I LOOK out of my window, and find that the snow is falling thickly, and that the wind is blowing in from the sea. I raise the Bash and listen, and hear the roar of the rising tide upon the beach. It is the boom of the growing gale.

I get into my heaviest clothing, and hurry down the Valley to the foreshore. Here I find that wind and wave are waging war, and are driving landward with united voices. East- ward there are tumbling yellow seas, and ghostlike in the South Bay are steamboats, which are waiting till the tide serves, BO that they may seek the shelter of the harbour. The air is thick—like fog—with snow and spray, and already, three hours before high water, there are signs of what the seas will be when we have reached the top of the flood. Waves are rushing and swirling round the end of the East Pier, and the mass of stonework is from time to time smothered in the breaking waters.

The combers are thundering on the beach, and the surf is whipped from the crests and carried townward in a great grey cloud. Above is the leaden, sullen sky, ahead is the gloomy Castle Hill, alongside is the long procession of the seas, underfoot is the slushy snow, and about you is the swiftly growing storm. From the chimneys of the old town, rising on the hill- side, comes the smoke, which is caught by the levelling wind, and mingles with the ocean's spray.

I fight my way along the foreshore, and as I pass the Life-boat house the doors are flung wide open, oil-skinned men are putting ou their life-belts, and the crew are standing by in.

readiness to meet a call. The first of the steamboats, a battered paddle-vessel, is making for the harbour, although the tide-ball has not yet been hoisted. I press along, and struggle down the lighthouse pier, and there I learn once more what a winter's gale at Scarborough is like, and what it means to those in charge of the old-time harbour.

Harbour-master, deputy harbour-master, and staff are all clothed in oil-frocks, sou'-westers, and heavy top - boots — clothing which you would think would defy the weather of the Horn itself; and yet there is not one who is not wet to the skin. Bain and snow and deluge of sea beat through their garments, and the glistening figures flounder at their duty in the perfection of discomfort.

On the lighthouse pier there is thud of sea, groan of machinery, clank of paddle, howl of wind, and roar of human voice. At the har- bour mouth there is confusion and disorder, for * From the forhihire Pott.

the London boat, an ugly lump of a coaster, has got athwart the entrance, and there is not water enough to float her. She is a danger to herself and the incoming, rushing steamboats, and desperate is the effort that is made to berth her, so thtft she shall be herself in safety, and removed from the track of the traffic. While men on board and ashore are getting her away, the steamboats are running home. They ride in on the swelling seas, lost to view time after time in the snow and spray-filled air. They come, now wallowing in the trough, now rising on some huge crest; at times caught broadside and swept toward the bay with an appalling force. You hold your breath as they beat gallantly in. You see the great waves crumble at the end of the East Pier, you notice the swirl of the tide, and you see dimly, as through a mist, that fatal shore on which so many ships and men have perished. Over the bay, in the welter, you discern the Spa, and wonder if that storm-beaten spot can ever be the chosen haunt of much that is fairest and brightest in. the covmtiy.

" 'Ere she comes! 'Old her up, Skipper! Now she does it! No she doesn't! She'll miss it! No she won't! " You are standing under the lee of the waterhouse sheltering with a group of fishermen, and you hear their excited comments as the brave old weather- beuten trawlers—the like of which you will not find elsewhere than off the Tyne and Scar- borough—rush round the pier-head, with their paddles thumping and their oil-clad crews at their stations on the sea-swept deck. There is heaving of ropes, bawling of orders, twirling of steering-wheels—and the ancient craft steam calmly into the harbour and up to their buoys.

They have fought another fight, and it is still well with them.

The sea is growing mightily, and a little screw-boat—she is a " Hullman"—with a free- board of something like three feet, conies through the smother of the gale and is swept onward like a shell. Three men are in her wheelhouse, and they rush her round as no one but North Sea smacksmen can rush a trawler round the race of Castle Hill. Still all is bustle, for the boats keep coming in. Then as the evening closes, harbour-master, deputy, and staff sigh with relief, for the worst is over for the present; their time of greatest anxiety has passed and they can seek temporary refuge from the storm.

I have long since sought refuge in the office at the base of the lighthouse. Time after time the seas sweep in almost solid sheets against the rounded side, and the little window by thedesk is deluged. At intervals there comes a sea which smashes upon and over the Bast Pier, • -with a force so terrific that the lighthouse : positively jumps, for the shock comes through ; to the structure by way of the booms connect- ' ing the outer breakwater with the bead of the I Lighthouse Pier. j The door opens, and in come the harbour-1 master and the deputy. They are drenched , with the seas and the soft snow, and numb with ' their exposure. They will, they say, want " a | dry shift from clew to earing," and one pro- | ceeds to remove his " soul and body lashing," ! as he terms it—Sn other words, a rope which j he has fastened round his body to keep Ms oil- frock secure.

I accompany the deputy harbour-master to the lantern to light the flashing apparatus.

There I feel tiie Lighthouse tremble with the shocks of the charging seas. I look through the windows, too, towards the whitening hill— the other panes are thick with snow and ice— and there I beheld a spectacle such as few even of the Scarborough residents have been privi- leged to witness. The gale is now at its height, and it is the top of the flood. The, panorama is appalling in its grandeur. Billow charges upon billow, in one wild whirl, aad with irresistible fury charges the massive breakwater. There is the collision, the spout- ing high in air of the torn sea, and the sweep- ing over the two harbours of spray so thick that it looks like an enormous cloud of steam.

Vessels at their moorings are swallowed up in the spray, and the water rolls down the inner side of the pier like 8 gigantic cataract.

Warily, we struggle out of the little door of the lantern, and look at the advancing seas.

Even at that height above the water the spray is carried far above our heads; it is impossible to face the fury of the storm, and the stoutest heart must almost quail at that furious plain of water.

It is well that my friend assures me that this is as nothing compared with the same sight from a steamer's bridge. I clamber with him back into the lantern, down the steps, aad back into the office, and thence on to the pier. Before I leave I wrest from the heads of the harbour the admission that the gale is a hard one, and that the wind is blowing something like ninety miles an hour. As I straggle homeward the old house fronts are white to the eaves with snow, and the relentles* wind is wrenching out the weakest bricks and slates.

It is a wild, uncompromising night; it is the sort of weather to make you raise your hat to the harbour-master and his staff, and the oil- skinned figures who tug at wheel and tiller, and keep their craft up in the race that runs round Castle Hill when the gale comes in from the east or north.

WALTER WOOD..