Star anfr TOeatber 



ii 



Noon saw the storm at its height. To be then at 

 the sea-front was utterly bewildering. The senses 

 were stunned by the terrible turmoil. The merciless 

 might of the ocean beat down all feelings save that of 

 an overpowering oppression. The heavens them- 

 selves seemed to have fallen on sea and land. The 

 sun's light was lost. An awful shadow eclipsed the 

 face of nature. 



A few pilots and fishermen only stood braving the 

 storm at the Heugh. Oilskinned and sou* westered, 

 they huddled behind the lighthouse yard wall, on the 

 New Pier side. They made an interesting group. 

 While the lowering scud flew over their heads, and the 

 sea-spray stung their faces and rattled on their oil- 

 skins, they tried to talk to one another. But shouting 

 their loudest they made themselves heard with diffi- 

 culty, and when the wind suddenly swept round the 

 seaward end of their sheltering wall it clipped off their 

 words with vicious abruptness. 



Of course, their disjointed conversation was of 

 wrecks and rescues. 'Tis ever so with these hardy 

 fellows when tempest falls on the north-east coast. 

 What more appropriate surroundings, indeed, could be 

 conceived for recalling such stirring sea-tragedies as 

 the loss of the French barque Franqais on Middleton 

 Beach, a mile away ; or the heartrending wreck, 

 almost at their feet, of the Rising Sun, of Sunderland ; 

 or the heroic attempts to rescue the crew of the 

 Granite, over the hurricane-swept bay yonder ! 



Starting from the northern side of the lighthouse 

 was the great Headland Protection Wall, built to 



