Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/885

Rh ning I spent there, the tea was yet milder than the other attractions: than the fair vocalist; than the prestidigitator who made a dozen different kinds of hats out of a square piece of cloth, and personated their historical wearers in them; than the cinematograph; than the lady orchestra which so mainly played pieces "By Desire" that the programme was almost composed of them. A diversion in the direction of ice-cream was not lavishly fortunate: the ice-cream was a sort of sweetened and extract-flavored snow which was hardly colder than the air outside.

It seemed, in fact, somewhat relaxed by those atmospheric influences which in England are of such frequent and swift vicissitude. At Folkestone we were early warned against the air of the sea-level, which we would find extremely relaxing, whereas that of the Leas, fifty feet above, was extremely bracing. We were not always able to note the difference, but at times we found the air even on the Leas extremely relaxing when the wind was in a certain quarter.

The sun is, of course, the mild English sun, which seems nowise akin to our flaming American star, but is quite probably the centre of the same solar system. The birds are in the wilding shrubs and trees which clothe the front of the cliff's, and in the gardened spaces on the relaxing levels, spreading below to the sands of the sea; and they are in the gardens of the placid, handsome houses which stand detached behind their hedges of thorn or laurel. This is the houses' habit through the whole town, which is superficially vast, and everywhere agreeably and often prettily built. It is overbuilt, in fact; well toward seven hundred houses lie empty, and half of those which are occupied are devoted to lodgings and boarding-houses, while the hotels, large and little, abound. There are no manufactures, and except in the season and the preparatory season, there is no work. Folkestone has become very gay, but is no longer the resort of the consumptive or the aristocratic, or even the æsthetic. These turn to other air and other conditions, where they may sleep out-of-doors, or wander informally about the fields or over the sands.

But the birds say nothing of all this, especially in the first days of your arrival, when it is only a question whether you shall buy the most beautiful house on the Leas, or whether you shall buy the whole town. Afterwards, when the birds are a little franker, your heart is gone to Folkestone, and you do not mind whether you have made a good investment or not. By this time, though the Earl of Radnor still owns the earth, you own the sky and sea, for which you pay him no ground rent. Of your sky perhaps the less said the better, but of your sea you could not brag too loudly. Sometimes the sun looks askance at it from the curtains of clouds which he likes to keep drawn, especially out of season, and sometimes the rainy Hyades vex its dimness, but at all times its tender and lovely coloring seems its own, and not a hue lent it from the smiling or frowning welkin. I am speaking of its amiable moods; it has a muddiness all its own, also, when the Hyades have vexed it too long. But on a reasonably pleasant day, I do not know a much more agreeable thing than to sit on a bench under the edge of the Leas, and tacitly direct the movements of the fishermen whose sails light up the water wherever it is not darkened by the smokes of those steamers I have spoken of. About noon the fishermen begin to make inshore, toward the piers which form the harbor, and then if you will leave your bench, and walk down the long sloping road from the Leas into the quaint old seafaring quarter of the town, you can see the fishermen auctioning off their several catches.

Their craft, as they round the end of the breakwater, and come dropping into the wharves, are not as graceful as they looked at sea. In fact, the American eye, trained to the trimmer lines of our shipping in every kind, sees them lumpish and loggish, with bows that can scarcely know themselves from sterns, and with stumpy masts and shapeless sails. But the fishermen themselves are very fine: fair or dark men, but mostly fair, of stalwart build, with sou'westers sloping over powerful shoulders, and the red of their English complexions showing rank through their professional tan. With the toe of his huge thigh-boot one of them tenderly touches the edge of the wharf, as the boat-load of fish swims up to it,