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All the passengers ill but me, and every prospect of a north-easter all the way over, continued the lively Amanda, lurching briskly about the passage with her hands in her pockets. Matilda dropped her lemons and her bottles to wring her hands, and Lavinia softly murmured 'Lord, what fools we mortals be, That we ever go to sea!

We presented quite an imposing sight while thus marching on in silence and order, with our flags flying, and the red blanket robes of the men streaming behind them as the furious north-easter blew right on our flank.

The vessel on the Goodwins was the three-masted schooner or barquentine The Crocodile, laden with stone from Guernsey to London, and when about a mile or so north of the Goodwins 'reaching' on the port tack, 'missed stays' in the heavy sea, and before they had time to 'wear' ship, she struck the northern face of the Goodwins, against which a tremendous sea was driven by the black north-easter that was blowing from the Pole.

The dark threatening clouds which had enveloped the heavens for the past twenty-four hours now cleared away, although the wind still blew pretty fresh from the south-west, and the sun coming out, Captain Billings told me to go and fetch my sextant in order to take an observation so as to ascertain our true position; for, first with the north-easter, and then with the squall from the south, we had been so driven here, there, and everywhere, that it was difficult to form any reasonable surmise as to where we really were especially as there was a strong current supposed to run round Cape Horn from the Pacific towards the Atlantic Ocean at certain tides.

We are twisted face about to discover our being saved by women from that horror the joining the ranks of the nasal friars. By what women? Bacchante, clearly, if the wife we have is a North-easter to wither us, blood, bone, and soul. He was hungry; he waxed furious with the woman who had flung him out upon the roads. He was thirsty as well.

But the greatest danger which the sailors had to encounter was the peril of being wrecked by the furious storms which continually ravage the Atlantic coast. The sailor loves the open sea in a blow; but until the civil war, no captain had ever dared to lie tugging at his cables within a mile or two of a lee shore, with a stiff north-easter lashing the sea into fury.

Here one cannot ride "into the teeth of a north-easter," for such the trade-wind really is, without feeling at once invigorated, and wrapped in an atmosphere of balm.

When he left the train at the Waverley station he saw her on the platform and she gave him a slight bow, but he understood that their acquaintance ended there and was content. After lunch he walked along, Princes Street and back to the castle. The sky was clear, the sun shone on the old tall houses, and a nipping north-easter blew across the Forth.

Thus it came to pass that a week later, when a north-easter had met a south-wester overhead and both in combination had turned New York streets into a series of funnels, in and through which wind, sleet and snow fought for possession, to the almost absolute dispossession of humanity and horses, that Peter ended a long stare at his blank wall by putting on his dress-suit, and plunging into the streets.

I was roused up with the so often heard cry, "All hands shorten sail!" I hurried on deck to find the brig plunging into a heavy sea, which was straining every timber in her. A fierce north-easter was blowing. To attempt to face it was impossible, and it was not without difficulty that we got the brig's head round from it. Away we went before the wind, and away from England and my home.