On the other side of the jutting point a bluff of red clay and crumbling
rock continued round a wide bay. Where the rim of the blue water lay
thin on this beach there showed a purple band, shading upward into the
dark jasper red of damp earth in the lower cliff. The upper part of the
cliff was very dry, and the earth was pink, a bright earthen pink. This
ribbon of shaded reds lay all along the shore. The land above it was
level and green.
At the other horn of the bay a small town stood; its white houses, seen
through the trembling lens of evaporating water, glistened with almost
pearly brightness between the blue spaces of sky and water. All the
scene was drenched in sunlight in those spring days.
The town, Montrose by name, was fifteen miles away, counting miles by
the shore. The place where Caius was busy was unfrequented, for the land
near was not fertile, and a wooded tract intervened between it and the
better farms of the neighbourhood. The home of the lost child and one
other poor dwelling were the nearest houses, but they were not very
near.
Caius did not attempt to carve his inscription on the mutable sandstone.
It was quite possible to obtain a slab of hard building-stone and
material for cement, and after carting them himself rather secretly to
the place, he gradually hewed a deep recess for the tablet and cemented
it there, its face slanting upward to the blue sky for greater safety.
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