STORM AND TEMPEST


When we think of "the Border," the picture that rises to mind is usually
one of hill and dale, of peat-hag and heathery knoll, of brimming burns
that tumble headlong to meet the embrace of rivers hurrying to their
rest in the great ocean. One sees in imagination the solemn,
round-shouldered hills standing out grim in the thin spring sunshine,
their black sides slashed and lined with snow; later, one pictures these
hills decked with heartsease and blue-bells a-swing in the summer
breeze, or rich with the purple bloom of heather; and, again, one
imagines them clothed in November mists, or white and ghost-like,
shrouded in swirling clouds of snow.

But there is another part of the Border which the inland dweller is apt
to forget--that which, in sweep upon sweep of bay, or unbroken line of
cliff, extends up the coasts of Northumberland and Berwickshire. That is
a part of the Border which those who are not native to it know only in
the months of summer, when the sea is sapphire-blue, when surf creams
softly round the feet of limpet-covered rocks, and the little wavelets
laugh and sparkle as they slide over the shining sands. It is another
matter when Winter with his tempests comes roaring from the North. Where
are then the laughing waters and the smiling sunlit sands? Swallowed up
by wild seas with storm-tossed crests, that race madly landward to dash
themselves in blind fury on shoreless cliffs, or sweep resistless over a
shingly beach.

It is a cruel coast in the winter time, and its children had need be