He went up into his room after lunch, and took down all the books out of the shelves, and looked at them one after another; then he made an excursion round the room, and looked at all the pictures. There were some prints of well known pictures which he knew as well as his A B C, and there were some childish portraits of the Heriots, one of poor Tom, which he could recognise, and of another boy, and of a round-faced girl with curls, who, no doubt, was Marjory. This was very mild fare; he sat down at the window afterwards, with a copy of Milton, which was the liveliest reading he could find, and read a few lines of Comus, and looked out upon the sea. Soon the monotonous chant of the waves attracted him, and he made his way through the silence and the sunshine downstairs, meeting no one, hearing no sound, feeling as if the house itself was dead or enchanted. The weather was very fine, as warm as it often is in Scotland in June, though it was still only April. The Firth was blue as the sky above it, but of a deepened and darker tone; the rich brown cliffs stood out in strong relief with every inequality defined against that dazzling background. In the distance the opposite coast glimmered in the hazy brightness, marking itself by the white creamy edge of surf upon the rocks; and looming to the westward through a haze of mingled smoke and sunshine, stood Arthur’s Seat, like a muffled sentinel watching over the half-apparent towers and roofs of Edinburgh. The scene was fine enough to have attracted even a less susceptible gazer; and Fanshawe, though he was a good-for-nothing, had an eye for beauty. He sat down upon the cliff beyond the old house of Pitcomlie, half-way down, where the sea-side turf was all broken with bits of projecting rock. The salt spray dashed upon the red rocks underneath--whitest white and bluest blue, and russet brown of the richest tone, put in with all nature’s indifference to crudity of colour, made up the foreground; and the distant line of the opposite coast, the vague shadow of Tantallon, the Bass rock, lying like a great pebble on the water, the great hill in the distance, with its ridges glimmering through the smoke of the unseen town, lent many a suggestion, human fulness of imagery, mystery and depth to the landscape.