SALISBURY,
_October_.
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It is just at dawn that the coming day declares itself most plainly;
not earlier, not later. This morning at peep o' day the wind was NNW.,
the air delicate and peaceful. A band of dirty red water washed in
fantastic outline along the cliffs. The sea, with its calm great
rollers, bore upon it only the rags of last night's fury; as if it had
been less a part of the storm than a thing buffeted by the storm, and
now glad to sink into tranquillity. The air was scented with land
smells. Shafts of the dawn's sunlight beamed across it. Three punts put
off to find out if the lobster-pots had been washed away; the sea had
its little boats upon it again. But the sky, to the SW., was looking
very wild. The wind was SW. in the offing.
While we were at breakfast a southerly squall burst open the kitchen
door. Mrs Widger got up to see what child it was. A screaming sea-gull
mocked her.
The storm came. The trees by the railway bowed and tossed. Rain
spattered against the carriage windows. Dead leaves scurried by. I
wanted to get out, to go back. I wanted to know whether Tony was at
sea. Here, at Salisbury they are already talking about the 'great
storm'; some of the beautiful elms are down. What must the storm have
been at Seacombe!
Curiously, I felt, the first time for years, as if I were leaving home
for boarding school--the warmth behind, the chill in front. I smelt
again the rank soft-soap in the great bare schoolrooms.
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