Chapter 4 — Chapter 4

“I’m going for a walk to the outside shore tonight,” Anne told Gog and
Magog one October evening. There was no one else to tell, for Gilbert
had gone over the harbor. Anne had her little domain in the speckless
order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and
felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience. Many and
delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert,
sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and
new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with
their rainbows. She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the
silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock
shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and
its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to
this shore she hied herself tonight.

There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three
days. Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the
white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and
tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor. Now it was
over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind
stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock
in a splendid white turmoil—the only restless thing in the great,
pervading stillness and peace.

“Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress
for,” Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the
tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. Presently
she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she
seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.

“I’m going to dance and sing,” she said. “There’s no one here to see
me—the seagulls won’t carry tales of the matter. I may be as crazy as
I like.”

She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand
just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their
spent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she
reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then
she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had
been a witness to her dance and laughter.

The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder
of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock. She was looking
straight at Anne with a strange expression—part wonder, part sympathy,
part—could it be?—envy. She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair,
more than ever like Browning’s “gorgeous snake,” was bound about her
head with a crimson ribbon. She wore a dress of some dark material,
very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine
curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk. Her hands, clasped over her
knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat
and cheeks was as white as cream. A flying gleam of sunset broke
through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair. For a
moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified—all its mystery,
all its passion, all its elusive charm.