He begged for a hot cake from the hearth, and ran out of doors to eat it.

Humility lifted the latch for him, for the cake was so hot that he had to pass it from hand to hand.
Outside, the wind came upon him with a clap on the shoulder, quite as if it had been a comrade waiting.
Taffy ran down the path and out upon the sandy hummocks, setting his face to the wind and the roar of the sea, keeping his head low, and still shifting the cake from hand to hand.

By-and-by he fumbled and dropped it; stooped to pick it up, but saw something which made him kneel and peer into the ground.
The whole of the sand was moving; not by fits and starts, but constantly; the tiny particles running over each other and drifting in and out of the rushes, like little creatures in a dream.

While he looked, they piled an embankment against the edge of his cake.
He picked it up, ran forward a few yards, and peered again.
Yes, here too; here and yonder, and over every inch of that long shore.
He ate his cake and climbed to the beach, and ran along it, watching the sandhoppers that skipped from under his boots at every step, and were lost on the instant.

The beach here was moist and firm.
He pulled off his boots and stockings, and ran on, conning his footprints and the driblets of sand split ahead from his bare toes.
By-and-by he came to the edge of the surf.