r.

The fog lifted. It hung low in the sky, a sulky blue cloud. Beneath it,
the sea, still unruffled, was of a dense blue that, so it seemed, would
have been black altogether but for its transparency and the refracted
light within it.

Going on, I walked for some distance beneath a semi-arch of the
wind-bowed lichenous thorns that grow upon the cliff-edge.

Without any warning--maybe there was a little hum in the air--a
leafless bough, like a withered arm with its sinews ragged out, bent
over across my path. The sea gulls screamed and screeched; they flocked
out from the cliff-ledges, and with still wings they towered up into
the sky. Every twig and leaf began to play a diabolic symphony. Where
the hedge ended I was blown back upon my heels.--It was more than half
a gale of wind from the south-east.

The horizon was become clear; jagged like a saw. Divergent strings,
marvellously interlaced on the water, streamed in with the wind,
broadened into ribands fluttering over green-grey patches. The whole
sea trembled, as if life were being breathed into it. White spots,
curling wavelets, dotted it; then broke abroad as white-horses in full
mad landward career. The whistle in the grass rose louder and shriller;
the boughs bent further and let fly their autumn foliage horizontally
into the wind; the gulls screeched wildly and more wildly; the chafing
of the surf below took possession of the air....

[Sidenote: _UNCLE JAKE ON FOOLS_]

I saw the dinghy put about and run for shore.

When I got back, Uncle Jake was still watching.

"Ah!" he said. "Ah! Ah! I don't like they centre-keel boats wi' bumes
[booms]. They'm all right for fine weather, but.... Ah! They'm goin' to
gybe if they ain't careful. There! Did 'ee see? Why don't they ease
their sheet off more? If the wind catches thic sail the wrong side....
Did 'ee see that? Thic bume was all but coming over. Gybe, gybe, yu
fules! Yu'm capsized if yu du, wi' thic heavy bume. Look'se! Have 'em
got their drop-keel up, I wonder? Not they! They thinks that's the same
as extra ballast. 'Twon't make no difference if a sea takes charge of
'em. Ah! did 'ee see the leach o' the sail flutter? Nearly over! Let
'em gybe, if they'm set on it. 'Twill upset they.--O-ho! They'm goin'
to haul down an' row for it. Best thing the likes o' they can du. They
calls me an ol' fule for joggin' along in my ol' craft while they has
drop-keels and bumes, all the latest. I've a-know'd thees yer sea f