CHAPTER XX 



WINTER AT AN OLD-WORLD HARBOUR 



ONE winter's day, early in the New Year, I looked out 

 of my window and saw that the snow was falling thickly 

 and that the wind was blowing in from the sea. I 

 raised the sash and listened and heard the roar of the 

 rising tide on the beach. It was the boom of the grow- 

 ing gale the call to arms. I got into my heaviest cloth- 

 ing and hurried down the Valley to the foreshore. It 

 was somewhat like going down a colossal megaphone 

 and getting to the enormous mouth and meeting the 

 collected forces of the salted breeze. Wind and wave 

 were driving landward with united voices, and there was 

 a vast dull and growing roar. In such a wild commo- 

 tion it is better to be alone ; there is neither wish nor 

 breath for talk. All one's strength is needed to keep a 

 footing and struggle on. Occasionally one is picked up 

 and carried bodily into the air until a friendly obstruction 

 stops the journey. 



I have seen a north-east gale pick up a heavy fisher- 

 man and hurl him against a post on a pier, breaking his 

 leg. I have seen a Yorkshire coast town stripped of 

 slates and bereft of chimney-pots by the same fierce 

 agency. No very old or modern shoddy work can 

 stand against the charges of the bitter wind that comes 



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