Chapter 7 - Page 2

Miss Wardour could not help
observing that the last tide had risen considerably above the usual
water-mark. Sir Arthur made the same observation, but without its
occurring to either of them to be alarmed at the circumstance. The sun
was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean, and
gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled
the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like misfortunes
and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still,
however, his dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence to the massive
congregation of vapours, forming out of their unsubstantial gloom the
show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with purple,
some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath
this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still,
reflecting back the dazzling and level beams of the descending luminary,
and the splendid colouring of the clouds amidst which he was setting.
Nearer to the beach the tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling silver,
that imperceptibly, yet rapidly, gained upon the sand.

With a mind employed in admiration of the romantic scene, or perhaps on
some more agitating topic, Miss Wardour advanced in silence by her
father's side, whose recently offended dignity did not stoop to open any
conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one
projecting point of headland or rock after another, and now found
themselves under a huge and continued extent of the precipices by which
that iron-bound coast is in most places defended. Long projecting reefs
of rock, extending under water and only evincing their existence by here
and there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers which foamed over
those that were partially covered, rendered Knockwinnock bay dreaded by
pilots and ship-masters. The crags which rose between the beach and the
mainland, to the height of two or three hundred feet, afforded in their
crevices shelter for unnumbered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly secured
by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild
tribes, with the instinct which sends them to seek the land before a
storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and
dissonant clang which announces disquietude and fear. The disk of the sun
became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the
horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene
twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise; but its wild
and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its effects became visible
on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The mass of
waters, now dark and threatening, began to lift itself in larger