A wreck at sea?
He turned again up the lane.

He had never seen a wreck.

What an opportunity for a poet; and on such a night too: it would be magnificent if the moon would but come out! Just the scene, too, for his excited temper! He will work on upward, let it blow and rain as it may.

He is not disappointed.

Ere he has gone a hundred yards, a mass of dripping oil-skins runs full butt against him, knocking him against the bank; and, by the clank of weapons, he recognises the coast-guard watchman.
"Hillo!--who's that?
Beg your pardon, sir," as the man recognises Elsley's voice.
"What is it ?--what are the guns ?" "God knows, sir! Overright the Chough and Crow; on 'em, I'm afeard.
There they go again!--hard up, poor souls! God help them!" and the man runs shouting down the lane.
Another gun, and another; but long ere Elsley reaches the cliff, they are silent; and nothing is to be heard but the noise of the storm, which, loud as it was below among the wood, is almost intolerable now that he is on the open down.
He struggles up the lane toward the cliff, and there pauses, gasping, under the shelter of a wall, trying to analyse that enormous mass of sound which fills his ears and brain, and flows through his heart like maddening wine.