Our village lies near the centre of Moonfleet Bay, a great bight twenty
miles across, and a death-trap to up-channel sailors in a
south-westerly gale. For with that wind blowing strong from south, if
you cannot double the Snout, you must most surely come ashore; and many
a good ship failing to round that point has beat up and down the bay
all day, but come to beach in the evening. And once on the beach, the
sea has little mercy, for the water is deep right in, and the waves
curl over full on the pebbles with a weight no timbers can withstand.
Then if poor fellows try to save themselves, there is a deadly
under-tow or rush back of the water, which sucks them off their legs,
and carries them again under the thundering waves. It is that back-suck
of the pebbles that you may hear for miles inland, even at Dorchester,
on still nights long after the winds that caused it have sunk, and
which makes people turn in their beds, and thank God they are not
fighting with the sea on Moonfleet beach.
But on this third of November there was no wreck, only such a wind as I
have never known before, and only once since. All night long the tempest
grew fiercer, and I think no one in Moonfleet went to bed; for there was
such a breaking of tiles and glass, such a banging of doon and rattling
of shutters, that no sleep was possible, and we were afraid besides lest
the chimneys should fall and crush us.
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