Runswick Bay
It was the yellow ragwort that did it! I have discovered the clue at last. All night long I have been dreaming of Runswick Bay. I have been climbing the rocks, talking to the fishermen, picking my way over the masses of slippery seaweed, and breathing the fresh briny air. And all the morning I have been saying to myself, “What can have made me dream of Runswick Bay? What can have brought the events of my short stay in that quaint little place so vividly before me?” Yes, I am convinced of it; it was that bunch of yellow ragwort on the mantelpiece in my bedroom. My little Ella gathered it in the lane behind the house yesterday morning, and brought it in triumphantly, and seized the best china vase in the parlor, and filled it with water at the faucet, and thrust the great yellow bunch into it.
“Oh, Ella,” said Florence, her elder sister, “what ugly common flowers! How could you put them in Mother’s best vase, that Aunt Alice gave her on her birthday! What a silly child you are!”
“I’m not a silly child,” aid Ella stoutly, “and Mother is sure to like them; I know she will. She won’t call them common flowers. She loves all yellow flowers. She said so when I brought her the daffodils; and these are yellower, ever so much yellower.”
Her mother came in at this moment, and, taking our little girl on her knee, she told her that she was quite right. They were very beautiful in her eyes, and she would put them at once in her own room, where she could have them all to herself.
And that is how it came about, that, as I lay in bed, the last thing my eyes fell upon was Ella’s bunch of yellow ragwort. So what could be more natural than that I should go to sleep and dream of Runswick Bay?
It seems only yesterday that I was there, so clearly can I recall it, and yet it must be twenty years ago. I think I must write an account of my visit to Runswick Bay and give it to Ella, as it was her yellow flowers which took me back to the picturesque little place. If she cannot understand all I tell her now, she will learn to do so as she grows older.
I was a young man then, just beginning to make my way as an artist. It is slow work at first; until you have made a name, everyone looks critically at your work. When once you have been pronounced a rising artist, every daub from your brush has a good market value. I had had much uphill work, but I loved my profession for its own sake, and I worked on patiently, and, at the time my story begins, several of my pictures had sold for fair prices, and I was not without hope that I might soon find a place in the Academy.
It was an unusually hot summer, and London was emptying fast. Everyone who could afford it was going either to the moors or to the sea, and I felt very much inclined to follow their example. My father and mother had died when I was quite a child, and the maiden aunt who had brought me up had just passed away. I had mourned her death very deeply, for she had been both father and mother to me. I felt that I needed change of scene, for I had been up for many nights with her during her last illness, and I had had my rest broken for so long, that I found it very difficult to sleep, and in many ways I was far from well. My aunt had left all her little property to me, so that the means to leave London and to take a suitable vacation were not wanting. The question was, where should I go? I was anxious to combine, if possible, pleasure and business—that is to say, I wished to choose some quiet place where I could get bracing air and thorough change of scene, and where I could also find studies for my new picture, which was (at least, so I fondly dreamed) to find a place in the Academy the following spring.
It was while I was looking for a suitable spot that Tom Bernard, my great friend and confidant, found one for me.
“Jack, old fellow,” he said, thrusting a torn newspaper into my hand, “read that, old man.”
The newspaper was doubled down tightly, and a great red cross of Tom’s making showed me the part he wished me to read.
Runswick Bay
This charming seaside resort is not half so well known as it deserves to be. For the lover of the beautiful, for the man with an artistic eye, it possesses a charm which words would fail to describe. The little bay is a favorite resort for artists; they, at least, know how to appreciate its beauties. It would be well for any who may desire to visit this wonderfully picturesque and enchanting spot to secure hotel or lodging-house accommodation as early as possible, for the demand for rooms is, in August and September, far greater than the supply.
“Well, what do you think of it?” said Tom.
“It sounds just the thing,” I said. “Fresh air and plenty to paint.”
“Shall you go?”
“Yes, tomorrow,” I replied. “The sooner the better.”
My bag was soon packed, my easel and painting materials were collected, and the very next morning I was on my way into Yorkshire.
It was evening when I reached the end of my long, tiring railway journey; and when, hot and dusty, I alighted at a village which lay about two miles from my destination. I saw no sign of beauty as I walked from the station. The country low rolling hills in parts, but as a rule nothing met my gaze but a long flat stretch of field after field, covered, as the case might be, with grass or corn. Harebells and pink campion grew on the banks, and the meadows were full of ox-eye daisies. But I saw nothing besides that was in the least attractive, and certainly nothing of which I could make a picture.
A family from York had come by the same train, and I had learnt from their conversation that they had engaged lodgings for a month at Runswick Bay. The children, two boys of ten and twelve, and a little fair-haired girl a year or two younger, were full of excitement on their arrival.
“Father, where is the sea?” they cried. “Oh, we do want to see the sea!”
“Run on,” said their father, “and you will soon see it.”
So we ran together, for I felt myself a child again as I watched them, and if ever I lagged behind, one or other of them would turn round and cry, “Come on, come on; we shall soon see it.”
Then, suddenly, we came to the edge of the high cliff, and the sea in all its beauty and loveliness burst upon us. The small bay was shut in by rocks on either side, and on the descent of the steep cliff was built the little fishing village. I think I have never seen a prettier place.
The children were already running down the steep, rocky path—I cannot call it a road—which led down to the sea, and I followed more slowly behind them. It was the most curiously built place. The fishermen’s cottages were perched on the rock, wherever a ledge or standing place could be found. Steep, narrow paths, or small flights of rock-hewn steps, led from one to another. There was no street in the whole place; there could be none, for there were hardly two houses which stood on the same level. To take a walk through this quaint village was to go up and down stairs the whole time.
At last, after a long, downward scramble, I found myself on the shore, and then I looked back at the cliff and at the irregular little town. I did not wonder that artists were to be found there. I had counted four as I came down the hill, perched on different platforms on the rock, and all hard at work at their easels.
Yes, it was certainly a picturesque place, and I was glad that I had come. The coloring was charming: there was red rock in the background, here and there covered with grass, and ablaze with flowers. Wild roses and poppies, pink-thrift and white daisies, all contributed to make the old rock gay. But the yellow ragwort was all over. Great patches of it grew even on the margin of the sand, and its bright flowers gave the whole place a golden coloring. There seemed to be yellow everywhere, and the red-tiled cottages, and the fishermen in their blue jerseys, and the countless flights of steps, all appeared to be framed in the brightest gilt.
Yes, I felt sure I should find something to paint in Runswick Bay. I was not disappointed in Tom’s choice for me.