noon
It is a wild-looking yet land-locked harbour on the Devonshire coast . Black rocks rise sheer up out of the water on either side of the entrance , and give it a particularly melancholy and unattractive appearance . One of the owners had come round in the brig , but he had landed and taken a post-chaise back towards London . In the morning the brig sailed , and by noon the gale was blowing with its fiercest violence . In vain my poor mother watched and waited for his return ; from that time to the present neither my father nor any of his crew were again heard of . The brig with all hands must have foundered , or , as likely as not , been run down at no great distance from Plymouth itself . My mother , who had borne so bravely and uncomplainingly her own personal sufferings , sunk slowly but surely under this dispensation of Providence .