Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/117

Rh exaggerated hour-glass; by the shore the reflection widens out, narrows as it recedes to a mere path, and again at the horizon widens and fills a mile or more. Then at the horizon the lighted sea seems raised above the general level. Rain is approaching, and then by the beach the sea becomes yellowish, beyond that green, and a hard blue at the horizon; there is one lovely streak of green on the right ; in front a broad spot of sunlight where the clouds have parted. The wind sings, and a schooner is working rapidly out to windward for more room. During changeable weather the sky between the clouds occasionally takes a pale yellow hue, like that of the tinted paper used for drawing. This colour is opaque, and evidently depends upon the presence of thin vapour. It is seen when the wind is in the act of changing its direction, and the clouds, arrested in their march, are thrown out of rank. That which was the side becomes the rear of the cloud, and is banked up by the sudden pressure. Clouds coming in from the sea are met with a land wind, and so diverted. The effect of mist on the sea in the dark winter days is to increase distances, so that a ship at four or five miles appears hull down, and her shadowy sails move in vapour almost as thick as the canvas. At evening there is no visible sunset, but presently the whole sky, dull and gloomy, is suffused with a redness, not more in one part than another, but over the entire heavens. So in the clouded mornings, a deep red hue fills the whole dome.

But if the sun rises clear, the rays light up the yellow sand of the quarries inland, the dark brown ploughed fields, and the black copses where many a