Summer 59 



Then a heavy black cloud, silver-fringed, interposes 

 between the moon and me. The silver track dis- 

 appears, leaving the ship more shadowy than before ; 

 the silver wavelets lose their brilliance ; the ebbing 

 and flowing silver stream becomes dull and lifeless. The 

 distant piers vanish into the dimness of the night. 



But the twinkling lights around the margin of the 

 bay twinkle more vivaciously. The great furnaces 

 under the Cleveland Hills flare more fiercely ; and 

 between them and me the shadowy ship comes stealthily 

 sailing. For a few moments she is distinctly outlined. 

 When she moves into the darkness again she takes 

 the poetry of the picture out with her. 



One dark morning of late summer I awoke to find 

 the air filled with the troubled rumour of the sea, and 

 it inspired me with a feeling akin to dread. I never 

 remembered the sound of the distant surf to have been 

 so weird. It quite accentuated the silence of that dark, 

 still morning and brought to me a sense of loneliness 

 almost oppressive. I might have been lying awake 

 on some surf-encircled isle in mid-ocean for all the 

 consciousness I had of a human environment. 



The sound started with a relatively high-pitched 

 note and descended the diapason until it became a 

 mere hollow rumble, heard ever so far off. It was as 

 though the breakers had retired from the beach out 

 into the middle of the bay. When the high note was 

 again struck, one could easily imagine the waves to 

 have returned right up the beach, just as the old im- 

 pression revived that they had once more retreated 

 seawards when the sound dwindled to low thunder. 



