No satisfactory conjuncture offered itself on this first evening of his return for presenting Elfride with what he had been at such pains to procure.He was fastidious in his reading of opportunities for such an intended act.The next morning chancing to break fine after a week of cloudy weather,it was proposed and decided that they should all drive to Barwith Strand,a local lion which neither Mrs.Swancourt nor Knight had seen.Knight scented romantic occasions from afar,and foresaw that such a one might be expected before the coming night.
The journey was along a road by neutral green hills,upon which hedgerows lay trailing like ropes on a quay.Gaps in these uplands revealed the blue sea,flecked with a few dashes of white and a solitary white sail,the whole brimming up to a keen horizon which lay like a line ruled from hillside to hillside.Then they rolled down a pass,the chocolate-toned rocks forming a wall on both sides,from one of which fell a heavy jagged shade over half the roadway.A spout of fresh water burst from an occasional crevice,and pattering down upon broad green leaves,ran along as a rivulet at the bottom.Unkempt locks of heather overhung the brow of each steep,whence at divers points a bramble swung forth into mid-air,snatching at their head-dresses like a claw.
They mounted the last crest,and the bay which was to be the end of their pilgrimage burst upon them.The ocean blueness deepened its colour as it stretched to the foot of the crags,where it terminated in a fringe of white--silent at this distance,though moving and heaving like a counterpane upon a restless sleeper.
The shadowed hollows of the purple and brown rocks would have been called blue had not that tint been so entirely appropriated by the water beside them.
The carriage was put up at a little cottage with a shed attached,and an ostler and the coachman carried the hamper of provisions down to the shore.
Knight found his opportunity.I did not forget your wish,he began,when they were apart from their friends.