EVENING AT THE COTTAGE 115 



and the next morning (Tuesday) logs, deals, and rubbish of all 

 sorts were to be found everywhere on the mainland and islands to 

 the eastward. The vessel contained few provisions, but these 

 were mostly lost in deep water. The rocks where she struck are 

 called on the chart the Porpoise rocks, and the water about the 

 shoal varies from nine to thirteen, and even thirty fathoms ; the 

 distance to the mainland is about a mile, and from the opposite 

 coast of Newfoundland some thirty miles. 



Let us now return to the cottage and see what is going on there. 

 The evening wears slowly away, the men enjoy themselves and 

 pass their time in smoking and talking. Some are jovial and hearty 

 in their manner, while others, quite the reverse, are gloomy and 

 morose. It is easy to see who are friendly and who avoid each 

 other, for the men cluster together and engage in low or loud con- 

 versation as the subject of which they talk be private or public, 

 while others sit in the corners, on the floor, or in chairs resting 

 their heads upon their hands, or, leaning against the wall, are far in 

 the land of slumbers. One man stands warming himself with his 

 hands behind him, and his face away from the stove facing the 

 crowd, while another perhaps will be talking loudly and boisterously, 

 gesturing violently at the same time as if to impress the group 

 more with a sense of his own importance than to give a statement 

 of the real condition of some important issue ; perhaps this same 

 person will soon change his position to a slight bend of the head 

 and body as, with one finger held up very near to his eye, he makes 

 an outward and downward gesture, as he delivers himself of some 

 whispered secret opinion, at the same time that, having delivered 

 his opinion, he straightens himself up with the air of one who has 

 relieved himself of a, to him, tremendous thought. 



In one way or another the time flies. One by one the men 

 stretch themselves on the boxes and benches in the corners ; tipped 

 up in the chairs, and on the floor besides the fire, they doze off to 

 catch a poor apology for sleep in these uncomfortable positions. 

 We can only get intervals of rest as somebody is constantly open- 

 ing and shutting the door in passing in and out ; this occasions so 



