"That be a bit of nonsense! Your father has had a taking to the sea all his life; and he never could abide to be boxed up on land. Aw, my dear, John Penelles is a busker of a fisherman! The storm never yet did blow that down-daunted him! Tris says it is a great thing to see your father stand smiling by the wheel when the lightning be flying all across the elements and the big waves be threatening moment by moment to make a mouthful of the boat. That be the Penelles' way, my dear; they come from a good old _haveage_;[3] but there, 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.