And so, with contests on the models of the Fifth Aeneid, the story went forward gallantly for many months.
But the afternoons were long; and at times the interminable sand-hills and everlasting roar of the sea oppressed the child with a sense of loneliness beyond words.

The rabbits and gulls would not make friends with him, and he ached for companionship.

Of that ache was born his half-crazy adoration of George Vyell.

There were hours when he lay in some nook of the towans, peering into the ground, seeing pictures in the sand--pictures of men and regiments and battles, shifting with the restless drift; until, unable to bear it, he flung out his hands to efface them, and hid his face in the sand, sobbing, "George! George!" At night he would creep out of bed to watch the lighthouse winking away in the north-east.

George lived somewhere beyond.