100 TEE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



yellow tan frocks are busy round about among them, 

 some mending nets, somo stooping over a boat turned 

 bottom upwards, upon which a patch is being placed. 

 It needs at least three or four men to manage this 

 patch properly. These tan frocks vary from a dull 

 yellow to a copperish red colour. A golden vane high 

 overhead points to the westward, and the dolphin, with 

 open mouth, faces the light breeze. 



Under the groynes there is shadow as in summer ; 

 once and again the sea runs up and breaks on the beach, 

 and the foam, white as the whitest milk, hisses as it 

 subsides among the pebbles ; it effervesces and bubbles 

 at the brim of the cup of the sea. Farther along the 

 chalk cliffs stand up clear and sharp, the green sea 

 beneath, and the blue sky above them. There is a light 

 and colour everywhere, the least fragment of colour is 

 brought out, even the worn red tiles washed smooth by 

 the tides and rolled over and over among the pebbles, 

 the sea gleams, and there is everything of summer but 

 the heat Reflected in the plate-glass windows of the 

 street the sea occupies the shop front, covering over 

 the golden bracelets and jewellery with a moving 

 picture of the silvery waves. The day is lengthened 

 by the light, and dark winter driven away, till, the 

 sun's curve approaching the horizon, misty vapours 

 begin to thicken in the atmosphere where they had 

 not been suspected. The tide is out, and for miles the 

 foam runs in on the level sands, forming a long suc- 

 cession of graceful curves marked with a white edge. 



As the sun sinks, the wet sands are washed with a 

 brownish yellow, the colour of ripe wheat if it could 

 be supposed liquid. The sunset, which has begun 



