IV
The next day I was again at Wynne's cottage, and the next, and the
next. We two, Winifred and I, used to stroll out together through the
narrow green lanes, and over the happy fields, and about the
Wilderness and the wood, and along the cliffs, and then down the
gangway at Flinty Point (the only gangway that was firm enough to
support my crutches, Winifred aiding me with the skill of a woman and
the agility of a child), and then along the flints below Flinty
Point. She rapidly fell into my habits. She was an adept in finding
birds' nests and wild honey; and though she would not consent to my
taking the eggs, she had not the same compunction about the honey,
and she only regretted with me that we could not be exactly like St.
John, as Graylingham Wilderness yielded no locusts to eat with the
honey. Winifred, though the most healthy of children, had a passion
for the deserted church on the cliffs, and for the desolate
churchyard.
It was one of those flint and freestone churches that are sprinkled
along the coast. Situated as it was at the back of a curve cut by the
water into the end of a peninsula running far into the sea, the tower
looked in the distance like a lighthouse.
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