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. 2 A postcard from Tony-- "quite please to get your letter this morning it as been rough ever since you left Seacombe it was a gale the night you went Back the sea was all in over and knocking the boats about the road. I haven been out sea sinsce it is still rough hear now it is blowing a gale of wind I expect we shall get some witing and herring in the bay when the weather get fine the sea hear is like the cliff now red. Us aven catched nort nobody cant go to sea. "TONY. "I will write a letter soon. "P.S. Tony just waked up. George is coming home, Tony mazed with excitement and wishes you was here. "MAM W." So do I! 3 [Sidenote: _TONY OFF TO SEA_] The evening before I left Seacombe, Tony was telling us how upset and miserable he was, how he cried, when his two elder brothers left home to join the Navy. Also he told us what I knew nothing of before--his own one attempt to go to sea aboard a merchantman. When he was at Cloade's he looked on fishing as a refuge from groceries, and when he had given up groceries for fishing, he looked on a ship's fo'c'stle as a refuge from that. Fishing was very bad one summer. He and Dick Yeo agreed to run away together: