d it
that the sails were really correctly drawn.

On another occasion, during the prevalence of one of the
most terrible easterly gales that ever visited the
north-east coast, a multitude of people had congregated on
the south pier at the mouth of the Tyne to witness the
vessels making for the great Northern Harbour. The sight was
awful in its peculiar beauty, the foam fluted and danced on
the troubled air until it found a resting place far up the
inner reaches of the harbour. There were seen in the
distance two sailing vessels labouring amid a wrathful
commotion of roaring seas. As they approached the harbour
the excitement became universal. Women stood there
transfixed with dread lest the storm-tossed vessels should
be conveying some of their beloved relations to a tragic
doom. Two gentlemen of clerical voice and appearance
conversed with obvious agitation, one of whom audibly spoke
of the grandeur and picturesque charm of the flurry of wild
waters. "Look at them," said he, "as they curtsey and rustle
along to the kiss of the tempest. Oh, it is a magnificent
sight!" A few burly, weather-beaten sailors stood hard by.
It soon became apparent that their professional pride had
been touched by the poetic babble to which they had
listened. One of them took upon himself the task of
interjecting what the practical opinion of himself and
friends was by addressing the aesthetic dreamer in accents
of stern reproof: "_You_," said he, "may call it grandeur
and picturesque and magnificent and curtseying, but we call
it a damned dirty business. If you were aboard of one of
them, you wouldn't talk about rustling through the cloven
sea to the kiss of the tempest, you would be too tarnation
keen on getting ashore!"

The orator had just finished his harangue when one of the
vessels, a brigantine, was crossing the bar. The supreme
moment had come. All eyes and minds were fixed on the doomed
vessel; men were seen clinging to the rigging, and one
solitary figure stood at the wheel directing her course
through a field of rushing whiteness. She was supposed to
have crossed the worst spot, when a terrific mountain of
remorseless liquid was seen galloping with mad pace until it
lashed over her and she became reduced to atoms. Nothing but
wreckage was seen afterwards. The crew all perished. It was
a heartrending sight, which sent the onlookers into
uncontrollable grief. The sailor was right: "It was a dirty
business."

The sporting i