millions of miles away powdered stars twinkled; but the waves slapped
the boat, and crashed, with regular and appalling solemnity, against the
rocks.

Although it would be possible to knock at the cottage door and ask for a
glass of milk, it is only thirst that would compel the intrusion. Yet
perhaps Mrs. Pascoe would welcome it. The summer's day may be wearing
heavy. Washing in her little scullery, she may hear the cheap clock on
the mantelpiece tick, tick, tick ... tick, tick, tick. She is alone in
the house. Her husband is out helping Farmer Hosken; her daughter
married and gone to America. Her elder son is married too, but she does
not agree with his wife. The Wesleyan minister came along and took the
younger boy. She is alone in the house. A steamer, probably bound for
Cardiff, now crosses the horizon, while near at hand one bell of a
foxglove swings to and fro with a bumble-bee for clapper. These white
Cornish cottages are built on the edge of the cliff; the garden grows
gorse more readily than cabbages; and for hedge, some primeval man has
piled granite boulders. In one of these, to hold, an historian
conjectures, the victim's blood, a basin has been hollowed, but in our
time it serves more tamely to seat those tourists who wish for an
uninterrupted view of the Gurnard's Head. Not that any one objects to a
blue print dress and a white apron in a cottage garden.

"Look--she has to draw her water from a well in the garden."

"Very lonely it must be in winter, with the wind sweeping over those
hills, and the waves dashing on the rocks."

Even on a summer's day you hear them murmuring.