198 ALONGSHORE iv 



triumph at having outlived it, recited in a sing- 

 song voice his tale of long past years, I wished 

 that I, too, could glimpse the pictures that were 

 crowding his mind's eye, of fair weather and foul 

 under his cliffs, of white calms and grim pulls home 

 against wind and chop, of catches and failures, of 

 journeys over the rocks In search of flotsam and 

 jetsam, of the slopes he used to climb, what they 

 were like in that distant boyhood of his, which one 

 cannot imagine because he has grown so to fit the 

 longshore that it seems he must always have been 

 as he is. Through his voice, that rode so easily on 

 the sound of the surf, a spirit of the place seemed 

 to be speaking, and doubtless was. *Aye !' he 

 said, 'You see thic hollow between second an' 

 third roozing [cliff-fall]. I've a-climbed up there 

 into the field above. Couldn't do it now. 'Tis 

 gone. Clean gone ! An' some more o'it 's coming 

 down soon. 'Twill all be down. . . . There's a 

 fresh roozing. Do 'ee see? Slid out, like, down 

 on to the beach. 'Tis bound to fall up 'bove, 

 sooner or later. There ain't the rabbits there was, 

 up over. They knows. . . . Must ha' been a gert 

 landslip once, for to make they there plats up to 

 Windgate. Many's the bag o' sand an' seaweed 

 that I've a-carrled up there on my back, an' digged 



