PROPHET BIRDS 51 



found a goodly fall of beechen mast, and 

 promptly stored it ! 



But to return to the gulls over Baggy 

 Point. There must have been two or three 

 thousand of them, floating and wailing. " A 

 master storm be cumin'," said the granfers. 



All that day, sunlessness and quiet seas. 

 I told the granfers that they were wrong (I 

 am young and self-confident). I explained 

 that their knowledge of nature was not great 

 had one not told me that swallows sleep 

 in the mud of the river Taw during winter ? 



But that night clouds came up and hid 

 the stars, the owls called mournfully, the 

 wind shook the elms in the churchyard. 

 A moan under the door, a rattling of the 

 window; the spaniels on my bed whined 

 uneasily. Something was astir a great 

 silence hollow and foreboding. The chim- 

 ney tun hummed a little song of rue in the 

 dark; I was instantly awake, and waiting. 



A faint roar overbore the near sounds. 

 It was the sea on the rocks two miles away. 



