three in the morning
What good end could be gained by fidgeting him ? But she knew now that her life would be weighted with an anxiety hard to bear , until his hesitating return of memory should make its decision of success or failure . A guarantee of the latter would have been most to her liking , but how could she hope for that now ? The speculative weather-wisdom of the tattooed capstan-driver was confirmed when three in the morning came , and the full of the tide . The wind must have gone round to the southward , or to some equally stimulating quarter , to judge by the work it got through that night in the way of roofs blown off and chimney-pots blown down ; standing crops laid flat and spoiled for reaping ; trees too full of leaf to bear such rough treatment compelled to tear up half their roots and fall , or pay tribute to the gale in boughs snapped asunder in time to spare their parent stem . All these results we landsmen could see for ourselves next day , after the storm had died down , and when the air was so delightful after it that we took walks in the country on purpose to enjoy it . But for the mischief it did that night at sea , from sportively carrying away the spars of ships , which they wanted for their own use , or blowing a stray reefer from the weather-earring , to sending a full crew to the depths below , or on jagged rocks no message from the white foam above could warn the look-out of in time -- for the record of this we should have belated intermittent newspaper paragraphs , ever so long after .