Chapter XVI

Hewet and Rachel had long ago reached the particular place on the edge of the cliff where, looking down into the sea, you might chance on jelly-fish and dolphins.  Looking the other way, the vast expanse of land gave them a sensation which is given by no view, however extended, in England; the villages and the hills there having names, and the farthest horizon of hills as often as not dipping and showing a line of mist which is the sea; here the view was one of infinite sun-dried earth, earth pointed in pinnacles, heaped in vast barriers, earth widening and spreading away and away like the immense floor of the sea, earth chequered by day and by night, and partitioned into different lands, where famous cities were founded, and the races of men changed from dark savages to white civilised men, and back to dark savages again.  Perhaps their English blood made this prospect uncomfortably impersonal and hostile to them, for having once turned their faces that way they next turned them to the sea, and for the rest of the time sat looking at the sea.  The sea, though it was a thin and sparkling water here, which seemed incapable of surge or anger, eventually narrowed itself, clouded its pure tint with grey, and swirled through narrow channels and dashed in a shiver of broken waters against massive granite rocks.  It was this sea that flowed up to the mouth of the Thames; and the Thames washed the roots of the city of London.

Hewet’s thoughts had followed some such course as this, for the first thing he said as they stood on the edge of the cliff was—­

“I’d like to be in England!”

Rachel lay down on her elbow, and parted the tall grasses which grew on the edge, so that she might have a clear view.  The water was very calm; rocking up and down at the base of the cliff, and so clear that one could see the red of the stones at the bottom of it.  So it had been at the birth of the world, and so it had remained ever since.  Probably no human being had ever broken that water with boat or with body.  Obeying some impulse, she determined to mar that eternity of peace, and threw the largest pebble she could find.  It struck the water, and the ripples spread out and out.  Hewet looked down too.

“It’s wonderful,” he said, as they widened and ceased.  The freshness and the newness seemed to him wonderful.  He threw a pebble next.  There was scarcely any sound.

“But England,” Rachel murmured in the absorbed tone of one whose eyes are concentrated upon some sight.  “What d’you want with England?”

“My friends chiefly,” he said, “and all the things one does.”