Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/113

 the cloudless January sky the sun at noonday appears high above the southern horizon, and there is a broad band of sky between it and the line of the sea. This sense of the sun's elevation is caused by the level plain of water, which affords no contrast. Inland the hills rise up, and even at midday the sun in winter does not seem much above their ridges. But here by the shore the sun hangs high, and does not look as if he descended so low in his winter curve. There is little vind, and the wavelets swing gently rather than roll, illumined both in their hollows and on their crests with a film of silver. Three or four miles away a vessel at anchor occasionally sways, and at each movement flashes a bright gleam from her wet side like a mirror. White gulls hawk to and fro by the strand, darting on floating fragments and rising again; their plumage is snowy white in the sunshine. Brown nets lie on the pebbles; brown nets are stretched from the mastheads of the smacks to the sea-wall; brown and deeply wrinkled sails are hoisted to dry in the sun and air. The broad red streaks on the smacks' sides stand out distinctly among the general pitchy hues of gunwales and great coils of rope. Men in dull