resolute helpfulness than could
have been done by any quantity of exhortation. He ventured to take a
long view at sundown, and he found the experience saddening. The
enormous chequered floor of the sea divided with turbulent sweep two
sombre hollow hemispheres. Lurid red, livid blue, cold green shone in
the sky, and were reflected in chance glints of horror from the spume of
the charging seas. Cold, cold it was all round; cold where the lowering
black cloud hung in the east; cold where the west glowed with dull
coppery patches; cold everywhere; and ah! how cold in the dead men's
graves down in the darkling ooze! Ferrier was just thinking, "And the
smacksmen go through this all the winter long!" when the skipper came
up.

"It'll blow itself out now, sir, very soon, and a good job. We've had
one or two very near things, and I never had such an anxious time since
I came to sea."

"I suppose we didn't know the real danger?"

"Not when we shipped that big 'un sir. However, praise the Lord, we're
all safe, and I wish I could say as much for our poor commerades. It'll
take two days to get the fleet together, and then we shall hear more."

At midnight a lull became easily perceptible, and the bruised, worn-out
seafarers gathered for a little while to hold a prayer-meeting after
their fashion. They were dropping asleep, but they offered their thanks
in their own simple way; and when Ferrier said, "I've just had a
commonplace thought that was new, however, to me: the fishermen endure
this all the year, and do their work without having any saloons to take
shelter in," then Fullerton softly answered, "Thank God to hear you say
that. You'll be one of us now, and I wish we could only give thousands
the same experience, for then this darkened population might have some
light and comfort and happiness."

And now let me close a plain account of a North Sea gale. When the
weather is like that, the smacksmen must go on performing work that
needs consummate dexterity at any time. Our company of kindly
philanthropists had learned a lesson, and we must see what use they
make of the instruction. I want our good folk ashore to follow me, and I
think I may make them share Lewis Ferrier's new sensation.

CHAPTER III.

THE SECOND GALE.

In thirty-six hours the gale had fined off, and the scattered and
shattered vessels of the fleet began to draw together; a sullen swell
still lunged over the banks, but there was little wind and