he _debris_
with pickaxe, spade, and a multitude of hands; re-stacking the cottagers'
store of peat-sods, which the waves had sown broadcast; forming chains
across the beach to pass up from hand to hand the large pebbles at low-
water mark, to build in between the palisades; or cutting down the old
stakes and driving in new ones. This last was the most attractive branch
of the service. How enviable was he whom a reputation as a woodman
secured the enjoyment of an axe, and the genial employ of hewing and
hammering! This was much to be preferred to cutting your hands in moving
rubbish or standing still to hand wet stones in a freezing wind. However,
the pleasure of helping other people was common to all; and many of the
young hearts, which tasted that pleasure in this rough day's labour, will
have gained an impulse of prompt helpfulness that may serve them in other
and ruder storms than that which shook the frail homes of these friendly
villagers.

We do not know how our defences would have stood the test of battle. They
were not put to the proof, for the wind, veering to the north that
morning, and blowing strongly all day, reduced again the volume of the
water in the bay, and the following tides came and went harmlessly. But
had the morrow repeated the terrors of this day, we should hardly have
been up to witness them, for (_proh pudor_!) we rewarded ourselves for
our exertions by a lie-a-bed next morning in place of early school.

Elsewhere the storm-wave had worked more havoc. At Ynyslas, a flock of
one hundred and fifteen sheep were caught in their pastures, and drowned,
the farmer rescuing only eleven. The cottagers were driven to their
lofts, while the tide snatched away their furniture, doors,
window-frames, and tables, and strewed them along the railway banks.
There was flotsam and jetsam on what was now once more the coast-line at
the village of Taliesin, where in old days the bard's cradle had been
washed ashore; here one poor woman recovered her parlour-table of heavy
oak; her chairs had travelled farther yet to the door of a farmhouse in
the extreme corner of the marsh. These people were greater sufferers
than our villagers, but we could only help them by a subscription to
replace their losses.

For ourselves, we suffered nothing except a temporary scarcity of coals
and oil from the interruption of the railway traffic. It was a fortnight
before the next train ran on the stretch between us and Mach