Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy

More rock had fallen from the rock above, piling between the stems of the thorn-trees like froth among the reeds of a backwater.

Into this great, still lake the jutting ribs of the cave walls ran like buttresses to meet the angle of their own reflections, then on down into the darkness.

The small light of the flame pushed the darkness back, a palpable darkness, deeper even than those dark nights where the black is thick as a wild beast's pelt, and presses in on you like a stifling blanket.

As far as I could see, we were in a small cove sheltered by the wind by a mighty headland close to our left, but the seas, tearing past the end of the headland and curving round to break among the offshore rocks, were huge, and came lashing down on the shingle in torrents of white with a noise like armies clashing together in anger.

The waves must have been rushing up forty feet, and the master waves, the great sevenths, came roaring up like towers and drenched us with salt fully sizty feet above the beach.

The sea soughed and beat below the window, the wind plucked at the wall, and ferns growing there in the crevices rustled and tapped.

The land after the rain smelled rich and soft, ploughing weather, nutting weather, the squirrel-time for winter's coming.