tide they are exposed down to sand level; and here is perhaps the only
little bit of dangerous sand on this part of the eastern coast. Between
the rocks, which are apart about some fifty feet, is a small quicksand,
which, like the Goodwins, is dangerous only with the incoming tide. It
extends outwards till it is lost in the sea, and inwards till it fades
away in the hard sand of the upper beach. On the slope of the hill
which rises beyond the dunes, midway between the Spurs and the Port of
Crooken, is the Red House. It rises from the midst of a clump of
fir-trees which protect it on three sides, leaving the whole sea front
open. A trim old-fashioned garden stretches down to the roadway, on
crossing which a grassy path, which can be used for light vehicles,
threads a way to the shore, winding amongst the sand hills.
When the Markam family arrived at the Red House after their thirty-six
hours of pitching on the Aberdeen steamer _Ban Righ_ from Blackwall,
with the subsequent train to Yellon and drive of a dozen miles, they
all agreed that they had never seen a more delightful spot. The general
satisfaction was more marked as at that very time none of the family
were, for several reasons, inclined to find favourable anything or any
place over the Scottish border. Though the family was a large one, the
prosperity of the business allowed them all sorts of personal luxuries,
amongst which was a wide latitude in the way of dress. The frequency of
the Markam girls’ new frocks was a source of envy to their bosom
friends and of joy to themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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