Quite a crowd had gathered on the broad, glistening patch of rugged granite, soon as the day broke, and this crowd was ever augmenting, till quite a phalanx of oilskin coats and tarpaulin hats presented its face to the thundering sea, while men shouted to each other, and swept the lead-coloured horizon with heavy glasses, or the naked hand-shaded eye, in search of some vessel trying to make the harbour, or in distress. "She bites this morning," said one old fisherman, shaking the spray from his dripping face, after looking round the corner of a mass of sheltering rock. "Ay, mate, and it aren't in me to tell you how glad I am my boat's up the harbour with her nose fast to a buoy," said another. "There'll be widders and orphans in some ports 'fore nightfall." "And thank the Lord that won't be in Hakemouth." "I dunno so much about that," growled a heavy-looking man, with a fringe of white hair round his face. "Every boat that sails out of this harbour aren't in port." "That it is. Why, what's yer thinking about?" "'Bout Van Heldre's brig, my lad." "Ah," chorused half-a-dozen voices, "we didn't think o' she." "Been doo days and days," said the white-fringed old fisherman; "and if she's out yonder, I say, Lord ha' mercy on 'em all, Amen." "Not had such a storm this time o' year since the Cape mail were wrecked off the Long Chain." "Ah, and that warn't so bad as this. Bound to say the brig has put into Mount's Bay." "And not a nice place either with the wind this how. Well, my lads, I say, there's blessings and blessings, and we ought all to be werry thankful as we aren't ship-owners with wessels out yonder." This was from the first man who had spoken; but his words were not received with much favour, and as in a lull of the wind one of the men had to use a glass, he growled out: "Well, I dunno 'bout sending one's ship to sea in such a storm, but I don't see as it's such a very great blessing not to have one of your own, speshly if she happened to be a brig like Mast' Van Heldre's!" "Hold your row," said a man beside him, as he drove his elbow into his ribs, and gave a side jerk of his head. The man thus adjured turned sharply, and saw close to him a sturdy-looking figure clothed from head to foot in black mackintosh, which glistened as it dripped with the showery spray. "Ugly day, my lads." "Ay, ay, sir; much snugger in port than out yonder." _Boom_! came a heavy blow from a wave, and the offing seemed to be obscured now by the drifting spray. Van Heldre focussed a heavy binocular, and gazed out to sea long and carefully. "Any one been up to the look-out?" he said, as he lowered his glass. "Two on us tried it, sir," said one of the men, "but the wind's offle up yonder, and you can't see nothing." "Going to try it, sir?" said another of the group.