4- SQUALLS 



Fifty years or more Benjie has been knocking 

 about in little boats, and he declares at least once 

 a week, "Tis better any day to row wi' two oars 

 than to sail wi' two reefs. There ain't never no 

 dependence to be placed in they squally winds. / 

 knows 'em!' He knows them because he has 

 sailed in them so often at all times, both day and 

 night. The twenty-mile stretch of coast along 

 which he picks his periwinkles, catches his prawns, 

 fishes for mackerel and herring (not often now), 

 and plays with the sea-birds. Is nothing if not 

 squally. Our home beach, as one might say, lies at 

 the mouth of the largest of several deep combes 

 that run southward, through the hog-backed 

 Devon hills, to the sea. On either side, the great 

 red cliffs, splashed and topped with green, rise 

 steeply five hundred feet, then dip to sea-level, then 

 rise again. Down the combes, which narrow and 



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