The Watchman was the outermost headland of our coast and a landmark from
afar--a great gray hill on the point of Good Promise by the Gate; our
craft, running in from the Hook-an'-Line grounds off Raven Rock, rounded
the Watchman and sped thence through the Gate and past Frothy Point into
harbour. It was bold and bare--scoured by the weather--and dripping wet
on days when the fog hung thick and low. It fell sharply to the sea by
way of a weather-beaten cliff, in whose high fissures the gulls, wary of
the hands of the lads of the place, wisely nested; and within the
harbour it rose from Trader's Cove, where, snug under a broken cliff,
stood our house and the little shop and storehouse and the broad
drying-flakes and the wharf and fish-stages of my father's business.
From the top there was a far, wide outlook--all sea and rock: along the
ragged, treeless coast, north and south, to the haze wherewith, in
distances beyond the ken of lads, it melted; and upon the thirty wee
white houses of our folk, scattered haphazard about the harbour water,
each in its own little cove and each with its own little stage and great
flake; and over the barren, swelling rock beyond, to the blue
wilderness, lying infinitely far away.