ere, then, it be
whist poor speed we make when our tongues tire our hands."

"'Tis like a storm as it can be, mother."

"Aw, then, a young girl should say brave words or no words at all.
'Tis not your work to forespeak bad weather, and I wish you wouldn't
do it, Denas; I do for sure."

In an hour John came back and had a mouthful of meat and bread, but he
was hurried and anxious, and said he had not come yet to his meat-list
and would be off about his business. Then Joan asked him concerning
the weather, and he answered:

"The gulls do fly high, and that do mean a breeze; but there be no
danger until they fly inland. The boats will be back before midnight,
my dear."

"If the wind do let them, John. Denas says it be on its contrary old
ways again."

"My old dear, we be safest when the storm-winds blow; for then God do
be keeping the lookout for us. Joan, my wife, 'tis not your business
to be looking after the wind, nor mine either; for just as long as
John Penelles trusts his boat to the Great Pilot, it is sure and
certain to come into harbour right side up. Now, my dear, give me a
big jug of milk, with a little boiling water in it to take off the
edge of the cold, and then I'll away for the gray fish--if so be God
fills the net on either side the boat for us."

"Hark, father! The wind has turned to a north-easter--a bad wind on
this coast."

"Not it, Denas. What was it you read me in that story paper? Some
verses by a great and good man who have been in a stiff north-easter,
or else he never could have got the true grip of it:

"'Welcome, wild north-easter!
Come, and strong within us
Stir the seaman's blood,
Bracing brain and sinew;
Come, thou wind of God!'"

"That is not right, and that is not the whole of it, father."

"Aw, 'tis enough, my dear; all that the soul wants, the memory can
hold to--'tis enough. Good-bye, and God's keeping."

He drank his warm milk, buttoned close his pilot coat, and went off
toward the boats. Denas had no fear for him, but Joan had not learned
trust from her husband's trust; the iron ring of the wind, the black
sea, the wild sky with its tattered remnants of clouds, made her full
of apprehension. She hurried her work and was silent over it; while
Denas sat in the little window sewing, and occasionally letting her
eyes wander outward over the lonely beach and the homely "cob"
cottages of the fishers.

It was a solitary, lonesome, dreary-looking spot on that ble