Dick scratched his head, and looked round at his father, wondering what he would think or say. For a minute or two the fisherman smoked his pipe in silence. At length, taking it from his mouth, he said, in a slow, meditative fashion: "Well, little 'un, I s'pose if it's printed that way it's true; and if it is, why I s'pose we've all got a share in that 'Star of Peace' we was talking about to-day." Tiny did not quite follow his train of thought; but she nodded her head, and then proceeded to tell them what she had heard about the picture, and the conclusion she and Polly had arrived at upon the subject--that Jesus, the kind, loving man of the picture, had come to show them how kind God was to them. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. BAD TIMES. Winter around Bermuda Point was at all times a dreary season, and the only thing its few inhabitants could hope for was that its reign might be as short as possible. A fine, calm autumn was hailed as a special boon from heaven by the fisher-folk all round the coast, and more especially by the lonely dwellers at the Point. A fine autumn enabled Coomber to go out in his boat until the time for shooting wild fowl began, and the children could play on the sands, or gather samphire, instead of being penned up in the house half the time. But when the weather was wild and wet, and the salt marshes lay under water, that meant little food and much discomfort, frequent quarrels, and much bitterness to the fisherman's family. This autumn the weather was more than usually boisterous; and long before the usual time the old boat had to be drawn up on to the bank, for fear the waves should dash it to pieces. The fisherman sometimes went to Fellness, on the chance of picking up a stray job, for it was only the state of his boat, and his anxiety to keep it together as long as possible, that prevented him braving the perils of the sea; and so he sometimes got the loan of another boat, or helped another fisherman with his; and then, rough though they might be, these fisher-folk were kind and helpful to each other, and if they could not afford to pay money for a job, they could pay for it in bread or flour, or potatoes, perhaps, and so they would generally find Coomber something to do, that they might help him, without hurting him.