The Shadow of the Sword | Page 3

below.
The sunlight flashes full into her face and blinds her, while the soft breath of the sea kisses the lids of her dazzled eyes.
Judged by her sun-tanned skin, she might be the daughter of some gipsy tribe. But such dark features as hers are common among the Celtic women of the Breton coast; and her large eyes are not gipsy-black, but ethereal grey--that mystic colour which can be soft as heaven with joy and love, but dark as death with jealousy and wrath; and, indeed, to one who gazes long into such eyes as these, there are revealed strange depths of passion, and self-control, and pride. The girl is tall and shapely, somewhat slight of figure, small-handed, small-footed; so that, were her cheek a little less rosy, her hands a little whiter, and her step a little less elastic, she might be a lady born.
It is just eighteen years to-day since that red blustering morning when her father, running into port with the biggest haul of fish on record that season in the little fishing village, found that the Holy Virgin, after giving him four strong sons had at last deposited in his marriage bed a maid-child, long prayed for, come at last; and the maid's face is still beautiful with the unthinking innocence of childhood. Mark the pretty, almost petulant mouth, with the delicious underlip--
"Some bee hath stung it newly!"
Woman she is, yet still a child; and surely the sun, that touches this moment nearly every maiden cheek in every village for a hundred miles along this stormy coast, shines upon no sweeter thing.
Like Queen Bertha of old she bears in her hand a distaff, but not even a queen's dress, however fair, could suit her better than the severe yet picturesque garb of the Breton peasant girl--the modest white coif, the blue gown brightly bordered with red, the pretty apron enwrought with flowers in coloured thread, the neat bodice adorned with a rosary and medal of Our Lady; and finally, the curious sabots, or wooden shoes.
"Rohan, Rohan!"
A clear bird-like voice, but it is lost in the murmur of the blue void below.
The girl puts down her distaff beside a pair of sabots and a broad felt hat which lie already on one of the blocks of stone; then, placing herself flat upon her face close to the very edge of the cliff, and clasping with one hand the rope which is suspended from the horn of rock close to her, she peers downward.
Half-way down the precipice a figure, conscious of her touch upon the rope, by which he is partially suspended, turns up to her a shining face, and smiles.
She sees for a minute the form that hovers beneath her in mid-air, surrounded by a flying cloud of ocean birds--she marks the white beach far below her, and the red stains of the weedy pools above the tide, and the cream-white edge of the glassy moveless sea--she feels the sun shining, the rocks gleaming, for a little space;--then her head goes round, and she closes her eyes with a little cry. A clear ringing laugh floats up to her and reassures her. She plucks up heart and gazes once again.
What a depth! She turns dizzy anew as she looks into it, but presently the brain-wave passes away, and her head grows calm. She sees all now distinct and clear, but her eyes rest on one picture only!--not on the crimson reefs and granite rocks amidst which the placid ocean creeps, through fretwork of tangled dulse and huge crimson water-ferns; not on the solitary Needle of Gurlan, an enormous monolith of chalk and stone, standing several furlongs out in the sea, with the waves washing eternally round its base and a cloud of sea-fowl hovering ever about its crest; not on the lonely specks of rock, where the great black-backed gulls, dwarfed by distance to the size of white moths, sit gazing at the sunset, weary of a long day's fishing; not on the long line of green cormorants that are flapping drowsily home to roost across waters tinted purple and mother-of-pearl; not on the seals that swim in the dim green coves far beneath; not on the solitary red-sailed fishing boat that drifts along with the ebb a mile out to sea. All these she sees for a moment as in a magician's glass; all these vanish, and leave one vision remaining--the agile and intrepid figure just under her, treading the perpendicular crags like any goat, swinging almost out into mid-air as from time to time he bears his weight upon the rope, and moving lightly hither and thither, with feet and hands alike busy, the latter hunting for sea-birds' eggs.
Thick as foam-flakes around his head float the little terns; past him, swift as cannon-balls, the puffins whizz