noon
It uprooted giant trees along the river , and with them the tiny rootlets of the life he was idly fostering . The morning had been fitfully turbulent , the wind veering several points south and west , with suspicions lulls , unlike the steady onset of the regular southwest trades . High overhead the long manes of racing cirro stratus streamed with flying gulls and hurrying water-fowl ; plover piped incessantly , and a flock of timorous sand-pipers sought the low ridge of his cabin , while a wrecking crew of curlew hastily manned the uprooted tree that tossed wearily beyond the bar . By noon the flying clouds huddled together in masses , and then were suddenly exploded in one vast opaque sheet over the heavens . The sea became gray , and suddenly wrinkled and old . There was a dumb , half-articulate cry in the air , -- rather a confusion of many sounds , as of the booming of distant guns , the clangor of a bell , the trampling of many waves , the creaking of timbers and soughing of leaves , that sank and fell ere you could yet distinguish them . And then it came on to blow .