IT is the first south-westerly gale of the autumn. Its violence is
increasing every minute, although the rain has ceased for awhile. For
weeks sky and sea have been beautiful, but they have been tame. Now for
some unknown reason there is a complete change, and all the strength of
nature is awake. It is refreshing to be once more brought face to face
with her tremendous power, and to be reminded of the mystery of its going
and coming. It is soothing to feel so directly that man, notwithstanding
his science and pretentions, his subjugation of steam and electricity, is
as nothing compared with his Creator. The air has a freshness and odour
about it to which we have long been strangers. It has been dry, and
loaded with fine dust, but now it is deliciously wet and clean. The wind
during the summer has changed lightly through all the points of the
compass, but it has never brought any scent save that of the land,
nothing from a distance. Now it is charged with messages from the ocean.
The sky is not uniformly overcast, but is covered with long horizontal
folds of cloud, very dark below and a little lighter where they turn up
one into the other. They are incessantly modified by the storm, and
fragments are torn away from them which sweep overhead. The sea, looked
at from the height, shows white edges almost to the horizon, and although
the waves at a distance cannot be distinguished, the tossing of a
solitary vessel labouring to get round the point for shelter shows how
vast they are. The prevailing colour of the water is greyish-green,
passing into deep-blue, and perpetually shifting in tint. A quarter of a
mile away the breakers begin, and spread themselves in a white sheet to
the land.
A couple of gulls rise from the base of the cliffs to a height of about a
hundred feet above them. They turn their heads to the south-west, and
hover like hawks, but without any visible movement of their wings. They
are followed by two more, who also poise themselves in the same way.
Presently all four mount higher, and again face the tempest. They do not
appear to defy it, nor even to exert themselves in resisting it. What to
us below is fierce opposition is to them a support and delight. How
these wonderful birds are able to accomplish this feat no mathematician
can tell us. After remaining stationary a few minutes, they wheel round,
once more ascend, and then without any effort go off to sea directly in
the teeth of the hurricane.