In a few minutes the man, who hastened slowly, gave the call, which every man in Farlingford answered with an emotionless, mechanical promptitude. From each fireside some tired worker reached out his hand toward his most precious possession, his sea-boots, as his forefathers had done before him for two hundred years at the sound of "John Darby." The women crammed into the pockets of the men's stiff oilskins a piece of bread, a half-filled bottle--knowing that, as often as not, their husbands must pass the night and half the next day on the beach, or out at sea, should the weather permit a launch through the surf. There was no need of excitement, or even of comment. Did not "John Darby" call them from their firesides or their beds a dozen times every winter, to scramble out across the shingle? As often as not, there was nothing to be done but drag the dead bodies from the surf; but sometimes the dead revived--some fair-haired, mystic foreigner from the northern seas, who came to and said, "T'ank you," and nothing else. And next day, rigged out in dry clothes and despatched toward Ipswich on the carrier's cart, he would shake hands awkwardly with any standing near and bob his head and say "T'ank you" again, and go away, monosyllabic, mystic, never to be heard of more. But the ocean, as it is called at Farlingford, seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of such Titans to throw up on the rattling shingle winter after winter. And, after all, they were seafaring men, and therefore brothers. Farlingford turned out to a man, each seeking to be first across the river every time "John Darby" called them, as if he had never called them before. To-night none paused to finish the meal, and many a cup raised half-way was set down again untasted. It is so easy to be too late. Already the flicker of lanterns on the sea-wall showed that the rectory was astir. For Septimus Marvin, vaguely recalling some schoolboy instinct of fair-play, knew the place of the gentleman and the man of education among humbler men in moments of danger and hardship, which should, assuredly, never be at the back. "Yonder's parson," some one muttered. "His head is clear now, I'll warrant, when he hears 'John Darby.'" "'Tis only on Sundays, when 'John' rings slow, 'tis misty," answered a sharp-voiced woman, with a laugh. For half of Farlingford was already at the quay, and three or four boats were bumping and splashing against the steps. The tide was racing out, and the wind, whizzing slantwise across it, pushed it against the wooden piles of the quay, making them throb and tremble.