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 

 J 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,' 



