Le Neve advanced along the path till he nearly reached the summit where
the man was standing. The point itself was a rugged tor, or little
group of bare and weather-worn rocks, overlooking the sea and St.
Michael's Crag below it. As the engineer drew near he saw the stranger
was not alone. Under shelter of the rocks a girl lay stretched at
length on a loose camel's-hair rug; her head was hatless; in her hand
she held, half open, a volume of poetry. She looked up as Eustace
passed, and he noted at a glance that she was dark and pretty. The
Cornish type once more; bright black eyes, glossy brown hair, a rich
complexion, a soft and rounded beauty.
"Cleer," the father said, warningly, in a modulated voice, as the young
man approached, "don't let your hat blow away, dear; it's close by the
path there."
The girl he called Cleer darted forward and picked it up, with a little
blush of confusion. Eustace Le Neve raised his hat, by way of excuse
for disturbing her, and was about to pass on, but the view down into
the bay below, with the jagged and pointed crag islanded in white foam,
held him spellbound for a moment. He paused and gazed at it. "This is a
lovely lookout, sir," he said, after a second's silence, as if to
apologize for his intrusion, turning round to the stranger, who still
stood poised like a statue on the natural pedestal of lichen-covered
rock beside him. "A lovely lookout and a wonderful bit of wild coast
scenery."
"Yes," the stranger answered, in a voice as full of dignity as his
presence and his mien. "It's the grandest spot along the Cornish coast.
From here you can see in one view St. Michael's Mount, St. Michael's
Crag, St. Michael's Church, and St. Michael's Promontory. The whole of
this country, indeed, just teems with St. Michael."
"Which is St. Michael's Promontory?" the young man asked, with a side
glance at Cleer, as they called the daughter. He wasn't sorry indeed
for the chance of having a second look at her.
"Why Land's End, of course," the dignified stranger answered at once,
descending from his perch as he spoke, with a light spring more like a
boy's than a mature man's. "You must surely know those famous lines in
'Lycidas' about
'The fable of Bellerus old,
Where the Great Vision of the guarded mount
Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward, angel, now, and melt with ruth.'"
"Yes, I KNOW them, of course," Eustace answered with ingenuous shyness;
"but as so often happens with poetry, to say the truth, I'm afraid I
attached no very definite idea to them. The music so easily obscures
the sense; though the moment you suggest it, I see they can't possibly
mean anyone but St. Michael."
"My father's very much interested in the antiquities of Cornwall," the
girl Cleer put in, looking up at him somewhat timidly; "so he naturally
knows all these things, and perhaps he expects others to know them
unreasonably."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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