ch looked out on sweeps of hill, down,
vale and sea, so changeable and lovely that they were dreamlike and as
a dream abide in the memory.... Here I have quick human life just below
my window, and--up the Gut--a view of the sea unbroken hence to the
horizon; a patch of water framed on three sides by straight walls and
on the fourth by the sky-line; a miniature ocean across which the
drifters sail to the western offing, and the little boats curvet to and
fro, and

The stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill.

There is always, here, a sound of the sea. When, at night, the Square
is still, it seems to advance, to come nearer, to be claiming one for
its own.

But the Square, though still at night compared with daytime, is never
dead, never absolutely asleep. Fishermen returning from sea crunch on
the gravel. Lights in the windows (most of the people seem to burn
night lamps) give it a cosy appearance; the cats make one think that
fiends are pouring out of hell, through a hole in the roadway. Peep o'
day is the stillest time of all. The cats seat themselves on walls.
Sparrows chirp sleepily. Some rooks and a hoary-headed jackdaw come
down from the trees nearby, quarter the roadway for garbage, and fly
away croaking. Busy starlings follow. If the weather is hard and fish
offal scarce on the beach, the gulls will pay us a supercilious visit.
About six o'clock the children begin singing in bed, and soon
afterwards one hears the familiar conversation of families getting up.
"Edie! what for the Lord's sake be yu doing? Yu'll catch your death o'
cold. Johnnie, if yu don't make haste, I'll knock your head off, I
will!" A child or two may cry, but on the whole their merriment does
not seem greatly damped by their mothers' blood-curdling threats. I
hear also, but not very often, the shrill wailing monotone, the weep
dissolved in a shout, of a woman upbraiding her man for the previous
night.

The children being dressed, but not washed (it is useless to wash the
average child very long before sending it off to school), they run out
to the beach to see what there is to be seen and to inspect the
ash-buckets for treasure. An ash-bucket is Eldorado to them. If nothing
is happening, are they at a loss for something to do? By no means. They
come in house, fetch out tin cans, and beat them in a procession round
the Square.

The milkmen arrive, then several greengrocers. One would think that
Under Town lived on veget