loughing, and
reaping, and stacking, the same as common practical men; and sometimes
they lived in houses, just like the house by the water-trough. But when
the wind was rising in the nor-nor-west, and there was a taste of the
brine on your lips, they would be up, and say, "The sea's calling us--we
must be going." Then they would live in rocky caves of the coast where
nobody could reach them, and there would be fires lit at night in
tar-barrels, and shouting, and singing, and carousing; and after that
there would be ships' rudders, and figure heads, and masts coming up
with the tide, and sometimes dead bodies on the beach of sailors they
had drowned--only foreign ones though--hundreds and tons of them. But
that was long ago, the Carrasdhoo men were dead, and the glory of their
day was departed.

One quiet evening, after an awesome reading of this brave history,
Philip, sitting on his haunches at the gable, with Pete like another
white frog beside him, said quite suddenly, "Hush! What's that?"

"I wonder," said Pete.

There was never a sound in the air above the rustle of a leaf, and
Pete's imagination could carry him no further.

"Pete," said Philip, with awful gravity, "the sea's calling me."

"And me," said Pete solemnly.

Early that night the two lads were down at the most desolate part of
Port Mooar, in a cave under the scraggy black rocks of Gobny-Garvain,
kindling a fire of gorse and turf inside the remains of a broken barrel.

"See that tremendous sharp rock below low water?" said Philip.

"Don't I, though?" said Pete.

There was never a rock the size of a currycomb between them and the line
of the sky.

"That's what we call a reef," said Philip. "Wait a bit and you'll see
the ships go splitting on top of it like--like----"

"Like a tay-pot," said Pete.

"We'll save the women, though," said Philip. "Shall we save the women,
Pete? We always do."

"Aw, yes, the women--and the boys," said Pete thoughtfully.

Philip had his doubts about the boys, but he would not quarrel. It
was nearly dark, and growing very cold. The lads croodled down by the
crackling blaze, and tried to forget that they had forgotten tea-time.

"We never has to mind a bit of hungry," said Philip stoutly.

"Never a ha'p'orth," said Pete.

"Only when the job's done we have hams and flitches and things for
supper."

"Aw, yes, ateing and drinking to the full."

"Rum, Pete, we always drinks rum."

"We has to," said Pete.

"N