I climbed to the top of the East Cliff. The air was cool and
still--so still that all the Seacombe smoke hung in the valley and
drifted slowly to seawards and faded there. While the sun was setting
behind a bank of sulky dull clouds, some woolpacks, faintly outlined in
white against the grey, rose almost imperceptibly in the western sky.
Everything, the sea itself, seemed very dry. Nothing moved on the
cliffs, except some small birds which flittered homelessly among the
black and twisted burnt gorse. They were very tiny and pitiful against,
or indeed amid, the solemn gathering of the great slow clouds. On
looking down from the edge of the cliff, a slight mistiness of the air
gave one the impression that there was, lying level above the sea, a
sheet of glass that dulled the sound of the water yet allowed one to
discern every half-formed ripple, and even the purple of the rocks
beneath. Five hundred feet below and a quarter of a mile out, were
three boats. They also, like the birds, seemed pitifully tiny. But,
unlike the birds, they did not seem purposeless. It was evident they
were moving, though one could not see rowers, oars, or splashes, for
they progressed in short jumps and above the dulled rattle of a billow
breaking on the pebbles, the faint click-thud of oars between
thole-pins was plainly audible. I had an odd fancy that the six men
were rowing through immensity, into eternity, to meet God; and that
they would so continue rowing, eternally.

This morning, very early, the crackle of burning wood in the kitchen
fireplace awoke me. Then I heard the sea roaring; then Tony's bare feet
on the stairs. "Wind's backed an' come on to blow," he said. "They've
a-had to hard up an' urn for it. Two on 'em's in, an' one have a-losted
two nets. I told 'em 'twasn't vitty when they shoved off. 'Tis blowing
hard. I be going out along to see w'er t'other on 'em's in eet."

The sea was angry, the moon obscure. The dead-asleep town stood up
motionless before the madly-living breakers. It seemed as if a horrible
fight was in progress; loud rage and dumb treachery face to face in the
semi-darkness; and between the livelong combatants, little men ran to
and fro, peering out to sea.

Presently the third boat ran ashore. Its bellied sail hid everything
from us who waited at the water's edge. It was hoisted on a high wave,
and cast on land. The sea did not want it then. The sea spewed it up.
The sea can afford to wait, even until the cle