Among the pleasantest memories of my earlier days is one of an old gabled farmhouse overlooking the sea. It is a July afternoon, calm and hot. The sea is pale blue and its surface glassy smooth; but the passage of a storm somewhere to the eastward causes long slumberous undulations to lapse shorewards. They break upon the Devil’s Ribs — that low black reef about half a mile out — and the sound is borne to our ears some seconds after the white-foam line has marked itself against the blue and vanished. There is a fine throb of sun-loving insects in the air, which we may hear if we listen for it; but more immediately audible is the guttural drawing of old Jack Poyntz’s meerschaum pipe, and the delicate clicking of his sweet daughter Agatha’s polished knitting-needles. From within doors comes
