"
So they walked on, along a sheep-path, and over the Spur, and down to
the Cove.
It was such a morning as often follows a gale, when the great
firmament stares down upon the ruin which it has made, bright and
clear, and bold; and seems to say, with shameless smile,--"There,
I have done it; and am as merry as ever after it all!" Beneath a
cloudless sky, the breakers, still grey and foul from the tempest,
were tumbling in before a cold northern breeze. Half a mile out at
sea, the rough backs of the Chough and Crow loomed black and sulky in
the foam. At their feet, the rocks and shingle of the Cove were alive
with human beings--groups of women and children clustering round a
corpse or a chest; sailors, knee-deep in the surf hauling at floating
spars and ropes; oil-skinned coast-guardsmen pacing up and down in
charge of goods, while groups of farmers' men, who had hurried down
from the villages inland, lounged about on the top of the cliff,
looking sulkily on, hoping for plunder: and yet half afraid to mingle
with the sailors below, who looked on them as an inferior race, and
refused, in general, to intermarry with them.
The Lieutenant plainly held much the same opinion; for as a party of
them tried to descend the narrow path to the beach, he shouted after
them to come back.
"Eh! you won't?" and out rattled from its scabbard the old worthy's
sword. "Come back, I say, you loafing, miching, wrecking crow-keepers;
there are no pickings for you here.
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