"But you'll catch cold," urged Richard.

"We don't mind air at Gethin, Sir; and this shawl will cover my head, if
that's all."

It really was Harry Trevethick's custom to go bareheaded in fine weather
about her own home, though, perhaps, the consciousness that she never
looked so well in even her Sunday head-gear, as with her own ample
tresses for a covering, may have influenced her resolve. Chignons were
unknown at that time, and never had the young man beheld such wealth of
gold-tinged locks as that which blew about his fair companion's brow,
and presently streamed out behind her, as they neared the cliffs, and
met the full force of that Atlantic breeze. It blew freshly and shrilly
enough up the winding gorge through which they had to descend to the
foot of the castled rock; but by the time they reached the beach the
wind had risen to a gale. They stopped a minute within shelter of a
hollowed cliff to view the place. It was a noble spectacle. The great
waves came roaring in, and dashed themselves against the walls of slate
in sheets of foam, to fall back baffled and groaning. They had eaten the
cliff away in two dark frowning spots, which his guide said were
caverns, approachable at low-water; but the rock itself on which the
castle stood defied them; they had only succeeded in insulating it,
except for a narrow tongue of land, which now formed the sole access to
it from the shore. Even without any historical or poetic association,
the object before them--rising bare and sheer into the air to such a
height--on which a swarm of gulls, shrunk to the size of bees, were
clanging faintly, was grand and striking; but the place had been the
hold of knights and kings a thousand years ago and more. The young girl
pointed out to Richard where the main-land cliff had once projected so