know," said Uncle Jake when they were
near enough, "that yu'm catched by the tide? Yu'm in for a night o'it
on this yer beach, wi'out yu swims round the ledge or lets we row yu to
the lane in Refuge Cove. Yu can't get up on land herefrom."

"Oh...." said the man. "We'd better come on board your boat then."

It took Uncle Jake nearly half-an-hour to row the three-quarters of a
mile across the tide-rip on the ledge and into Refuge Cove. I carefully
refrained from doing anything to lead them to suppose that they were
aboard other than a fishing boat. It was Uncle Jake's expedition: his
the prospective reward. When I helped the man ashore, he put some
coppers into my hand. "There's threepence for the old man's tobacco,"
he said with an air of great benevolence. I was too surprised to speak:
I pushed off and then burst into a laugh.

"What did 'er give 'ee?"

"Threepence. _Threepence!_ For your tobacco!"

"Thank yu. I don't use tobacco. Yu'd better keep thic donation. They'd
ha' catched their death o' cold there all night, an' there ain't no
other boats down here along, nor won't be. That's what they reckons
their bloody lives be worth, an' that's what the lives of the likes o'
they _be_ worth, tu! Dreepence! My senses...."

We roared with laughter. It put heart into us for our stiff row home
against wind, wave and tide. When I went for'ard to place the cut-rope
ready, Uncle Jake had to call me aft again: spite of his strength the
boat was being beaten to leeward.

It was nearly four o'clock when we had hauled up and were carrying the
winkles on our backs down one of the untidy little roadways into Under
Town. No dinner or high-tea was waiting for Uncle Jake. The house was
unswept. How draggled the little bits of fern in the old china pots
looked! The fire was out; the hearth piled up with ashes; and on the
table stood a basin of potatoes in water, most of them unpeeled.

Uncle Jake came to a standstill, acutely alive in the midst of a
domestic deadness. He raised himself upright beneath his load of
winkles. "That's what I got to put up wi'," he said. "An't had a bite
since breakfast at four by the clock this morning, 'cept thic sandwich
o' yours. Tis a wonder how I du put up wi' it. I don' know for sure."

[Sidenote: _MEASURING UP_]

"Thees is what I got to put up wi'!" he repeated when Mrs Jake came in
from a neighbour's.

"I forgot," she said with a gay high-pitched little laugh which had in
it a tang of acq