The danger lay in the heavy
fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little apprehension.
Neither wind nor sun, however, favoured Staple Inn one December afternoon towards six o'clock, when it was filled with
fog, and candles shed murky and blurred rays through the windows of all its then-occupied sets of chambers; notably from a set of chambers in a corner house in the little inner quadrangle, presenting in black and white over its ugly portal the mysterious inscription:
here will soon be an end of the firing, for yonder comes a
fog that will turn day to night, and make an Indian arrow more dangerous than a molded cannon.
Or perhaps the summer
fog was more general, and the meadows lay like a white sea, out of which the scattered trees rose like dangerous rocks.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense
fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar.
The
fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they could not see ten paces ahead.
That was all right as far as it went, but the towhead warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot out into the solid white
fog, and hadn't no more idea which way I was going than a dead man.
I have said that over the great Grimpen Mire there hung a dense, white
fog. It was drifting slowly in our direction and banked itself up like a wall on that side of us, low but thick and well defined.
I'm sure all the ships that ever sailed out of Four Winds to their doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with their drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding
fog could suddenly be drawn aside.
But Disko's board was the Grand Bank - a triangle two hundred and fifty miles on each side a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dank
fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishing-fleet.
If
Fog were non-existent, all lines would appear equally and indistinguishably clear; and this is actually the case in those unhappy countries in which the atmosphere is perfectly dry and transparent.
It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first
fog of the season.