60 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



either fled before the gale or writhed under its 

 blows. At nine o'clock I reached a lonely, storm- 

 battered house, half concealed among the sand- 

 hills. The Equinoctial was at its height. It 

 was an hour when prudence bade one stay in the 

 house, but when that which makes a man happy 

 amid the rough revelry of Nature said, Go, 

 give yourself to the storm. The sea could not 

 be seen from the house, for the dunes stood in 

 the way, but the wind, the breath of the sea, 

 told where it lay. The wind was charged with 

 rain, hail, cutting bits of sand, the odor of brine, 

 and the roar of the billowy battle beyond the 

 dunes. 



What are the dunes ? They are the waves of 

 the sea perpetuated in sand. They were changing 

 and growing at that moment, as they are at every 

 moment when the winds blow. A ridge forty feet 

 high, eastward of the house, was hurling yellow- 

 ish sand into the dooryard and against the build- 

 ings. From its top could be seen a hollow be- 

 yond and then another ridge, from the crest 

 of which a sand banner waved in the wind. 

 That ridge surmounted, a broader hollow was 

 seen beyond, containing lagoons of gleaming 

 water and thickets of richly colored shrubs and 

 a few stunted pines. To right, left, and ahead, 

 other ridges rose like mimic mountains. Some 

 of them had been cut straight through by 



