now that the sea-fog
was gone. For the men of Farlingford, like nearly all seafarers, are
timorous of bad weather on shore and sit indoors during its passage,
while they treat storm and rain with a calm contempt at sea.

"Sail a-coming up the river, master," River Andrew said to Sep, who was
awaiting Miriam in the village street, and he walked on, without further
comment, spade on shoulder, toward the church-yard, where he spent a
portion of his day, without apparent effect.

So, when Miriam had done her shopping, it was only natural that they
should turn their footsteps toward the quay and the river-wall. Or was
it fate? So often is the natural nothing but the inevitable in holiday
garb.

"That is no Farlingford boat," said Sep, versed in riverside knowledge,
so soon as he saw the balance-lug moving along the line of the
river-wall, half a mile below the village.

They stood watching. Few coasters were at sea in these months of wild
weather, and there was nothing moving on the quay. The moss-grown
slip-way, where "The Last Hope" had been drawn up for repair, stood
gaunt and empty, half submerged by the flowing tide. Many Farlingford
men were engaged in the winter fisheries on the Dogger, and farther
north, in Lowestoft boats. In winter, Farlingford--thrust out into the
North Sea, surrounded by marsh--is forgotten by the world.

The solitary boat came round the corner into the wider sheet of water,
locally known as Quay Reach.

"A foreigner!" cried Sep, jumping, as was his wont, from one foot to the
other with excitement. "It is like the boat that was brought up by the
tide, with a dead man in it, long ago. And that was a Belgian boat."

Miriam was looking at the boat with a sudden brightness in her eyes, a
rush of colour to her cheeks, which were round and healthy and of that
soft clear pink which marks a face swept constantly by mist and a salty
air. In flat countries, where men may see each other, unimpeded by hedge
or tree or hillock, across a space measured only by miles, the eye is
soon trained--like the sailor's eye--to see and recognise at a great
distance.

There was no mistaking the attitude of the solitary steersman of this
foreign boat stealing quietly up to Farlingford on the flood tide. It
was Loo Barebone sitting on the gunwale as he always sat, with one knee
raised on the thwart, to support his elbow, and his chin in the palm
of his hand, so that he could glance up the head of the sail or ahead