r, and I sometimes read
his attempts. After he had shown me some quiet fragments, describing his
own daily work, I advised him not to trouble himself with verse any
more, and he went on imitating his favourite prose writers with curious
persistence.

February came in, bringing worse weather than ever. One night the wind
rose so that by nine o'clock it was hardly possible to stand in the
open. The sky was like iron, and the dull red which had appeared in the
West at sundown changed to a cold, neutral dimness. The birds were in
great trouble, the gulls especially wailing with a peevish sharpness
that made the skin creep. I looked out twice into the roaring darkness,
and could see nothing except the flash of the "white horses" as they
trampled and reared far out at sea. The fire was better than that wild
company, so I sat a little, and then slept. A loud knocking awaked me,
and, going to the door, I found that the dawn had come, and that my
young friend was there.

"What is the matter?"

"Get dressed, sir. There's bad work coming, the gale's worse, and
there's a brig trying to work north. He'll never get round the point.
You go nor'ard and rouse the Hundalee men, and I'll go south and rouse
the chaps at the Bay. Good-bye."

When I got out the wind hit me so that I had to turn and gasp a second
for breath. It seemed as though the sea were going to invade the land.
There was not a vestige of black or green water for half a mile from the
beach. Nothing but wild masses of angry whiteness coiling and winding
and shivering themselves against each other. Twice the wind stopped me
as I fought my way north, and once I had fairly to lie down in a hollow
until a shrieking blast gave me leave to step on. But I got to the
village and told the men, and a dozen strong fellows went back with me.
There was no lifeboat within eight miles, so we harnessed two horses to
a pair of the ordinary wheels used to launch herring-boats after the
winter is over, and we took one of the smaller sort of trouting-boats
with us.

When we reached the Point the men from the south were there, and my
young friend was among them. All were excited, for the brig was fighting
her way still through the awful sea. She would not bear enough sail to
steady her in the least, and she could only claw her way inch by inch to
the north-east.

The Point was a long sandy spit, which sloped gradually away into deep
water. If the vessel could weather it, she might get