On _a priori_, historical, grounds one would anticipate such a conclusion. It is certain that they forgive offence more readily. I have often wondered how many nice quiet respectable vindictive murders are yearly done by educated men too clever to be found out. The poor man is a fool at 'Murder as a Fine Art.' He hacks and bashes. 6. Sighting, as we thought, some balks of timber, floating away on the ebb tide over the outside of Broken Rocks, two of us shoved a small boat down the beach. Our flotsam was a trick of the fading light on the sea, just where Broken Rocks raised the swell a little; but in the exquisite, the almost menacing, calm of the evening, we leaned on our oars and watched for a while. To seaward, the horizon was a peculiar lowering purple, as if a semi-opaque sheet of glass were placed there. On land, over the Windgap, the sunset was like many ranks of yellow and shining black banners--hard, brassy. The sea was a misty blue. One by one, according to their prominence, the bushes on the face of the cliffs faded into the general contour. As we landed, a slight lop came over the water from the dark south-east. "Ah!" said Uncle Jake. "We'm going to hae it. South-easter's coming!" [Sidenote: _CALLED OUT BETIMES_] There was some discussion as to whether or not we should haul the boats up over the sea-wall. In the end we hauled the smaller ones, leaving the _Cock Robin_ and the drifter upon the beach. In the very early morning--it was so dark I could not see the outline of the window--I half awoke to an indistinct sensation that the house was rocking and hell unloosed outside. Something solid seemed to be beating the wall. Than I heard Grandfer's voice roaring at the foot of the stairs:--"What is it? Why, tell thic Tony he'd better hurry up else all the boats 'll be washed away. Blowing a hurricane 'tis! Sea's making. Oughtn't to ha' left they boats...." "Be quiet! yu'll wake all the kids up." "Blowing a hurricane 'tis! Nort to me if the boats du wash off. Tony'd never wake." "All right, I'll wake him." In five minutes we were downstairs, with the fire lighted and the kettle on. Outside, it was pitch dark. There was nothing there, it seemed, except a savage wind and stinging splotches of rain and the cry of the low tide on the sand. I felt my way up the Gut and out, sliding one foot before the other so as not to fall over the sea-wall. John Widger bumped into me, and together we crept along to the capstan. A white shadow of surf was just visible. We dropped gingerly off the wall to the beach, trusting there was no iron gear there to smash our ankles. Then for an hour we fumbled our way about; pushed, hauled, disentangled, slid and swore; grasping sometimes the right rope and sometimes the wrong one with hands almost too cold and stiff, too painful, to grasp anything at all.