210 A MEDLEY OF SPORT 



minutes later she was lying snugly at anchor in Leigh 

 swatchway. While we were furling the mainsail, 

 several other craft came and took up their moorings in 

 the sandbank sheltered channel, which, although the 

 snow veiled them from sight, we judged to be Leigh 

 bawleys, for at their advent the air became redolent of 

 shrimps, sprats, and strange oaths. 



A hurried snack, a glass of steaming grog, and with 

 the riding light burning brightly on the forestay, all 

 hands turned in shortly before midnight, to be lulled 

 into peaceful sleep by the thunder of the waves breaking 

 on the treacherous sands outside, and by the weird, wild 

 music of the wind as it struck the frozen rigging of the 

 ketch, and went howling and shrieking over the wide 

 estuary. 



Notwithstanding that both the captain and myself 

 were somewhat slow in turning out of our warm berths 

 next morning, we had breakfasted long before the 

 majority of citizens were astir, and upon going into the 

 well we found that the blizzard had taken its departure. 



The wind was still blowing pretty hard from N.N.E., 

 however, and the thermometer registered 19° of frost. 

 Looking shoreward, an Arctic-like scene lay before us. 

 As far as the eye could reach, the coastline was clothed 

 in a mantle of virgin white, and the Kentish hills, 

 although lying at least a dozen miles beyond the far- 

 stretching marshes of Hoo and Grain, appeared to be but 

 a very short distance across the grey, storm-tossed 

 waters of the estuary. 



