There was something soothing to her troubled
mind in being upon the spot sacred to him. Though he was not present, she
seemed closer far to him on Gorse Point than anywhere else. His foot had
marked the turf there; his eye had mirrored the furzes a hundred times; she
knew just where his shadow had fallen as be stood painting, and the spot
upon which he was wont to sit by the cliff-edge when came the time for
rest. Beside this holy place she now seated herself and waited with hope
higher in the splendor of morning; for sorrows, fears and ills are always
blackest when the sun has set, and every man or woman can better face
trouble on opening their eyes in a sunny dawn than after midnight has
struck, a sad day left them weakened, and nothing wakes in the world but
Care and themselves.
The morning wore away, and the old fears returned with greater force to
chill her soul. The sun was burnishing the sea, and she watched Mousehole
luggers putting out and dancing away through the gold. Under the cliffs the
gulls wheeled with sad cries and the long-necked cormorants hastened
backward and forward, now flying fast and low over the water, now fishing
here and there in couples. She saw them rear in the water as they dived,
then go down head first, leaving a rippling circle which widened out and
vanished long before the fishers bobbed up again twenty yards further on.
Time after time she watched them, speculating vaguely after each
disappearance as to how long the bird would remain out of sight.
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