length doubted whether he heard them or not.
“Their time’s up,” he said, springing to his feet, and flinging away the stump of the cigar. “They’ve had enough to make their toilet twice over, at all events. I can give no more grace; so here goes to continue my exploration!”
He turned towards the projection of the cliff. A single step forward, and he came to a stand—his countenance suddenly becoming clouded with an unpleasant expression! The tide had stolen up to the rocks, and the point of the promontory was now full three feet under water; while the swelling waves, at intervals, surged still higher!
There was neither beach below, nor ledge above; no way but by taking to the water.
The explorer saw that it would be impossible to proceed in the direction intended, without wading up to his waist. The object he had in view was not worth such a saturation; and with an exclamation of disappointment—chagrin, too, for the lost time—he turned upon his heel, and commenced retracing his steps along the base of the bluffs.
He no longer went strolling or sauntering. An apprehension had arisen in his mind that stimulated him to the quickest pace in his power. What if his retreat should be cut off by the same obstacle that had interrupted his advance?
The thought was sufficiently alarming; and hastily scrambling over the ledges, and skimming across the stretches of quicksand—now transformed into pools—he only breathed freely when once more in the gorge by which he had descended.
Chapter Three.
The Two Poetasters.
The sportsman was under a mistake about the girls being gone. They were still within the cove; only no longer conversing.
Their dialogue had ended along with their dressing; and they had betaken themselves to two separate occupations—both of which called for silence. Miss Girdwood had commenced reading a book that appeared to be a volume of poems; while her cousin, who had come provided with drawing materials, was making a sketch of the grotto that had served them for a robing-room.
On their emerging from the water, Keziah had plunged into the same pool—now disturbed by the incoming tide, and deep enough to conceal her dusky charms from the eyes of any one straying along the cliff.
After spluttering about for a matter of ten minutes, the negress returned to the shore; once more drew the gingham gown over her head; squeezed the salt spray out of her kinky curls; readjusted the bandanna; and, giving way to the languor produced by the saline immersion, lay down upon the dry shingle—almost instantly falling asleep.
In this way had the trio become disposed, as the explorer, after discovering the obstruction to his progress, turned back along the strand—their silence leading him to believe they had taken departure.
For some time this silence continued, Cornelia taking great pains with her drawing. It was a scene well worthy of her pencil, and with the three figures introduced, just as they were, could not fail to make an interesting picture. She intended it as the record of a rare and somewhat original scene: for, although young ladies occasionally took a sly dip in such solitary places, it required a certain degree of daring.
Seated upon a stone, as far out as the tide would allow her, she sketched her cousin, leaning studiously against the cliff, and the sable-skinned maid-servant, with turbaned head, lying stretched along the shingle. The scarped precipice, with the grotto underneath; the dark rocks here overhanging, there seamed by a gorge that sloped steeply upward—the sides of the latter trellised with convolvuli and clumps of fantastic shrubbery,—all these were to appear in the picture.
She was making fair progress, when interrupted by an exclamation from her cousin.
The latter had been for some time turning over the leaves of her book with a rapidity that denoted either impatience or dire disappointment in its contents.
At intervals she would stop, read a few lines, and then sweep onward—as if in search of something better.
This exercise ended, at length, by her dashing the volume down upon the shingle, and exclaiming:
“Stuff!”
“Who?”
“Tennyson.”
“Surely you’re jesting? The divine Tennyson—the pet poet of the age?”
“Poet of the age! There’s no such person!”
“What! not Longfellow?”
“Another of the same. The American edition, diluted, if such a thing were possible. Poets indeed! Rhymesters of quaint conceits—spinners of small sentiments in long hexameters—not soul enough in all the scribblings of both to stir up the millionth part of an emotion?”
“You are severe, cousin. How do you account for their world-wide popularity? Is that not a proof of their being poets?”
“Was it a proof in the case of Southey? Poor, conceited Southey, who believed himself superior to Byron! And the world shared his belief—at least one-half of it, while he lived! In these days such a dabbler in verse would scarce obtain the privilege of print.”
“But Longfellow and Tennyson have obtained it.”
“True; and along with, as you say, a world-wide reputation. All that is easily explained.”
“How?”
“By the accident of their coming after Byron—immediately after him.”
“I don’t comprehend you, cousin.”
“Nothing can be clearer. Byron made the world drunk with a divine intoxication. His superb verse was to the soul what wine is to the body; producing a grand and glorious thrill—a very carousal of intellectual enjoyment. Like all such excesses, it was followed by that nervous debility that requires a blue pill and black draught. It called for its absinthe and camomile bitters; and these have been supplied by Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate to the Queen of England, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, pet of the sentimental and spectacled young ladies of Boston. It was a poetic tempest, to be followed by a prosaic calm, that has now lasted over forty years, unbroken save by the piping of this pair of poetasters!”
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers!” repeated Cornelia, with a good-natured laugh.
“Yes!” cried Julia, rather irritated by her cousin’s indifference. “By just such a paltry play upon words, by the imagination of small sentimentalities, and sickly conceits,