The coast of Cumberland, at the point where the Oak stood, is not more than twenty feet above ordinary high-water mark, and it opposes a face of dull white rock to the waves. But in storms, the Irish Sea drives down upon the shore with tremendous force, and the great rollers sometimes rise to the height of the natural parapet, and the gale bears their crest across it. The growth of an ordinary tree might have been stunted by such oceanic familiarities; but the Oak of Kildhurm, so far from shrinking from them, seemed to find refreshment therein, and never failed to greet the rough play of the storm-inspired waves with outstretched arms of invitation, roaring back an answer to the hoarse clamour of the surf, and tossing its branches gleefully in the shriek of the blast. Occasionally it would send a cluster of leaves whirling out to sea, like a message to the spirit of the tempest: and often in return, wreaths of dark seaweed were found suspended on its limbs--tokens of the ocean's savage amity. And again, when the winds were down and the shining waters came lapping liquidly under the crag, the swarthy Oak was fain to bend its boughs over the verge, and see its darksome image in the mirror of the tide, and, one might fancy, silently communicate some mysterious secret, over which the smiling surface would close for ever, with only a gurgling whisper of acknowledgment, which no human ear could understand. And at night, when the moon was up, the sea would heave and break slowly in long complaining murmurs against the shore, as though calling to some friend that tarried late. And then, to those who looked from the castle windows, their eyes straining through the deceptive dusk, the solid Oak would seem to melt slowly away like a shadow, and so to vanish into the yearning bosom of the deep, leaving naught save its gloomy memory behind it. Yet, in the morning, when the yellow sun stood on the bare edge of the inland hill, the Oak of Kildhurm still towered in its place, staunch and immovable; with nothing about it to tell of its nocturnal ramble, unless it were the long shadow trailing athwart the glistening beach. The sea and the oak knew how to keep each other's secrets.