coats and sou'-westers, ran off them in streamlets--kept
turning their eyes seawards, endeavouring to penetrate the increasing
gloom.

"Here comes Adam Halliburt!" exclaimed one of them, turning round; "we
shall hear what he thinks of the weather. If he has made up his mind to
go to sea to-night, it must come on much worse than it now is to keep
him at home."

As these words were uttered, a tall man a little past middle age,
strongly-built and hardy-looking as the youngest, habited like the rest
in fisherman's costume, was seen approaching from the largest of the
cottages on the level ground. His face, though weather-beaten, glowed
with health, his forehead was broad, his bright blue eyes beaming with
good-nature and kindly feeling. He was followed by a stout fisher-boy
carrying a coil of rope over his shoulders, and a basket of provisions
in his hand. Two other lads, who had been with the men on the pier, ran
to meet him.

"They are doubtful about going to sea to-night. What do you think of
it, father?" said the eldest.

"There is nothing to stop us that I see, Ben, unless it comes on to blow
harder than it does now," answered Adam, in a cheery voice. "The
_Nancy_ knows her way to our fishing-grounds as well as we do, and it
must be a bad night indeed to stop her."

"What do you think of it, Adam?" asked two or three of the men, when he
got among them.

Halliburt turned his face seaward, sheltering his eyes with his hand
from the thick drizzle which the mist had now become.

"If the wind holds from the south-east there will be nothing to stop
us," he answered, after waiting a minute. "It is likely, however, to be
a dirtier night than I had thought for--I will own that. Jacob," he
said to his youngest boy, "do you go back and stay with your mother, she
wants some help in the house, and you can look after the pigs and
poultry before we are back in the morning."

Jacob, a fine lad of ten or twelve years, though he looked older, seemed
somewhat disappointed, as he had expected to have gone to sea with his
father and brothers. Without attempting, however, to expostulate, he
immediately turned back towards the cottage, while the rest of the party
proceeded to the _Nancy_, a fine yawl which lay at anchor close to the
pier.

She was quickly hauled alongside, when some of the men jumped into her.
Before following them, Adam Halliburt took another glance seaward. The
wind drove the rain and spray with great