I yielded and came. The season was Midsummer, or
a little after; the weather golden and glorious.
We had drawn stumps after the first day's play, and the evening was
to be wound up with a sing-song in the great tent erected--a marvel
to the "Covers," or native fishermen--on the cricket-field. But I no
longer take kindly to such entertainments; and so, after a bathe and
a quiet dinner at the inn, it came into my mind to take a stroll up
the hill and along the cliffs, and pay an evening call on the old
Vicar, wondering if he would remember me.
I found him in his garden. The Senior Tutor was there too--"the
grave man, nicknamed Adam"--and the Vicar's wife, seated in a
bee-hive straw chair, knitting. So we four talked happily for a
while, until she left us on pretence that the dew was falling; and
with that, as I have said, a wonderful silence possessed the garden
fragrant with memories and the night-scent of flowers. . .
Then I let fall the word that led to the Vicar's story. In old
rambles, after long mornings spent with Plato, my eyes (by mirage, no
doubt) had always found something Greek in the curves and colour of
this coast; or rather, had felt the want of it.
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