DECEMBER 449 



to the earth all about, no sound reached the ears of the watcher 

 except the sound of that howling tempest. 



Only one other such gale do I remember at any rate in this 

 country. It happened, I think, in the year 1881, when I was 

 coming home from Africa in a disabled ship. Luckily we won 

 shelter in the mouth of the Thames before it burst ; and there we 

 lay, for we could not go up the river because most of the water 

 was blown out of its bed. Two powerful tugs tried to get our head 

 round, and I saw one of them caught by the wind and dashed 

 into our side as though it were but a little sailing-boat. Also I 

 saw ships one after another carried from their moorings, and 

 other things too long to mention. 



Here, however, is a little story connected with that gale which 

 it is, perhaps, worth while to preserve. Shortly after it my 

 late father accompanied me to North Walsham to visit some 

 property in that town which belongs to this estate. After our 

 business was completed he expressed a wish to look over the 

 grammar school, which he had not seen since he was a scholar 

 there as a little boy some sixty years before. By the wall of the 

 playground grew a line of poplar-trees which the gale I have spoken 

 of had thrown down, so that they lay upon the wall, whereof 

 all the upper part was destroyed by their weight. Looking at 

 this curious sight brought to my father's mind the recollection 

 that there was a brick in this wall upon which Nelson, who was 

 also a scholar at North Walsham, had cut his initials. He asked 

 those who were showing us over the school about this brick, but 

 no one seemed to know anything of it indeed, I fancy that since 

 his time the tradition of the thing had died away. But the more 

 he thought of it the more positive he became of its existence, 

 and as he expressed a belief that he could find it, a lantern was 

 brought for the autumn evening had now closed in by the light 

 of which he began to search the wall. And there, certainly, 

 he found the brick with the weatherworn initials H. N. cut upon 

 its face. Curiously enough, although this particular brick was quite 

 uninjured, one of the fallen trees that rested on tlje wall had ground 



GG 



