26o NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



of spray so thick that it looked like an enormous cloud 

 of steam. Vessels at their moorings were smothered in 

 it, and the water roared down the inner side of the pier 

 like a gigantic cataract. 



Warily we struggled out of the little door of the 

 lighthouse lantern, and looked at the advancing seas. 

 Even at that height above the water the spray was 

 carried far over our heads ; it was impossible to face the 

 fury of the storm, and the stoutest heart might well have 

 quailed at that plain of raging waters. 



I clambered back with my friend into the lantern, down 

 the worn stone steps, and back into the office, and thence 

 on to the pier. Before I left I wrested from the heads 

 of the harbour the admission that the gale was a hard 

 one ; and that the wind was blowing at something like 

 ninety miles an hour. As I struggled homeward the old 

 house-fronts were white to the eaves with snow, and the 

 ruthless wind was wrenching out the weakest bricks and 

 slates. 



It was a wild, uncompromising night the sort of 

 weather to make you raise your hat to the harbour-master 

 and his staff and the oil-skinned figures who tugged at 

 wheel and tiller, and kept their craft up in the race that 

 runs round Castle Hill when the gale comes in from 

 east or north. 



