Satisfied with this lame compromise--for he really wished his host to
enjoy that glorious view--Eustace Le Neve turned up the valley behind
the house, with Walter Tyrrel by his side, and after traversing several
fields, through gaps in the stone walls, led out his companion at last
to the tor on the headland.
As they approached it from behind, the engineer observed, not without a
faint thrill of pleasure, that Trevennack's stately figure stood
upright as before upon the wind-swept pile of fissured rocks, and that
Cleer sat reading under its shelter to leeward. But by her side this
morning sat also an elder lady, whom Eustace instinctively recognized
as her mother--a graceful, dignified lady, with silvery white hair and
black Cornish eyes, and features not untinged by the mellowing,
hallowing air of a great sorrow.
Le Neve raised his hat as they drew near, with a pleased smile of
welcome, and Trevennack and his daughter both bowed in return. "A
glorious morning!" the engineer said, drinking in to the full the
lovely golden haze that flooded and half-obscured the Land's End
district; and Trevennack assented gravely. "The crag stands up well in
this sunshine against the dark water behind," he said, waving one
gracious hand toward the island at his foot, and poising lighter than
ever.
"Oh, take care!" Walter Tyrrel cried, looking up at him, on
tenterhooks. "It's so dangerous up there! You might tumble any minute."
"_I_ never tumble," Trevennack made answer with solemn gravity,
spreading one hand on either side as if to balance himself like an
acrobat. But he descended as he spoke and took his place beside them.
Tyrrel looked at the view and looked at the pretty girl. It was evident
he was quite as much struck by the one as by the other. Indeed, of the
two, Cleer seemed to attract the larger share of his attention. For
some minutes they stood and talked, all five of them together, without
further introduction than their common admiration for that exquisite
bay, in which Trevennack appeared to take an almost proprietary
interest. It gratified him, obviously, a Cornish man, that these
strangers (as he thought them) should be so favorably impressed by his
native county. But Tyrrel all the while looked ill at ease, though he
sidled away as far as possible from the edge of the cliff, and sat down
near Cleer at a safe distance from the precipice. He was silent and
preoccupied. That mattered but little, however, as the rest did all the
talking, especially Trevennack, who turned out to be indeed a perfect
treasure-house of Cornish antiquities and Cornish folk-lore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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