and at high tides there is no shingle ledge at all, but the crest of the
wave volleys up the incline, and the surf rushes on to the top of it.
For the cove, though sheltered from other quarters, receives the full
brunt of northeasterly gales, and offers no safe anchorage. But the
hardy fishermen make the most of its scant convenience, and gratefully
call it "North Landing," albeit both wind and tide must be in good
humor, or the only thing sure of any landing is the sea. The long
desolation of the sea rolls in with a sound of melancholy, the gray fog
droops its fold of drizzle in the leaden-tinted troughs, the pent cliffs
overhang the flapping of the sail, and a few yards of pebble and of weed
are all that a boat may come home upon harmlessly. Yet here in the old
time landed men who carved the shape of England; and here even in these
lesser days, are landed uncommonly fine cod.

The difficulties of the feat are these: to get ashore soundly, and then
to make it good; and after that to clinch the exploit by getting on
land, which is yet a harder step. Because the steep of the ground, like
a staircase void of stairs, stands facing you, and the cliff upon either
side juts up close, to forbid any flanking movement, and the scanty
scarp denies fair start for a rush at the power of the hill front. Yet
here must the heavy boats beach themselves, and wallow and yaw in the
shingly roar, while their cargo and crew get out of them, their gunwales
swinging from side to side, in the manner of a porpoise rolling, and
their stem and stern going up and down like a pair of lads at seesaw.

But after these heavy boats have endured all that, they have not found
their rest yet without a crowning effort. Up that gravelly and gliddery
ascent, which changes every groove and run at every sudden shower, but
never grows any the softer--up that the heavy boats must make clamber
somehow, or not a single timber of their precious frames is safe. A big