"My man said they didn't know who 'twas out there, at first, for it ain't the kind o' vessel often seen, and it skimmed along on the edge o' the water, Sim said, like a bird, in and out amongst the rocks, so't anybody'd a thought, not knowin' who they was--and them, maybe, not knowin' the shore--that they was drunk or gone crazy; and Sim said they hollered to 'em to look out for the rocks, and they heered a kind of a laugh on the water, and somebody shouted back: "'Stow your gab, land lubbers!' and they knew from the voice it was Dave Rollin. "He was probably meanin' to put in there, and might 'a' come ashore may be,--he was wild enough--but he seen our men and that kind o' hindered him; he didn't want to turn round and put right back neither, lookin' as though he was scared, so he kep' on, and Sim said they watched 'em clean out o' sight; 'but,' says he, 'I never seen a man turn whiter'n George Olver did for a minute, and then he onclinched his fist and went to work ag'in, harder than ever, for you can allays depend on Jim, somehow--George Olver--but he's a dreadful close-mouthed fellow!" During the recital of this narrative, recalling so much to my mind, I experienced more than anything else a feeling of annoyance, almost of resentment, that the fisherman should appear, however remotely, to disturb the serenity of these last few days in which I had to live out my Wallencamp idyl. For the others the story seemed to have created a momentary excitement, but they regarded it, on the whole, as of little consequence. Aunt Patty had passed on to the doorway of another neighbor, and George Olver's relations with Rebecca soon constituted the theme of a more general and lively discourse, in which the remarks concerning Rebecca were mostly kind and considerate, and the praise of George Olver's conduct enthusiastic; and, at the close of which, I remember, Grandma said that "the higher minded folks gits to be, the pitifuller they be a'most always!" The fact of the fisherman's transient appearance on the Bay was not again alluded to, nor do I think the mind of any one present reverted to it, when Grandpa Keeler, looking up with that utterly dazed and bewildered air which betokened a decisive awakening on his part, cast his eye along the horizon, and observed gravely,-- "Storm a brewin', ma." "You've been asleep, pa," said Grandma, in sweetly mollifying tones; and Emily Gaskell, almost involuntarily, glanced up at me with a mischievous, anticipative wink. [Illustration] "Asleep, ma," said Grandpa Keeler; "no, I hain't been asleep, neither! And what if I had, ma? That don't hender a storm's brewin', does it?" "We've be'n seein' them little wind clouds passin' afore the sun for half an hour past," explained Grandma Keeler, composedly. But Grandpa scanned the sky with a dark, keen glance--the air of an old voyager on stormy and literal seas, and he shook his head, sagely.