II.

70. TIDE-BOUND IN THE SEA-CAVÈS.

IT

PART FIRST.

T was on a pleasant spring morning that, with my little curious friend beside me, I stood on the beach opposite the eastern promontory,' that, with its stern granitic 2 wall, bars ǎecess' for ten days out of ěvèry fourteen to the wonders of the Doocot, and saw it stretching provokingly out into the green water. It was hard to be disappointed, and the caves

so near.

2. The tide was a low neap; and if we wanted a passage dryshod, it behooved 5 us to wait for at least a week. But neither of us understood the philosophy of neap-tides at that period. I was quite sure I had got round at low water, with my uncles, not a great many days before; and we both inferred, that, if we but succeeded in getting round now, it would be quite a pleasure to wait among the caves inside, until such time as the fall of the tide should lay bare a passage for our return.

3. A narrow and broken shelf runs along the promontory, on which, by the assistance of the naked feet, it is just possible to creep. We succeeded in scrambling up to it, and then, crawling outward on all-fours-the precipice, as we proceeded, beetling more and more formidable" from above, and the water becoming greener and deeper below-we reached the outer point of the promontory; and then doubling the cape on a still narrowing margin-the water, by a reverse process, becoming shallower and less green as we advanced inward-we found

1 Prom'on to ry, headland; high land extending into the sea.

2 Gra nĭt'ic, having the nature of, or consisting of, granite-a kind of rock.

3 Doo'cot, sea-caves situated in Scotland, near the entrance of the Cromarty Frith, an inlet of the North Sea, and connected with wooded headlands called South and North Sutors.

happen in the second and last quarters of the moon, when the difference between high and low water is less than at any other period in the month.

5 Be hoove', to be fit, meet, or necessary for.

6 Phi los'o phy, the knowledge of effects by their causes.

"For mi da ble, of a nature to excite fear and hinder from under

4 Neap, neap tides are those which taking; alarming.

the ledge terminating just where, after clearing the sea, it overhung the gravelly beach at an elevation of nearly ten feet.

4. Down we both dropped, proud of our success: up splashed the rattling gravel as we fell; and for at least the whole coming week-though we were unaware of the extent of our good luck at the time-the marvels of the Doocot Cave might be regarded as solely and exclusively our own. For one short seven days, to borrōw emphasis from the phraşeölogy1 of Carlyle,2 ,2 "they were our own, and no other man's.

5. The first ten hours were hours of sheer enjoyment. The larger cave proved a mine of marvels; and we found a great deal additional to wonder at on the slopes beneath the precipices, and along the piece of rocky sea-beach in front. We succeeded, by creeping, in discovering dwarf-bushes, that told of the bright influences of the sea-spray; the pale yellōw honeysuckle, that we had never seen before save in gardens and shrubberies; and on a deeply shaded slope we detected the sweet-scented wood-roof of the flower-pot and parterre,3 with its delicate white flowers and pretty verticillate leaves.

6. There, too, immediately in the opening of the deeper cave, where a small stream came pattering in detached drops from the overbeetling precipice above, like the first drops of a heavy thunder-shower, we found the hot, bitter scurvy-grass, with its minute cruciform 5 flowers, which the great Captain Cook used in his voyages. Above all, there were the caves, with their pigeons, white, variegated, and blue, and their mysterious and gloomy depths, in which plants hardened into stone, and water became marble.

7. In a short time, we had broken off with our hammers whole pocketfuls of stalactites and petrified moss. There

1 Phra'se ŏl'o gy, peculiar manner of using words in sentences.

2 Thomas Carlyle, a well-known Scottish author, was born in 1795. His works are chiefly remarkable for eccentricities of style and thought.

3 Parterre (pär târ'), an arrangement of pots or beds of flowers, with spaces between of gravel or turf for walking on.

+ Ver tic' il late, arranged in a

ring, or around the stem, like the rays of a wheel.

5 Cru'ci form (kro), cross-shaped.

6

Capt. James Cook, an English navigator, born in Yorkshire, England, Oct. 27, 1728, and killed at the Sandwich Islands, Feb. 14, 1779.

7 Sta lǎc'tite, carbonate of lime, attached like an icicle, which it resembles in form, to the roof or side of a cave.

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were little pools at the side of the cave, where we could see the work of congelation 1 going on, as at the commencement of an October frost, when the cold north wind but bârely ruffles the surface of some mountain pond or sluggish moorland stream, and shows the newly formed needles of ice glistening from the shōres into the water. So rapid was the course of děposition,2 that there were cases in which the sides of the hollows seemed growing almost in proportion as the water rose in them; the springs, lipping over, deposited their minute crystals on the edges, and the reservoirs3 deepened and became more capacious 4 as their mounds were built up by this curious masonry.

8. The long, telescopic prospect of the sparkling sea, as viewed from the inner extremity of the cavern, while all around was dark as midnight; the sudden gleam of the sea-gull, seen for a moment from the recèss', as it flitted past in the sunshine; the black, heaving bulk of the grampus, as it threw up its slender jets of spray, and then, turning downward, displayed its glossy back and vast angular fins; even the pigeons, as they shot whizzing by, one moment scarce visible in the gloom, the next radiant in the light-all acquired a new interèst from the peculiarity of the setting in which we saw them. They formed a series of sun-gilt vignettes, framed in jet; and it was long ere we tired of seeing and admiring in them much of the strange and the beautiful.

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9. It did seem rather ominous,8 however, and perhaps somewhat supernatural to boot, that about an hour after noon, the tide, while yet there was a full fathom of water beneath the brow of the promontory, ceased to fall, and then, after a quarter of an hour's space, began actually to creep upward on the beach.

1 Con'ge la'tion, the process or act of changing a fluid to a solid state, usually by cold.

2 Deposition (děp'o zìsh’un), act of depositing or laying down.

3 Reservoir (rez'er vwar'), a place where any thing is kept in store; a basin or cistern.

4 Ca pā'cious, able to contain ; roomy; large.

to, a telescope; far-reaching.

6 Grǎm'pus, a large kind of fish which breathes by a spout-hole on the top of the head, as whales do. 7 Vignette (vin yet'), a wood-cut, engraving, etc., without a border. 8 Om' i nous, pertaining to an omen or sign; usually foreshowing something evil.

9 Fǎth'om, a measure of length,

5 Těl'e scăp'ic, like, or pertaining containing six feet.

But just hoping that there might be some mistake in the matter, which the evening tide would scarce fail to rectify,1 we continued to amuse ourselves, and to hope on.

10. Hour after hour passed, lengthening as the shadows lengthened, and yet the tide still rose. The sun had sunk behind the precipices, and all was gloom along their bases, and double gloom in their caves; but their rugged brows still caught the red glare of evening. The flush rose higher and higher, chased by the shadows; and then, after lingering for a moment on their crests of honeysuckle and juniper, påssed away, and the whole became somber and gray.

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11. The sea-gull flapped upward from where he had floated on the ripple, and hied 4 him slowly away to his lodge in his deepsea stack; the dusky cormorant 5 flitted past, with heavier and more frequent stroke, to his whitened shelf on the precipice; the pigeons came whizzing downward from the uplands and the opposite land, and disappeared amid the gloom of their caves; ěvèry creature that had wings made use of them in speeding homeward; but neither my companion nor myself had any, and there was no possibility of getting home without them.

12. We made desperate efforts to scale the precipices, and on two several occasions succeeded in reaching midway shelves among the crags, where the falcon and the raven build; but though we had climbed well enough to render our return a matter of bare possibility, there was no possibility whatever of getting farther up. The cliffs had never been scaled, and they were not destined to be scaled 8 now. And so, as the twilight deepened, and the precarious footing became every moment more doubtful and precarious, we had just to give up in despair.

1 Rěc'ti fy, to make straight or right.

2 Rugged, having a rough surface; broken into sharp or irregular points.

9 Som'ber, dull; dusky; gloomy. 4 Hied, hastened.

5 Cor'mo rant, a class of webfooted sea-birds, often called sea

raven, noted for great greediness of appetite.

6 Falcon (fa'kn), a bird of prey, which is often trained to catch other birds, or game.

1 Raven (rā'vn).

8

Scaled, climbed; ascended.

9 Pre ca'ri oŭs, exposed to con. stant risk; uncertain; unsteady.

III.

71. TIDE-BOUND IN THE SEA-CAVES.

PART SECOND.

"WOULDN'T câre for myself," said the poor little

fellow, my companion, bûrsting into tears; "if it were not for my mother; but what will my mother say?" "Wouldn't care, neither," said I, with a heavy heart; "but it's just back-water, and we'll get out at twelve." We retreated together into one of the shallower and dryer caves; and clearing a little spot of its rough stones, and then groping along the rocks for the dry grass, that in the spring season hangs from them in withered tufts, we formed for ourselves a most uncomfortable bed, and lay down in each other's arms.

2. For the last few hours, mountainous piles of clouds had been rising, dark and stormy in the cave's sea-mouth; and they had flared portentously 1 in the setting sun, and had worn, with the decline of evening, almost every meteoric tint of anger, from fiery red to a somber, thunderous brown, and from somber brown to doleful black; and we could now at least hear what they portended, though we could no longer see.

3. The rising wind began to howl mournfully amid the cliffs, and the sea, hitherto so silent, to beat heavily against the shōre, and to boom, like distress-guns, from the recesses of the two deep sea-caves. We could hear, too, the beating rain, now heavier, now lighter, as the gusts swelled or sunk; and the intermittent patter of the streamlet over the deeper cave, now driving against the precipices, now descending heavily on the stones.

4. Toward midnight the sky cleared, and the wind fell, and the moon, in her last quarter, rose, red as a mass of heated iron, out of the sea. We crept down in the uncertain light, over the rough, slippery crags, to ascertain whether the tide had not fallen sufficiently far to yield us a passage; but we found the waves chafing among the rocks, just where the tide-line had rested twelve hours before, and a full fathom of sea enclasping the base of the promontory. A glimmering ide'a of the reäl nature of our situation at length crossed my mind. It was not 1 Por tĕnt'oŭs ly, ominously; in a manner to foreshadow ill.