e if Cookey had accidentally upset the
coffee tea-kettle, and put out the fire, his sanctuary would have been
sacked instantly. Eight o'clock came, and yet we had not broken bread. We
walked up and down the deck to relieve our appetites. At last we saw the
three cracked mugs, our tea-cups, which had been our ale-glasses of the
night before, brought up for a rinse, and then we knew that breakfast was
not far off. The cloth was spread, the saffron cakes, ship's butter,
yellow mugs, coffee, pork, and pismires temptingly arrayed. We did not
wait to hear the cook ring the bell. We watched him as he came up with it
in his hand, and squeezed past him before he shook out a single vibration.

Then we made a MEAL!

Breakfast being over, the fog lightened a little. Our tiny horizon widened
its boundaries a few hundred feet, or so; we could see once more the
top-mast of the schooner. So we lazily swung along, with nothing to do
again. Sometimes a distant fog-bell; sometimes a distant sound across the
face of the deep, like the falling of cataract waters.

"What is that sound, Bruce?"

"It's the surf breakin' on the rocks," responds Bruce; "I hae been
listenen to it for hoors."

"Are we then so near shore?"

"About three miles aff," replies the mate.

Presently we heard the sound of human voices; a laugh; the stroke of oars
in the row-locks, plainly distinguishable in the mysterious vapor. The
captain hailed: "Hallo!" "Halloo!" echoes in answer. The strokes of the
oars are louder and quicker; they are approaching us, but where? "Halloo!"
comes again out of the mist. And again the captain shouts in reply. Then a
white phantom boat, thin, vapory, unsubstantial, now seen, now lost again,
appears on the skirts of our horizon.

"Where are we?" asks the captain.

"Off St. Esprit," answer the boatmen.

"What are you after?" asks the captain.

"Looking for our nets," is the reply; and once more boat and boatmen
disappear in the luminous vapor. These are _mackerel fishermen_; their
nets are adrift from their stone-anchors: the fish are used for bait in
the cod-fisheries, as well as for salting down. If we could but come
across the nets, what a rare treat we might have at dinner!

Lazily on we glide--nothing to do. Picton is reading a stunning book; the
captain, his lady, the baby, and I making a small family circle around the
wheel; the mate is on the look-out over the bows; all at once, he shouts
out: "_There they are! the net