Groynes had been run down to intercept him and divert him.
He generally did his winter mischief on a mill and salt marshes lower westward.

Mr.Tinman had always been extremely zealous in promoting the expenditure of what moneys the town had to spare upon the protection of the shore, as it were for the propitiation or defiance of the sea-god.
There was a kindly joke against him an that subject among brother jurats.

He retorted with the joke, that the first thing for Englishmen to look to were England's defences.
But it will not do to be dwelling too fondly on our eras of peace, for which we make such splendid sacrifices.

Peace, saving for the advent of a German band, which troubled the repose of the town at intervals, had imparted to the inhabitants of Crikswich, within and without, the likeness to its most perfect image, together, it must be confessed, with a degree of nervousness that invested common events with some of the terrors of the Last Trump, when one night, just upon the passing of the vernal equinox, something happened..