Love Among the Ruins by Warwick Deeping

In a cave whose narrow mouth cut a rough cameo from the snow and azure of the sky, a man lay sleeping upon a bed of heather. The surge of the sea rose from the bastions of the cliff, where foam glittered and swirled over the black rocks that thrust their dripping brows above the tide. Gulls were winging over the waves, whose green crests shone brilliant under the sun. On a distant headland, bleak and sombre, the towers of a castle broke the turquoise crescent of the heavens.

In one corner of the cave a feeble fire flickered, the smoke therefrom curling along the roof to vanish in a thin blue plume of vapour. Beside the bed lay a pile of armour, with a broken casque like a cleft skull to crown it. Dried herbs and a loaf of rye bread lay on a flat boulder near the fire. The figure on the heather was covered by a stained yet gorgeously blazoned surcoat, that seemed an incongruous quilt for such a couch. Near the cave's entry a great axe glittered on the floor, an axe whose notched edge had tested the metal of many a bassinet.