34 WOODLAND, MOOR, AND STREAM 



' Ah, I fancied you'd see them there. They was 

 on the ooze this morning round about the boats, 

 hollerin' to one another might and main ; terrible 

 uneasy they was all the mornin'. I don't like to see 

 'em like that ; there's sure to be something in the 

 wind, and the fowl knows what it is better than we 

 do leastways that's what I think.' 



Like all his class in that fishing village, my friend 

 had an amount of true religious sentiment about him ; 

 no cant or humbug, but a manly feeling of veneration 

 for what the Bible taught them. Superstition some 

 would call that now. They gained their living on 

 the waters, and many lost their lives there ; and they 

 had family histories and traditions from far-back 

 generations ; a class by themselves, they rarely mixed 

 or intermarried with other people. 



' Are you goin' back to your new home next 

 week ? ' 



' Yes.' 



' You won't forget them hell-hounds. Oh, it was 

 terrible, it was, when them two we know of heard em 

 for the first, and one of 'em for the last time. What 

 are they, think ye? Birds, do ye say? I don't say 

 that they ain't, but they never made that noise that 

 night for nothing ; the first time as them two had 

 heard 'em.' 



