III
What immediately happened was a storm at sea. He heard it mentioned at
Rhyl, and he saw, in the deep night, the foam of breakers at Prestatyn.
And when the train reached Llandudno, those two girls in ulsters and
caps greeted him with wondrous tales of the storm at sea, and of wrecks,
and of lifeboats. And they were so jolly, and so welcoming, so plainly
glad to see their cavalier again, that Denry instantly discovered
himself to be in the highest spirits. He put away the dark and brooding
thoughts which had disfigured his journey, and became the gay Denry of
his own dreams. The very wind intoxicated him. There was no rain.
It was half-past nine, and half Llandudno was afoot on the Parade and
discussing the storm--a storm unparalleled, it seemed, in the month of
August. At any rate, people who had visited Llandudno yearly for
twenty-five years declared that never had they witnessed such a storm.
The new lifeboat had gone forth, amid cheers, about six o'clock to a
schooner in distress near Rhos, and at eight o'clock a second lifeboat
(an old one which the new one had replaced and which had been bought for
a floating warehouse by an aged fisherman) had departed to the rescue of
a Norwegian barque, the _Hjalmar_, round the bend of the Little
Orme.
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