"My lad comes running down the street,
And what says he to me?
Says he, 'O dadda, dadda,
And you're back again from sea!

"'And did you ketch a great big fish
And bring him home to me?
O dadda, dadda, take me up
And toss me high!' says he.

"My love looks out on the stormy morn,
Her thoughts are on the sea.
She says, ''Tis wild upon the Banks,'
And kneels in prayer for me."

"'O Father, hold him safe!' she prays, 'And----'"

* * * * *

"There's one, Simon!" he called.

A bad sea he meant. They had been coming and going, coming and going,
rolling under and past us, and so far no harm; but this was one more
wicked to look at than its mates. So I dropped the coiling lines and,
with the oar already to the becket in the stern, whirled the dory's bow
head on. The sea carried us high and far and, passing, left the dory
deep with water, but no harm in that so she was still right side up.

"A good job, Simon," said Hugh Glynn the while we were bailing. "Not too
soon and not too late."

That was the first one. More followed in their turn; but always the oar
was handy in the becket, and it was but to whirl bow or stern to it with
the oar when it came, not too soon to waste time for the hauling but
never, of course, too late to save capsizing; and bailing her out, if
need be, when it was by.

Our trawl was in, our fish in the waist of the dory, and we lay to our
roding line and second anchor, so we might not drift miles to loo'ard
while waiting for the vessel to pick us up. We could see the vessel--to
her hull, when to the top of a sea we rose together; but nothing of her
at all when into the hollows we fell together.

She had picked up all but the dory next to wind'ard of us. We would be
the last, but before long now she would be to us. "When you drop Simon
and me, go to the other end of the line and work back. Pick Simon and me
up last of all," Hugh Glynn had said to Saul, and I remember how Saul,
standing to the wheel, looked down over the taffrail and said, "Simon
and you last of all," and nodded his head as our dory fell away in the
vessel's wake.

Tide and sea were such that there was no use trying to row against it,
or we would not have waited at all; but we waited, and as we waited the
wind, which had been southerly, went into the east and snow fell; but
for not more than a half-hour, when it cleared. We stood up and looked
about us. There was no ves