IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



the same week of 1917 two displays befell 

 which our fathers would have held portents 

 of the passing of many strong souls in battle. 

 The sky was blotched in every quarter as 

 with seeping blood that darkened, paled, 

 oozed afresh in horrid stains during the 

 space of an hour. 'Fearful lights' they 

 were in those days of dread, dismaying the 

 spirit, awakening no sense of beauty. 

 Strangely different the other, and no less 

 awesome. The north was ink-black, but 

 immense ragged clouds of white light arose 

 in the north-east, drove across the sky, sank 

 below the opposite horizon. Passing 

 swiftly as the amazed eye could follow 

 them, under impulse as it seemed of some 

 mighty wind, they wanly illuminated the 

 river's whole expanse, for an instant lit the 

 dark hills, and then the impenetrable cur- 

 tain of the night fell blank and sudden. 



If pardon should be prayed for lingering 

 over the theme of Murray Bay's weather, 

 it is bespoken for the part this has played 

 in drawing people thither: air indescrib- 

 ably fresh and stimulating, the assurance of 

 coolness when all the west and south wilts 

 and gasps; these gifts, with the river and 

 the everlasting hills, no meddling hand 

 may spoil. 



72 



