Deep Down | Page 5

to which he had often looked forward with pleasant anticipation.
During the last hour of his walk the sun had been obscured by clouds,
but, just as he approached the cliffs, the clouds separated, and a golden
flood rushed over the broad Atlantic, which now lay spread out before
him in all its wide majesty as far as the eye could see.
"A good omen!" cried the youth with a shout, as he hurried towards the
shore, intending to fling off his garments and bathe in the mighty ocean,
which, from the place where he first beheld it, appeared to be smooth
and still as a mill-pond. But Oliver was compelled to restrain his ardour,
for on nearing the sea he found that he stood on the summit of high
cliffs, beyond which the Land's End stretched in a succession of broken
masses of granite, so chafed and shattered by the action of the sea, and
so curiously split, as to resemble basaltic columns. To reach the
outermost of those weather-worn sentinels of Old England, required
some caution on the part of our traveller, even although well used to
scaling the rocky heights of Scottish mountains, and when he did at last
plant his foot on the veritable Land's End, he found that it was a
precipice apparently sixty feet high, which descended perpendicularly
into deep water. His meditated bathe was therefore an impossibility, for
those glassy undulations, which appeared so harmless at a distance,

gathered slow and gradual height as they approached the land, and at
last, assuming the form of majestic waves, flung themselves with a
grand roar on the stern cliffs which they have battered so long in vain,
and round which--always repulsed but never conquered--they seethed
in milky foam.
With glistening eye, and heaving breast, and mantling colour, the
young doctor stood long and motionless on this extreme point of
land--absorbed in admiration of the glorious scene before him. Often
had he beheld the sea in the firths and estuaries of the North, but never
till now had he conceived the grandeur of the great Atlantic. It seemed
to him as if the waves of those inland seas, when tossed by wild storms,
were but rough miniature copies of the huge billows which arose before
him, without apparent cause, and, advancing without rush or agitation,
fell successively with solemn roar at his feet, awakening irresistibly
within him deep and new thoughts of the Almighty Creator of earth and
sea.
For many minutes he stood entranced, his mind wandering in a species
of calm delight over the grand scene, but incapable of fixing itself
definitely on any special feature--now sweeping out to where the Scilly
Isles could be seen resting on the liquid horizon, anon following the
flight of circling seagulls, or busy counting the innumerable ships and
boats that rested on the sea, but ever and anon recurring, as if under the
influence of fascination, to that rich turmoil of foam which boiled,
leaped, and churned, around, beneath, and above the mighty breakers.
Awaking at last from his trance, Oliver tore himself from the spot, and
hastened away to seek the nearest strip of sand where he might throw
off his clothes and plunge into the boiling surf.
He proceeded in a southerly direction, impatiently expecting at every
step to discover some spot suitable for his purpose, but he had taken a
long and rapid walk before he found a break in those wild cliffs which
afforded him the opportunity of descending to the water's edge. Here,
on a narrow strip of sand, he undressed and leaped into the waves.
Well was it for Oliver that day that he had been trained in all manly

exercises, that his "wind" was good, that his muscles were hard, his
nerves well strung, and, above all, that in earliest youth he had learned
to swim.
Misjudging, in his ignorance, the tremendous power of the surf into
which he sprang, and daring to recklessness in the conscious possession
of unusual strength and courage, he did not pause to look or consider,
but at once struck out to sea. He was soon beyond the influence of the
breaking waves, and for some time sported in the full enjoyment of the
briny Atlantic waters. Then turning towards the shore he swam in and
was speedily tossing among the breakers. As he neared the sandy beach
and felt the full power of the water on his partially exhausted frame, he
experienced a slight feeling of anxiety, for the thunder of each wave as
it fell and rushed up before him in seething foam, seemed to indicate a
degree of force which he had not realised in his first vigorous plunge
into the sea. A moment more and a wave caught him in its curling crest,