On coming out I try to educe from the
bathing-machine man principles to guide me in
bathing. His rule is simple and comprehensive.

"What I always say, sir, is, in and out
again."

This principle, thought I, has at least one
good point about it, it makes a bathing-
machine useful to as many people as possible
in a morning. As I jump down the steps
of the bathing-machine and dance on the
shore for sheer joy and redundancy of animal
life, the sand is blowing over the beach like a
flowing river, and the sand-hills below the
cliffs are all a smoke with eddies of restless
atoms. Great broad dark-brown ribbons of
glue-coloured sea-weed are washing to land,
a pallid little crab is vainly trying to work
home to his parish to secure a settlement, and
a flabby star-fish, stranded half an hour ago,
moves one of his rays in feeble appeal to me,
as I pass recklessly by, denouncing aloud the
blatant humbug of Mouther's gong that is
thundering out from the cliff-top the summons
to an indifferent and pretentious dinner.

An evening stereoscope. A Scarcliff evening
is full of pleasant contrasts. The bay
glows like silver, and the headlands are steeped
in a blue moonlit mist that bathes also the
whole bluff shoulder of the Castle Hill. The
moon a moment ago had a great black-winged
cloud stretching right athwart it like a dusky
eagle. Then the eagle faded and the cloud
thinned and thinned till it turned a mother-of-
pearl colour, amber in parts. Presently all
these hues dissolve, and the great, full, bright
moon launches out into an ocean of cloudless
blue. The lamps on the North Pier are lighting,
two by two, and casting golden hues and dark
shadows on the sands below. Wafts of music
arise from the southern bay, for there is to be a
fête to-night, and the Spa Terrace gleams
already in golden lines like a miniature Naples.
There are crowds of tremendously dressed
persons at the door of the Domdaniel Hotel on the
south side; they are all going to the fête. Ha!
now they begin: there streams up a rocket high
over the dark green woods that slope back
from the sea. It bursts over the sea in clusters
of crimson and emerald fire, as if in mockery
of the moon, that is looking down with such
clear and steadfast eye, all the cold pride of
Diana in her gaze at our transient follies, and
little, fantastic pleasures. The gay crowd
chatters and paces; presently a fitful explosion
breaks out everywhere: it is the set piece.
"Good-night" appears in a thousand colours,
the band crashes out God save the Queen, and
the gala is over.

The lights on the pier go out one by one,
the waves race underneath and foam against
the iron stilt-like legs of the pier, as much as
to say, "Some day or another when we are
really hungry, we'll just make a mouthful of
you young fellows." The windows in the
crescent fade out fast. The sharp gas-lights
look lonely now. The sea plunges and roars
as I go to sleep, further and further now, to
a whisper—to nothing—for I have descended
far from it into Dreamland.

A morning stereoscope at Scarcliff. The
cliff is all alive—children everywhere—rosy,
plump, merry children, equipped with wooden
spades, and pails, and landing nets. People are
descending in great numbers the rude stairs
that lead down to the sands. The green-roofed
bathing machines are wading in the sea, and
several young ladies dressed as Banshees, and
with cascades of golden hair, are splashing
each other and laughing; those pink spots out
there are men swimming. There is a pretty
sight: a stalwart father, with the chest of
Hercules, has got his little curly-headed boy
on his shoulders, and they both are laughing
and shouting in boisterous enjoyment of the
fun. Now the father is resting him on that
great, wallowing, green buoy, and the urchin is
screaming, half in fun, half in real alarm. That
little blue-striped hut on the cliff is doing a
brisk business in pails, but no one buys the old
tattered copies of the Whole Duty of Man and
Foxe's Book of Martyrs, or those cornelians
that are kept in pudding basins like so many
plums.

See the herring boats coming in, a pleasant
and lively sight, for the sky to seaward, seen
from this great breakwater of Cyclopean
stones, is always full of breezy Vandervelde
effects, and is delicious in its fine sunny
atmosphere and its great grey clouds, shifting
to all colours, from white to rose and from
purple to amber. It has been a rough night,
and the decks of the herring boats are sodden-
salt with spray and speckled with silvery scales.
The rugged-bearded men have their shiny-
yellow sou'-westers pulled down over their
brows, and their yellow waterproofs come
down as far as their great greasy boots, so
that the Deluge itself would be a mere trifle
to them. Rough lads thrust their heads
up the hatchways, and lift out brimming
baskets of fish. Yes, they did pull them in
last night pretty tidy. The quay is covered
with herrings, and men are measuring them off
in baskets, and mixing them with coarse salt
as they measure them. The great, dark sails are
lowering as every moment boats come round
the lighthouse corner with shouting crews.
In an hour cart-loads of red-brown nets will be
stretching to dry in the green fields outside
Scarcliff; nothing about the busy scene do
I more like than to see the little fishermen's
boys—sou'westers, jersey, boots, the very
miniature of their fathers—pulling at tow ropes,
or, with great self-importance, carrying nets
ashore. In them the baby and the hero are
combined; the urchin, only just released from
his mother's arms, has learned already to
look death smilingly in the face, to despise
storms, to laugh at reefs, and to treat the waves
as if they were mere flocks of patient sheep.
Look at that youngster now, kneeling on the
stern of a boat that is rocking in the surf, while
his brother, a year younger, stands up to his
knees in the mud in the back harbour pulling
at a small anchor. They're chips of the good