Toiling through the sand-drifts, they came to an opening between the hills, which looked immediately on the beach. The sky was black and heavy on the horizon towards the south-west. Round hard-edged clouds rode on from the main body, like flying squadrons, "grim couriers" of the storm. Here and there, through an opening in the clouds, the sky was of a deep, vivid, and intense blue, contrasting wildly with the rolling forms that tumbled about in turbulent confusion over the whole hemisphere. The sea was rising in breakers over the banks, hillocks of white foam riding on the crest of the billows, while the margin of the waves boiled and frothed like some vast cauldron.
The old man was not in a particularly complaisant mood that day. He was cross and snappish at trifles; irritable and out of humour with himself. As he waded through the narrow defile, the dumb assistant behind him whistled faintly, and perhaps inadvertantly. The fisherman looked back with a furious glance.
"Thou staring buzzard, is't not enough to see sich a bellyful o' wind i' brewing but thou must whistle for more to keep it company? Hang thee for a he-witch; I never hear that accursed piping but the wind follows, like sea-gulls to the garbage."
He had just turned a corner of the hill, when, looking round, he cried in a tone of terror and amazement—
"How now, Dick? Why, the boat is gone! what prank next? Thou careless unthrift, ill-luck follows i' thy wake. She has slipped anchor, and the little Kitty is gone to the Manx herring-boats. I am ruined, thou limb of Old Nick! thou chub! thou"——
Epithets were accumulating with prodigious force, when Dick, half-closing his eyes, pointed to something dark, like a small boat, in the offing.
"What's yon thee'rt pointing at? A porpoise-back, I warrant. Ay, shake thy head, fool; 'twill bring my bonny Kitty back. Why, thou'rt staring like a bit-boomp in a gutter catching frogs!"
Soon, however, the black speck became less ambiguous. George beheld a white stern heaving up and down. He ran forward as if to accelerate her return, crying out to his companion—
"A murrain catch thy tail, thou hast ever a longer sight than beseems thee. But she's coming, sure enough, whatever she be."
The old man gazed in wonder and suspense. He saw a sail unfurl, and the bark—his own little tight, trim vessel—come prancing on the white billows toward the shore. Soon he observed, sitting therein, perfectly at his ease, and unmindful of the near approach to, and the portentous menaces of, the owner, a figure clad in a garment of grey frieze, and a dark hairy cap on his head. One hand grasped the helm, and in the other he held the sheet, while he managed the boat with the most seamanlike skill and composure. His eye was fixed alternately on the shore and on the vane at the masthead as he came dancing through the surf, until he ran right upon the sands, where the boat grounded, and he sprang out upon the beach. The astonishment of Grimes can hardly be conceived when, without once deigning to notice him, away went the stranger, vouchsafing neither thanks nor acknowledgments.