did not) nor sat down to a meal. The sand about Vellingey is
always driving, more or less; and the gale so mixed it up with fine snow
that we made our journeys to and from the house, so to speak, blindfold,
and took our chance of the drifts. But the evening of the 11th promised
better. The wind dropped, and in an hour fell to a flat calm: then,
after another hour, began to draw easily off shore--the draught itself
being less noticeable than the way in which it smoothed down the heavy
sea running. Though the cold did not lift, the weather grew tolerable
once more: and each time I crossed the townplace[2] with a lamb in my
arms, I heard the surf running lower and lower in the porth below
Vellingey.

By day-break (the 12th) it was fallen to nothing: the sky still holding
snow, but sky and sea the same colour; a heavy blueish grey, like steel.
I was coming over the towans, just then, with a lamb under either arm
(making twelve, that night) when I happened to look seaward, and there
saw a boat tossing, about a gunshot from the shore.

She was a long boat, painted white; very low in the sheer, and curved at
stem and stern like a Norwegian; her stem rounded off without a transom,
and scarcely bluffer than her bows. She carried a mast, stepped right
forward; but no sail. She was full of people. I counted five sitting,
all white with snow--one by the mast, three amidships, and one in the
stern sheets, steering. At least, he had a hand on the tiller: but the
people had given over pulling, and the boat without steerage-way was
drifting broadside-on towards the shore with the set of the tide.

While I stood conning her, up at the house the back-door opened, and my
brother stepped out and across the yard to milk the cows. His
milk-pails struck against the door-post, and sounded as clear as bells.
I shouted to him and pointed towards the boat: and after looking a
moment, he set down his pails and started off at a run, down towards the
porth. I then hurried towards the house, where I found Selina, our old
housekeeper, in the kitchen, tending the lambs with warm milk.
Handing the new-comers over to her, I caught up a line and made off
hot-foot after Obed.

At low-water (and the tide had now scarcely an hour to ebb) the sands in
Vellingey Porth measure a good half-mile from the footbridge at its head
to the sea at its base. My legs were longer than Obed's; but I dare say
he had arrived five minutes ahead of me. He was st