Note (return) — THE SKETCH-BOOK.

A short time before my departure from the hamlet of Landwithiel,4 I was awoke early one morning by the roaring of the wind in the huge old chimney of my room—the whole tenement, indeed, occasionally shook as a violent gust swept down the valley, tossing the branches of the stout old tree before the door to and fro in a way that threatened at last to level them with the dust. The very briny scent of the atmosphere convinced me there was some sea running in the bay; and it was the more unexpected as we had had no tokens of a storm for several days previous. From the peninsular situation of this county, surrounded on almost every side with the restless ocean and exposed to the wide sweep of the Atlantic, it may be supposed that storms are of frequent occurrence. As on the present occasion, they often come with little or no warning; and the effects of a hurricane in the distant main, far outstripping the wind, sometimes rolls with tremendous fury towards our western shores, on which the sea is encroaching in every part.