STAR AND WEATHER GOSSIP 



CHAPTER I 

 WHEN THE NORTH SEA RAGES 



How gently, how insinuatingly, it came to our little 

 north-eastern promontory ! A discoloured swell under 

 a blue sky in the daytime ; a nightfall troubled with 

 hollow draughts of air and sighing sounds, sounds that 

 mingled weirdly with the dull rumour of the sea. 

 That was all. 



But the dwellers by the shore had misgivings ; the 

 watchers at the dock-head were expectant. So, too, 

 were the alertful coastguardsmen on their rounds ; 

 they knew that the storm-cone had been hoisted on 

 the weedy old jetty with the wooden beacon not many 

 hours before. Yet from sheer force of habit all being 

 men of the sea they kept glancing at the sky. And 

 they observed that the stars did not twinkle that 

 November night, but were steady, and dim, too, as 

 the planets are in the warm haze of a summer's eve. 



These men of the sea, skilled in the reading of 

 weather signs, turned away thoughtfully ; the coast- 

 guardsmen on their watchful walk, the harbour- 



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