a variety
of contradictory appearances about it which somewhat puzzle a visitor,
especially if he be accustomed to sea-coast towns and villages in other
parts of the country.

For one thing, all the boats seem hopelessly high and dry on the beach,
without the chance, and apparently without any intention, of ever being
got off again. Then there is, at certain seasons of the year, nothing
whatever doing. Great hard-fisted fellows, with nautical garments and
bronzed faces, are seen lounging about with their hands in their
pockets, and with a heavy slowness in their gait, which seems to imply
that they are elephantine creatures, fit only to be looked at and
wondered at as monuments of strength and laziness.

If the day happens to be fine and calm when the stranger visits the
beach, he will probably be impressed with the idea that here is an
accumulation of splendid sea-going _materiel_, which has somehow got
hopelessly stranded and become useless.

Of course, in the height of summer, there will be found bustle enough
among the visitants to distract attention from the fact to which I
allude; but in spring, before these migratory individuals arrive, there
is marvellously little doing on Deal beach in fine weather. The pilots
and boatmen lounge about, apparently amusing themselves with pipes and
telescopes; they appear to have no object in life but to kill time; they
seem a set of idle hulking fellows;--nevertheless, I should say,
speaking roughly, that at least the half of these men are heroes!

The sturdy oak, in fine weather, bends only its topmost branches to the
light wind, and its leaves and twigs alone are troubled by the summer
breeze; but when the gale lays low the trees of the forest and whirls
the leaves about like ocean spray, then the oak is stirred to wild
action; tosses its gnarled limbs in the air, and moves the very earth on
which it stands. So the heroes on Deal beach are sluggish and quiescent
while the sun shines and the butterflies are abroad; but let the storm
burst upon the sea; let the waves hiss and thunder on that steep pebbly
shore; let the breakers gleam on the horizon just over the fatal Goodwin
Sands, or let the night descend in horrid blackness, and shroud beach
and breakers alike from mortal view, then the man of Deal bestirs his
powerful frame, girds up his active loins, and claps on his sou'-wester;
launches his huge boat that seemed before so hopelessly high and dry;
hauls off through