CHAPTER XVI 



IT is a strong N.E. gale, but " Muckle word pass ower," 

 as the children were taught by a certain dominie in 

 the north to repeat when they came to a word beyond 

 his knowledge, so " Muckle gale and pass ower," we say, and 

 try not to think of it. Why dwell on the unpleasing side 

 of the sea. It is beastly all the same, and trying to one's 

 nerve. 



We have no canvas on her now, just tumble along before 

 the wind, with bare poles, through the grey seas, the wind 

 passing through to our bones, wet with spray, weary with the 

 motion. Henriksen says: "To-morrow ve vill be into the 

 feene vedder." I don't know which is best, to be alongside 

 an optimist or a pessimist in a gale at sea. An old skipper 

 used to murmur to me in evil, dangerous times : " Hoot-toots, 

 we'll be oot o' this intil a waur" and I begin to think this 

 grim pessimism was really more comforting than Henriksen's 

 sanguine forecast of fine weather and blue seas which, I think, 

 are far off. 



All the same I notice to-day that as we bury our stem 

 and the water roars over our deck, the little light which 

 comes through the seas into our round bowley aft has a 

 watery tint of blue instead of the green it had yesterday. 

 That is, I take it, because we are out into the deep sounding 

 beyond eighty and two hundred fathoms that encircle our 

 shores past the great Sole bank, on the S. W. of England and 

 Ireland, and now have somewhere about two thousand fathoms 

 beneath us. We thought of heaving to last night and had 

 a trysail ready for the aftermast. It was very black and 

 awesome, but we managed to hold on our course. It is 

 rather risky heaving round head to wind after you have run 

 till the sea is dangerous. If you do not put down the wheel 

 at the right moment you have a chance of getting one of 

 these black seas and their huge white crests full on your 



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