ls
that were fishing by the light of the flare. It had been the work of
three minutes only, but in that time one vivid impression had fixed
itself on Stephen's preoccupied mind. The end of the old sandstone
pier had been battered down by a recent storm; the box that once held
the light had gone down with it, a pole had been thrust out at an
angle from the overthrown stones, and from the end of this pole the
light swung by a rope. No idea connected itself with this impression,
which lay low down behind other thoughts.

The fog had lifted, but the night was still very dark. Not a star was
shining and no moon appeared. Yet Stephen's eye--the eye of a sailor
accustomed to the darkness of the sea at night--could descry
something that lay to the north. The Irish brig had disappeared. Yes,
her sails were now gone. But out at sea--far out, half a league
away--what black thing was there? Oh, it must be a cloud, that was
all; and no doubt a storm was brewing. Yet no, it was looming larger
and larger, and coming nearer and nearer. It was a sail. Stephen
could see it plainly enough now against the leaden sky. It was a
schooner; he could make out its two masts, with fore and aft sails.
It was an Irish schooner; he could recognize its heavy hull and
hollowed cutwater. It was tacking against wind and tide from the
northeast; it was a Dublin schooner and was homeward bound from
Iceland, having called at Whitehaven and now putting in at Ramsey.

Stephen Orry had been in the act of putting about when this object
caught his eye, but now a strange thing occurred. All at once his
late troubles lay back in his mind, and by a sort of unconscious
mechanical habit of intellect he began to put familiar ideas
together. This schooner that was coming from Iceland would be heavy
laden; it would have whalebone, and eider down, and tallow. If it ran
ashore and was wrecked some of this cargo might be taken by some one
and sold for something to a French smuggler that lay outside the
Chicken Rocks. That flare on the Point of Ayre was the only sea-light
on this north coast of the island, and it hung by a rope from a pole.
The land lay low about it, there was not a house on that sandy
headland for miles on miles, and the night was very dark. All this
came up to Stephen Orry's mind by no effort of will; he looked out of
his dull eyes on the dull stretch of sea and sky, and the thoughts
were there of themselves.

What power outside himself was at work wi