“’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!’” |