Auntie Robbo by Ann Scott-Moncrieff — Read

The yellow cart was parked in the lea of a sand-dune. A line of washing flapped across its roof, and near it on a fire of driftwood and seaweed a big pot bubbled. From pot and fire, smells eddied in a warm savoury little tide. The piebald pony wandered hungrily near at hand, nosing the sour, tough bents. North and south, white sand stretched, rimming the sea like the edge of a plate. It was a cold sea, but attractive now in the sun, sparkling and splashed with white where the waves broke. In the curling shallows near the edge three white figures jumped and danced and ducked; their cries mingled with the cries of the sea birds. The three figures were Mary and Sando and Hector.

From the top of a sand-dune above the camp, Pete lay and watched them lazily. He had been trying to paint the sun and the sands, but he had given that up. It was pleasanter just to lie. He thought he had never been in such a lovely place before. The town wasn't far away; he could see grey roofs and smoke beyond the sand-dunes. Actually they had been much farther off from towns and people and houses in their travels in the Highlands. But this was different. Among hills he had felt shut away but not alone, always thinking that round the bend there might be a town, or that over in the next glen there certainly were a few crofts. Here by the sea there was nothing; nothing to the height of the sky, nothing to the width of the horizon. It seemed as if only the wind stalked across the sand-dunes, and only the fish--until Pete and Mary and Hector chanced along--knew the feel of the sea. Pete found that very satisfactory. He got up whistling to put some more wood on the fire, and when the pony came snuffling up, looking miserable with its nose covered with sand, he gave it some oats in its bag.