HOW I WENT THE FIRST TIME TO BRECQHOU

Are the later days ever quite as full of the brightness and joy of life as the earlier ones?  Wider, and deeper, and fuller both of joys and sorrows they are, but the higher lights hold also the darker shadows, and experience teaches, as Jeanne Falla used to say—­“N’y a pas de rue sans but.”  Neither lights nor shadows last, and the only thing one may count upon with absolute certainty is the certainty of change.

But in the earlier days one’s horizon is limited, and so long as it is clear and bright one does not trouble about possible storms;—­wherein, I take it, the spirit of childhood is wiser than the spirit of the grown, until the latter learn that wisdom which men like my grandfather call faith, and so draw near again to the trustful simplicity of the earlier days.

Altogether bright and very clear are my recollections of those days when Carette and I, and Krok whenever he could manage it, roamed about that western coast of our little Island, till we knew every rock and stone, and every nook and cranny of the beetling cliffs, and were on such friendly terms with the very gulls and cormorants that we knew many of them by sight, and were on visiting terms, so to speak, though perhaps never very acceptable visitors, among their homes and families.

Krok knew it all like a book, only better; for actual books were of late acquaintance with him, and these other things he had studied, in his way, for half his life.

In the hardest working life there are always off times, and Krok’s Sundays, outside the simple necessities of farm life, had always been his own.  His one enjoyment had been to scramble and poke and peer—­without knowledge, indeed, or even understanding, save such as came of absorbed watchfulness, but still with the most perfect satisfaction—­among the hidden things of nature which lay in pools, and under stones, and away in dark caves where none but he had been.

And all these things he introduced us to with very great enjoyment, revealing to us at a stroke, as it were, the wonders which had taken him years to find out for himself.

With him we lay gazing into the wonderful rock gardens under the Autelets when the tide was out;—­watching the phosphorescent seaweeds flame in the darker pools; seeking out the haunts where the sea anemones lay in thousands, waving their long pale arms hungrily for food and closing them hopefully on anything that offered, even on one’s fingers, which they presently rejected as unsatisfying.

He would silently point out to us the beauties of the sea ferns and flowers, and the curious ways and habits of the tiny creeping things and fishes, and we three would lie by the hour, flat on the rocks, chin in fist, watching the comedies and tragedies and the strange chancy life of the pools.  And they were absorbing enough to keep even Carette quiet, although her veins seemed filled with quicksilver and her life went on springs.