Where the rim of the blue water lay thin on this beach there showed a purple band, shading upward into the dark jasper red of damp earth in the lower cliff.

The upper part of the cliff was very dry, and the earth was pink, a bright earthen pink.

This ribbon of shaded reds lay all along the shore.

The land above it was level and green.
At the other horn of the bay a small town stood; its white houses, seen through the trembling lens of evaporating water, glistened with almost pearly brightness between the blue spaces of sky and water.

All the scene was drenched in sunlight in those spring days.
The town, Montrose by name, was fifteen miles away, counting miles by the shore.