The Argosy — page 241: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

226 The Channel Islands. limited—though in no sense of the word were we sons of Anak— was stocked with a week’s delicacies and provisions and a supply of choice wines. We were out on the rocks by that time, did not see him, and had to keep our gratitude and our thanks until the evening of the next day. But when we returned to dinner at the Gouffre, we found a snow-white cloth, a well-set table groaning under the weight of roast chickens and delicious new bread and butter, and a further amount of luxuries too numerous to be detailed. More than ever we felt into what excellent hands we had fallen in Guernsey: our lines, as I have said, were cast in pleasant places. Shall we ever forget that stay at the Gouffre? It was the height of pleasure and happiness. ‘The rock scenery was magnificent, and we had it all to ourselves. If there were ladies at the inn we saw them not, and—delicious experience—we heard no sound. All day long, each day, we were out on the rocks ; winding round the coast ; now high up above the sea, now down on the shore, at the very edge of the tide; now overlooking precipices or following narrow paths, where a false step would have hurled us in a moment into the unseen world; now descending the rough, steep, gorsey hill-side, which landed us in Petit Bot Bay, at the foot of the solitary house that overlooks the little break in the coast leading to the sea. The owner of the house was cutting his hedges, and the prettiest little girl in the world was superintending her father’s work with an air of great wisdom. He told me that, in summer-time, he let his rooms; and people, I think, must be glad enough to take them; must find the solitude and repose, the grandeur of the rocky coast, the beauty of the sea, a source of never-ending enjoyment. If, fora while, we want a retreat from life to brace up nerves and give the moral system strength to battle against the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, a far better medicine this communion with all that is grand in nature, than the withdrawal into the four walls of a monastery, where the sole contemplation is the depressing study of human beings frail even as ourselves. This Petit Bot Bay is one of the finest parts of Guernsey. The de- scent to it by road is really fine, the ascent up the valley on the other side is beautiful. There are slopes and stretches of heather large enough to give one a sense of grandeur. ‘To-day the heather had changed to the tint of autumn, a rich brown of many shades. But we had come to the Gouffre specially for the rocks and the sea, and we kept to them very closely. We came upon two old fishermen in our walks—luckily not far from the inn. MHeavily-laden baskets weighed upon their shoulders, and we asked their contents. They put down the baskets and rested themselves on the slope of the cliff, and entered into conversation. Not a word of English spoke they ; nothing but a French patois, not too remote however from the mother tongue, and easily under- Gomichbooks (E(0) m