with a glance at the vague black outline
of the Watchman, "but 'tis a fine harbour!"

"'Tis that," sighed Jacky, wistfully, as a screaming little gust heeled
the punt over; "an'--an'--I wisht we was there!"

Skipper Tommy laughed at his son.

"I does!" Jacky declared.

"I--I--I'm not so sure," I stammered, taking a tighter grip on the
gunwale, "but I wisht we was--there--too."

"You'll be wishin' that often," said Skipper Tommy, pointedly, "if you
lives t' be so old as me."

We wished it often, indeed, that day--while the wind blustered yet more
wildly out of the north and the waves tumbled aboard our staggering
little craft and the night came apace over the sea--and we have wished
it often since that old time, have Jacky and I, God knows! I had the
curious sensation of fear, I fancy--though I am loath to call it
that--for the first time in my life; and I was very much relieved when,
at dusk, we rounded the looming Watchman, ran through the white waters
and thunderous confusion of the Gate, with the breakers leaping high on
either hand, sharply turned Frothy Point and came at last into the
ripples of Trader's Cove. Glad I was, you may be sure, to find my mother
waiting on my father's wharf, and to be taken by the hand, and to be led
up the path to the house, where there was spread a grand supper of fish
and bread, which my sister had long kept waiting; and, after all, to be
rocked in the broad window, safe in the haven of my mother's arms, while
the last of the sullen light of day fled into the wilderness and all the
world turned black.

"You'll be singin' for me, mum, will you not?" I whispered.

"And what shall I sing, lad?" said she.

"You knows, mum."

"I'm not so sure," said she. "Come, tell me!"

What should she sing? I knew well, at that moment, the assurance my
heart wanted: we are a God-fearing people, and I was a child of that
coast; and I had then first come in from a stormy sea. There is a
song----

"'Tis, 'Jesus Saviour Pilot Me,'" I answered.

"I knew it all the time," said she; and,

"'Jesus, Saviour, pilot me,
Over life's tempestuous sea,'"

she sang, very softly--and for me alone--like a sweet whisper in my ear.

"'Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal;
Chart and compass came from Thee:
Jesus, Saviour, pilot me!'"

"I was thinkin' o' that, mum, when we come through the Gate," said I.
"Sure, I thought Skipper Tommy might miss the Way, an' get