And pray don't imagine, you who read this, that by a cowardly man or boy I mean one who is afraid to take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves and fight with his fists. I mean quite a different kind of coward--the one who is afraid of himself and lets self rule him, giving up to every indulgence because it goes a little against the grain, and Arthur Temple is walking uncomfortably in his oilskins because they don't look nice. The storm is raging, and he is still smarting under the belief that his father thinks him contemptible and cowardly, physically cowardly. And all the time, though the tears are rising in his eyes, and the wind is deafening him, and the spray beating in his face so that his tears are not seen, he is proving that, under his varnish, he is made of the right stuff. For even as he battled with self in the boat when conger-fishing, he is fighting the good fight again, has set his teeth, and has made a sort of vow that no one shall say he has not as much pluck as his brother Dick. There is little work done at a fishing village when a storm comes down. Going to sea is impossible, and men don't care to be mending or making nets when at any moment they may have to be helping to haul up a boat into a safer place, or to drag in a spar, or plank, or timber, that has been washed ashore. Then, too, there is the look-out kept for ships or boats in distress-- perhaps to lend a helping hand; if not, to look on with sympathetic eyes and a thankful prayer at heart that they are in safety, as they think of home, and wife, and child. Mr Temple was not a violent angry man. His punishments to his boys were conveyed in looks, and one look sufficed. When that look had been given there was an end to the matter; and on this occasion, after Arthur had been made to wince, his petulant display of fear was put back in the past. "Boys," he cried, "I would not like to have missed this scene. How awful and how grand!" They were standing in the shelter of a pilchard house, one of the long buildings where these silvery, oily relatives of the herring are salted before being pressed in barrels and sent away to the Mediterranean ports by hundreds of tons every year. The building took the brunt of the roaring wind and spray torn from the huge billows that thundered in and raced up the beach, and pounded the rocks, so that the spectators could gaze at the wild chaos of tossing waves, and watch the heaped-up waters as they dashed in like some savage army, whose aim was to tear down the rocky barriers of our isle and sweep all away. In the harbour lay the luggers, and a good-sized brig, and a steam-tug that had brought it in after missing Corn town; and as the great waves came with a spang upon the stone pier, and leaped over the lanterns, and poured down tons of spray upon their decks, they rocked and groaned as they rubbed together, and in spite of mooring ropes a sharp crack now and then told of damages to be repaired.