Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, August, 1878

The tide of passers is setting toward the south sands. Foreigners are almost unrepresented in this throng. There is one Frenchman, who would be recognizable as far off as he could be seen by his contrast to the prevailing British tone. It is a mystery why he should be here instead of at Trouville, Boulogne, Dieppe or Étretat, where the habits of the gay world are all his own. Nobody seems to know him at Tenby. Behind him walks quite as pronounced a type of the Welsh country gentleman—a character not to be mistaken for an Englishman, in spite of the family resemblance. A shrewd simplicity characterizes this face—an open, guileless sharpness, so to speak, peculiarly Welsh. An indifferent judge of human nature might venture to attempt heathen games with this old gentleman, but no astute rogue would think of such a thing. A man of this stamp, however green and rural, is not gullible. This Welsh simplicity of character is very deceptive to the unwary, and many besides Ancient Pistol have eaten leeks against their will because of their ignorance concerning it.

We join the throng in the street and stroll leisurely down the long incline. The whole town tips that way. A variety of more or less quaint vehicles move about—cabriolets drawn by donkeys and ponies; sedan chairs; a species of easy-chair on wheels, with a wooden apron, and propelled by a boy or a decayed footman in seedy livery with bibulous habits written on his face. Something of a similar sort was seen at the Centennial, yet utterly unlike this, notwithstanding a resemblance in principle. These invalid go-carts are very convenient at Tenby, as they may be trundled everywhere, even on the sands, which are hard and flat. A peculiarity of all the vehicles, even those drawn by two animals, is that they go slower, as a rule, than on-foot people do. Briskly-walking couples and groups of English and Welsh ladies pass us, carrying over their arms bathing-dresses or towels, with the business-like alacrity of movement characteristic of most Britons on their feet. No one saunters except ourselves. All are hastening to the south sands, looking neither to the right nor the left; but for us there are eye-lures in every direction. The town abounds with antiquities calculated to awaken the liveliest interest in a stranger: every street is rich with romantic story; every hill and rock for miles around has its legend, its ruin of castle, abbey or palace, or its mysterious cromlech,—all that can most charm the soul of the antiquary; and Shakespeare has honored this corner of Wales beyond others by putting it in one of his tragedies. Considerable portions of the ancient town-wall are standing, with the mural towers and gateways. In the parish church, which we pass, are some most interesting monuments of the early half of the fourteenth century, but the Tenbyites look upon their church as rather a modern structure, as churches go in Wales. They point out the place where John Wesley preached in the street in 1763, when the mayor threatened to read the riot act. There is still a law in Wales against street-preaching, but it is not often enforced, unless the preacher happens to be drunk—an incident not altogether unknown.

The old stone pier abounds with seafaring characters in holiday rig, very picturesque to American eyes. They knuckle their foreheads and remove their pipes as we pass, and by attitudes and gestures which would inform a deaf-mute invite us to take a sail on the bay. They do not audibly offer their services, for the municipal laws forbid them to, but their figureheads are mutely eloquent. Here is one who might be put right on the stage as he stands as the typical jolly Jack Tar of the nautical drama. He wears a red liberty-cap, and a nose which matches it to a shade. His jersey is blue and low in the neck, and his trousers are of that roominess supposed to be necessary for nautical purposes. Other mariners about him are quite as interesting. Occasionally one is seen whose rig is so neat he might have stepped out of a bandbox, but, though he is an ornamental mariner, he is not a Brummagem one. These fellows all know storm and danger and severe toil as common acquaintances. The neatest of them are understood to be residents here, with wives or mothers who strive hard to keep them looking nice in the fashionable season; and in blue flannel shirt with immense broad collar, another broad collar of white turned over that, hat of neat straw or tarpaulin with upturned rim and bright blue ribbon, they form a feature of attractiveness which has no counterpart at American seaside resorts. The rougher mariners, if not so handsome, are still most picturesque: they are chiefly fishermen from the Devonshire coast, who sail over here to take the salmon, mackerel, herrings, turbots, soles, etc. which so abound at Tenby. The spot still bears out, in spite of its modern glories as a watering-place, its ancient renown as a fishing-point, which was so great that the old-time Britons called it Denbych y Piscoed ("the hill by the place of fishes").

On the Castle Hill we find a great company gathered, looking down on the still greater company which is gathered on the yellow sands. Children are climbing and rolling on the soft greensward of the terraces, and adults are sprawling at full length, completely at their ease. Men and women lounge to and fro on the sea-wall promenade, a miniature of the Hyde Park throng at mid-season. Others sit reading or chatting or looking out over the sparkling sea. The grass and crags are dotted with azure and purple flowers, and cushions of pink and white stone-crop abound. Higher up the hill stand the ivied ruins of the Norman castle, and the white memorial monument to Prince Albert, with its sculptured panels bearing the arms of Llewellyn the Great, the red dragon of Cadwalader, the symbolical leek and the motto, Anorchfygol Ddraig Cymru ("The dragon of Wales is invincible"). The air is very cool and bracing on this hill. But the greatest crowd is on the sands and on the rocks of the cliff immediately backing the beach. It is difficult for one who is familiar only with the beach at Long Branch or Cape May to comprehend such a scene as this which I am trying to picture. In the first place, the field is so entirely different from that at home; and in the second place, the bathing population of the town is not broken up into a number of hotel communities and cottage communities, but is all gathered at one spot. It is true some residents on the north cliff bathe on the north sands, but they come to the south sands after they have had their dip, to meet le monde. There is room here for le monde too; and the groups not only sprinkle the wide yellow plain, but they are perched about on the face of the cliff in grottos and on jutting crags; they are grouped in the cool shade of rocky caverns at the precipice's base; they are leaning on the battlemented walls that crown its summit. The water is a considerable distance from where the people sit, and minute by minute, as the time passes, it recedes farther and farther, until at last it is a long walk away. The gay hues of red-coated soldiers assist feminine attire in enlivening the scene with color. Children in great numbers are scampering about, and busying themselves, much as they do at home, with toy pails and spades; but if you take notice you will find that their sand-structures differ widely from those of children in America: you may even see a perfect model of a feudal castle grow into shape, with barbacan, gate, moat, drawbridge, towers, bastions, donjon-keep and banqueting-hall complete. A brass band—the members in full uniform of bright colors, with little rimless red-and-gold caps—is playing under the battlemented garden-wall which backs the sands in one place. Listen to the tunes! Heard you ever these peculiar airs before? The "Bells of Aberdovey" jangle their sweet chime over the wind-blown scene. The "March of the Men of Harlech" fills all the air with its stirring scarlet strain. The quaint melody of "Hob y deri dando" moves the feet of youth to restlessness: not that it is a jig, in spite of the jiggy look of the words to English eyes, but because it has been twisted into the service of Terpsichore by a famous band-master in his "Welsh Lancers." "Hob y deri dando" is a love-song:

All the day I sigh and cry, love,Hob y deri dando!All the night I say and pray, love,Hob y deri dando!1

A hand-organ with monkey attachment is delighting a group of children on another part of the sands. Yonder, too, is a balladist with a guitar, bawling at the top of his lungs,

The dream 'as parst, the spell his broken,'Opes 'ave faded one by one:Th' w'isper'd words, so sweetly spoken,Hall like faded flow'rs har gone.Still that woice hin music lingers,Loike er 'arp 'oose silver strings,Softly swep' by fairy fingers,Tell of hunforgotten things.

Nobody pays much attention to this wandering minstrel: he is happy if at the close of his song a penny finds its way into the battered hat he extends for largess. He is clearly a stranger to this part of the world, and has probably tramped down here from London by easy stages, and will have to tramp back again as he came, without much profit from his provincial tour.

The fashionable world which is sunning itself on the sands is made up, for the most part, of the usual types of a British watering-place—the pea-jacketed swell with blasé manner and one-eyed quizzing-glass; the occasional London cad in clothes of painful newness and exaggeration of style, such as no gentleman by any chance ever wears in Britain; the young sprig of nobility with effeminate face and "fast" inclinations, who smokes a cigarette and ogles the girls, and utters sentiments of profound ennui in a light boyish tenor voice. He is the son of an English nobleman who has a Welsh estate, upon which he passes a portion of his time, and can trace his lineage back to one of the Norman adventurers who came over with William the Conqueror. For an example of an older aristocracy than this, however, observe the ancient couple sitting near us in the shadow of a cliff-rock, the wife with a high-bridged nose and puffs of gray hair on her temples, the husband with an easy-fitting hat and a coat-collar which rolls so high as to give the impression he has no neck. These are aristocrats who, although untitled and owners only of a few modest acres back in Carmarthenshire, descend from ancestors that looked down on William the Conqueror as a plebeian upstart.

There are bathers in the surf, but they are so far away from the throngs on this vast plain of beach that they are as unindividual as if they were puppets. One's most intimate friend could not be recognized without the aid of a glass. The bathing-machines, which serve in lieu of the huts common at American seaside resorts, are merely huts on wheels instead of huts in stationary rows. They are cared for by women, who escort you to the door of an untenanted hut, collect sixpence and retire. You enter, and disrobe at your leisure. The machine proves to be a snug box lighted by one little unglazed window not large enough for you to put your head through, and having a solid shutter. If you close this shutter the box is as dark as night, for it is well built, with hardly a crevice in wall or roof or floor. A small and very bad looking-glass hangs on the wall, and there is a bench to sit on: that is the extent of the furniture. You have been provided with towels and with the regulation bathing-dress for men—linen breeches, to wit. While you are contemplating this garment and questioning of your modesty as to the propriety of donning it, there is a sound of rattling iron outside, and a tap on your door as a warning that your machine is about to start. The machine is dragged in lumbering fashion out into the sea by an antediluvian horse with a small boy astride, and there the boy unhitches the traces from the machine and goes ashore, leaving you with the waves breaking on the steps before your door. You peep out dubiously. A shoal of naked-shouldered men are swimming and splashing in the surf. Some fifty yards away is another school of bathers, whose back hair betrays their sex, and who are clad in garments made like those worn by feminine bathers at Long Branch, etc. There is no commingling of the sexes in the water, as our American custom is, but on the score of modesty I must confess to a prejudice in favor of the American plan, nevertheless. The British theory evidently presumes that men have no modesty among themselves. Custom regulates these matters, I suppose. I have never felt disposed to blush for my naked feet and arms while conversing with a lady on the beach at Long Branch, being snugly clad from head to foot in a flannel costume. But I confess to a shrinking sense of the incompleteness of the prescribed fig-leaves as I stand in the door of the bathing-machine at Tenby. To cover myself with the water as quickly as possible appears to be the only remedy, however, and I take a header from the doorsill. Ugh! The water is like ice! To one accustomed to the warm American bathing-suit the linen substitute of Tenby is a most insufficient protection. At home I have on occasion extended the revels of the surf for a full hour, being a pretty strong swimmer and exceedingly fond of the exercise. I get enough at Tenby in precisely two minutes, and hasten to don my customary clothing. Nevertheless, it is contended that the surf at Tenby is pleasant for bathers as late as Christmas, and I am told there really are Britons who bathe daily in the sea here quite up to the first snow. It is certain that the fashionable season does not end till November, and some stay straight on through the winter.

Among the lions of Tenby none is more interesting than St. Catharine's Island, a great rugged hill of solid limestone almost devoid of verdure and rent into innumerable fissures, with a succession of dark romantic coves and caverns and jagged projecting crags fringing its sides completely round. At high tide this islet is separated from the mainland by a deep rolling sea. At low tide its shores are left dry by the receding waters. It is a curious sight to watch this daily advance and retreat of the sea. To see the tides of ocean come and go is no novelty, but it becomes a novelty under circumstances like these, where every day a dry bridge of yellow sand is stretched forth from the islet to the mainland, across which a stream of humanity pours the moment the path is clear. At first only one person at a time can pass. Ten minutes later the sand-bridge is a broad road. Ten later, and all Tenby might cross in a crowd. There is an iron staircase built up the rocky face of the islet, winding about among its crags and fissures, and the isle is overrun with people during the time the tide is out. It has many attractions. The view is grand from those heights. Yawning gulfs fascinate you to look dizzily down into the secret heart of the isle. On the highest point of rock stood, a few years ago, an ancient chapel which had in Roman Catholic days been dedicated to St. Catharine. Within the past six years this chapel has given way to a fortress, its walls partly embedded in the solid rock. The people who throng to the islet between tides roam about, loiter with breeze-blown garments on the stairs and landings, peer into the fortress, or, perching themselves in the sheltered nooks which are innumerable among the crags, sit and sew, read, chat, make love and watch the pygmy bathers in the sea far down below. As long as the tide is low the tenants of the islet are safe to remain, but as soon as it turns those who are wise begin to gather up their things and clear out. Now and then incautious ones get caught; and then there are screaming, hurrying and a terrible fright, especially if the trapped ones are of the gentler sex, and still more especially if their proportions are ample. Such women are, as a rule, the cowardliest. Probably, they feel their amplitude a disadvantage in moments of peril, and know emotions which their scrawnier sisters escape. A case in point greets us this morning as we stand watching the rising of the tide. A roly-poly woman of forty or so is caught on the islet by the closing of old Ocean's drawbridge. She is a fair being with dark hair and eyes, a sweet smile, a clear complexion, and some two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois, richly dressed, pleasant-mannered, and in all respects no doubt a lady to be admired and loved, as well as respected, in the social circle. But at present she is at a sad disadvantage. I noticed her a few minutes ago at the top of the iron staircase, and said to myself that she would have just time enough to come down, for there was an isthmus of sand some twenty feet wide as yet to be obliterated by the crawling tide. A quickly-tripping foot would have accomplished it, but the fair-fat-and-forty lady occupied one whole minute in coming down. Now that she has reached the bottom step there is a wide wash of sea between her and the mainland, and she raises her hands in horror. How is she to get over? There is no boat in sight. Shall she wade? There is a nervous motion of her fat white hands in the direction of her gaiters, but she hesitates. The woman who hesitates is lost: the water grows deeper and deeper every instant; in ten minutes it will be over her head. A bathing-machine boy comes trotting his horse through the water, and, backing up by the rock on which the distressed lady stands, bids her get on. Get on the back of a horrid bathing-horse! behind the back of a horrid boy! Had she been a sylph the prospect would have been most untempting, but a two-hundred-and-fifty-pounder! Nevertheless, the unhappy fair one begins to prepare for the sacrifice with grief and consternation in her face. "How can I do it?" her trembling lips whisper, and she looks about her on the rocks as if to say, "Oh, is there no other way out of this wretched predicament?" The boy, as he sits astride, is getting his feet wet by this time: the horse will have to swim for it presently. Still she hesitates, and throws a shrinking glance over the vast audience gathered on the sands silently attentive—the band, the organ-grinder and the balladist all breathlessly awaiting the issue, no doubt feeling that it would be mockery to indulge in music at such a moment. Suddenly a bare-headed and shirt-sleeved man is seen to dash through the water, regardless of danger and of wet trousers, who, seizing the fat lady round the knees in spite of her screams, dumps her on the horse's back all in a heap. Saved! saved! Such a giggling (for joy) has seldom been seen to shake a large assemblage. The emotion caused by the spectacle of beauty in distress is no doubt a pain to every masculine mind not hopelessly vitiated by the cynical tendencies of the age; but the pain produced by the emotion of mirth at seeing a fellow-creature at a ridiculous disadvantage is greater when you feel bound not to laugh.

There are four strange caves piercing St. Catharine's Island completely through from side to side. In rough weather the storming of the sea through these extraordinary tunnels creates a prodigious uproar. When the weather is still it is possible to take boat and sail quite through one of them: at low tide you may walk through. Marine zoological riches abound in these caverns, which have been for many years a real treasure-house for naturalists. The walls are studded with innumerable barnacles, dogwinkles and other shells—not dead and empty, but full of living creatures, requiring only the return of the tide to awaken them to an active existence. There are simply myriads of them: a random stone thrown against a wall will smash a whole colony; and there are besides polyps and sea-anemones and other strange animals of eccentric habits in unusual abundance. The visitors to Tenby find great diversion in these and the other caves on the coast: in fact, the whole coast as far as Milford Haven is one succession of natural curiosities and antiquities. One cavern bears the name of Merlin's Cave, and is hallowed by a legend of the enchanter, who was born at Carmarthen in the next county.

Wirt Sikes.

NOCTURNE

There'll come a day when the supremest splendorOf earth or sky or sea,Whate'er their miracles, sublime or tender,Will wake no joy in me.There'll come a day when all the aspiration,Now with such fervor fraught,As lifts to heights of breathless exaltation,Will seem a thing of naught.There'll come a day when riches, honor, glory,Music and song and art,Will look like puppets in a wornout story,Where each has played his part.There'll come a day when human love, the sweetestGift that includes the wholeOf God's grand giving—sovereignest, completest—Shall fail to fill my soul.There'll come a day—I will not care how passesThe cloud across my sight,If only, lark-like, from earth's nested grasses,I spring to meet its light.Margaret J. Preston.

THROUGH WINDING WAYS

CHAPTER IV

It was soon decided that I was to set out for The Headlands the first week in October. I had studied too hard, and was growing so tall and slight that Harry Dart used to draw caricatures of me, taking me in sections, he declared, since no ordinary piece of paper would suffice for a full-length. I was glad of a change, yet felt some sorrow about it too. I knew nothing of what it was to miss the warm home-life and the constant companionship which had filled every idle hour with ever-recurring pleasures. I hated to part from my mother, who had grown of late so inestimably dear to me; I should miss the boys; what could make up to me for Georgy? I did not know that I was never again to enjoy the old Belfield routine, with all my untamed impulses making the wild, free physical life full of deep and passionate delight—never again to stand the peer of all my mates, running the familiar races, playing the familiar games. I did not know what a changed life awaited me, and I looked forward to my opening vistas of a bright future with longings inconceivably sweet.

I reached The Headlands one fine day in October a little past noon. Mr. Raymond's carriage met me at the station, and a grave elderly servant, who told me his name was Mills, put me inside and assumed all responsibilities concerning my luggage. I had plenty of time to remember with regret our homely, pleasant life at Belfield, and recall Thorpe's words when he heard that I had been invited to The Headlands. "It will be a glimpse of another life," he had remarked with his usual air of consummate knowledge of the world. "Even I, who am used to living on terms of intimacy with men of all ranks and positions, find it difficult to adjust the balance in that quiet, stately house, where everything goes on oiled wheels."

"But what makes it hard to get along?" I had inquired with a sort of awe.

"Oh, I can't describe it," he had returned with a wave of his white hand, "but you'll soon experience it for yourself."

But as I went on and the great sea opened before my eyes, I quite forgot my fears in the pleasure of such wide horizons, such magnificent scenery. The ocean was here in all its grandeur, yet there was no bleakness or bareness in these rock-bound shores, softly veiled in the haze of the October afternoon. The voices of the breakers greeted me as something vaguely familiar: I seemed to have been listening for them all my life. In such joys as I felt that day eyes and ears do but little—imagination works most wonders.

I had not noticed, so raptly was I watching the fleeting tints of opal, steel and blue which chased each other along the smooth slow waves, that we had entered enclosed grounds, and when the carriage stopped suddenly before a wide, pillared portico I was wholly taken by surprise. Mills opened the carriage-door, and I got down with a blank, dreamy feeling, and followed him up the steps through the wide portal and along the hall. He ushered me into the library, and left me while he went to announce my arrival.

I sat perfectly still in the lofty Gothic room. It was lined with books except on the west side, where were long oriel windows of stained glass, with figures of saints glorious in blue and gold and crimson and purple, with aureoles of wonderful splendor above their beautiful heads. The floor was of inlaid woods polished until it shone, and over it was laid a Persian carpet thick and soft as moss. The chimney-piece was of wonderful beauty, and extended into the room, leaving a sort of alcove on each side, and a low fire was burning in a quaintly-designed grate. Over the mantel hung a large picture which I did not know, but which made my heart beat as I looked: it was a copy of the Sistine Madonna. In front of the fire was an easy-chair piled with cushions, and beside it a low stool, while on either hand were painted screens: on one the field of brilliant azure was strewn with flowers of dazzling hues; the other was crossed by a flight of birds of gorgeous plumage.