een far down the
flickering, ghostly forms of great fish--fish, as it seemed to me, such
as naturalist never knew, and which my imagination transformed into the
genii of that desolate bay. Once, as I stood by the brink of the waters
upon a quiet night, a great cry, as of a woman in hopeless grief, rose
from the bosom of the deep, and swelled out upon the still air, now
sinking and now rising, for a space of thirty seconds. This I heard with
my own ears.

In this strange spot, with the eternal hills behind me and the eternal
sea in front, I worked and brooded for more than two years unpestered
by my fellow men. By degrees I had trained my old servant into habits of
silence, so that she now rarely opened her lips, though I doubt not that
when twice a year she visited her relations in Wick, her tongue during
those few days made up for its enforced rest. I had come almost to
forget that I was a member of the human family, and to live entirely
with the dead whose books I pored over, when a sudden incident occurred
which threw all my thoughts into a new channel.

Three rough days in June had been succeeded by one calm and peaceful
one. There was not a breath of air that evening. The sun sank down in
the west behind a line of purple clouds, and the smooth surface of the
bay was gashed with scarlet streaks. Along the beach the pools left by
the tide showed up like gouts of blood against the yellow sand, as if
some wounded giant had toilfully passed that way, and had left these
red traces of his grievous hurt behind him. As the darkness closed
in, certain ragged clouds which had lain low on the eastern horizon
coalesced and formed a great irregular cumulus. The glass was still low,
and I knew that there was mischief brewing. About nine o'clock a
dull moaning sound came up from the sea, as from a creature who, much
harassed, learns that the hour of suffering has come round again. At ten
a sharp breeze sprang up from the eastward. At eleven it had increased
to a gale, and by midnight the most furious storm was raging which I
ever remember upon that weather-beaten coast.

As I went to bed the shingle and seaweed were pattering up against my
attic window, and the wind was screaming as though every gust were a
lost soul. By that time the sounds of the tempest had become a lullaby
to me. I knew that the grey walls of the old house would buffet it out,
and for what occurred in the world outside I had small concern. Old
Madge was usu