FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 



17 



ing dawn, and soon all the daylight the storm will permit is ours. The cook 

 does not lay any table for breakfast, and we go down and snatch what we 

 can to eat, and swallow some hot coffee. Several ugly seas boarded us 

 during the night, and bulwarks are stove, gurry-kids smashed, and other 

 damage done, but all thought of this dwarfed into insignificance in the face 

 of the thrilling scene we were going through. 



As the morning advances it becomes evident that we have seen the 

 extreme fur\' of the storm. The "glass" is beginning to rise, and towards 

 noon the snow slowly ceases. The wind is also moderating. We endeavor 

 in the afternoon to snatch a nap. I try hard to sleep, but with poor success. 

 My imagination is excited, and my sleep is fitful and troubled with dreams. 

 I fancy myself on board the lost vessels during the last few hopeless min- 

 utes, and appear to have plenty of leisure to observe the effects as shown in 

 the different faces around me. I mark expressions of wild supplication, of 

 cool resignation, of steady bravery, of desperation, and wicked bravado even 

 yet. Here I recognize the face of a young man who has often spoken of 

 his hope of soon going across the ocean to see once more his mother and 

 sisters there, and endeavoring to get them to accompany him back. There 

 is another who has amassed a respectable sum in the savings bank, and has 

 hopes of soon investing in a vessel himself, and of marrying at the same 

 time. In another face I recognize a frank, cheerful young fellow, just 

 beginning the world, full of hope and boisterous merriment, and whose only 

 fault is that he is too free for his own good. And lastly, another familiar 

 face I have often seen ; mark the stolid, stupid indifference of expression 

 even now. He is a married man, and has a deserving wife, but he himself 

 is a drunkard, long since lost to all sense of self-respect. It is ever so 

 when a man oversteps the bounds of blessed moderation and allows all his 

 mind, soul and strength to centre on the bottle. What thoughts occupy his 

 mind in this awful moment? Is he consumed with remorse? Has he a 

 thought for that woman he has wronged and made miserable all her life 

 long ? Does he think of his neglected children ? Or is he merely wishing 

 for a parting grasp and swig of that bottle which should be a comfort, but is 

 so often made a curse ? 



" Over the brink of it, 

 ricture it, thinli of it, 

 Dissolute man." 



Just as these words are running through my mind somebody shakes me 

 and says I am talking "gibberish." This is somewhat mortifying, for I could 

 have emphatically declared that I was giving expression to the above quota- 

 tion from Hood. 



I go on deck, and find other restless ones fishing. I follow suit and get 

 a few fish. Before dark we "heave in " "slack cable." The wind is in the 

 southward now, but it will come round to the westward, I manage to get 



