In the cloudless January sky the sun at noonday appears high above the southern horizon, and there is a broad band of sky between it and the line of the sea. This sense of the sun's elevation is caused by the level plain of water, which affords no contrast. Inland the hills rise up, and even at midday the sun in winter does not seem much above their ridges. But here by the shore the sun hangs high, and does not look as if he descended so low in his winter curve. There is little wind, and the wavelets swing gently rather than roll, illumined both in their hollows and on their crests with a film of silver. Three or four miles away a vessel at anchor occasionally sways, and at each movement flashes a bright gleam from her wet side like a mirror. White gulls hawk to and fro by the strand, darting on floating fragments and rising again; their plumage is snowy white in the sunshine. Brown nets lie on the pebbles; brown nets are stretched from the mastheads of the smacks to the sea-wall; brown and deeply wrinkled sails are hoisted to dry in the sun and air. The broad red streaks on the smacks' sides stand out distinctly among the general pitchy hues of gunwales and great coils of rope. Men in dull yellow tan frocks are busy round about among them, some mending nets some stooping over a boat turned bottom upwards, upon which a patch is being placed. It needs at least three or four men to manage this patch properly. These tan frocks vary from a dull yellow to a copperish red colour. A golden vane high overhead points to the westward, and the dolphin, with open mouth, faces the light breeze. Under the groynes there is shadow as in summer; once and again the sea runs up and breaks on the beach, and the foam, white as the whitest milk, hisses as it subsides among the pebbles; it effervesces and bubbles at the brim of the cup of the sea. Farther along the chalk cliffs stand up clear and sharp, the green sea beneath, and the blue sky above them. There is a light and colour everywhere, the least fragment of colour is brought out, even the worn red tiles washed smooth by the tides and rolled over and over among the pebbles, the sea gleams, and there is everything of summer but the heat. Reflected in the plate-glass windows of the street the sea occupies the shop front, covering over the golden bracelets and jewellery with a moving picture of the silvery waves. The day is lengthened by the light, and dark winter driven away, till, the sun's curve approaching the horizon, misty vapours begin to thicken in the atmosphere where they had not been suspected. The tide is out, and for miles the foam runs in on the level sands, forming a long succession of graceful curves marked with a white edge.