The waters came down, swollen full and dark, with rapid rushing speed from the snow-fed springs high up on the moorland above.

The close-packed houses in the old town seemed a cluster of white roofs irregularly piled against the more unbroken white of the hill-side.
Lights twinkled here and there in the town, and were slung from stern and bow of the ships in the harbour.

The air was very still, settling in for a frost; so still that all distant sounds seemed near: the rumble of a returning cart in the High Street, the voices on board ship, the closing of shutters and barring of doors in the new town to which they were bound.

But the sharp air was filled, as it were, with saline particles in a freezing state; little pungent crystals of sea salt burning lips and cheeks with their cold keenness.

It would not do to linger here in the very centre of the valley up which passed the current of atmosphere coming straight with the rushing tide from the icy northern seas.