out his oars and began to
pull homewards. The wind was very strong, and he soon found that, with
all his efforts, he could make no headway. The tide, too, had turned,
and was against him, sweeping round in a strong current to the
southward. In vain he pulled. Though putting all the strength he
possessed to his oars, still, as he looked at the shore, he was rather
losing than gaining ground. He knew that the attempt to reach the
harbour under sail would be hopeless; he should be sure to lose every
tack he made. Already half a gale of wind was blowing, and the boat,
with the little ballast there was in her, would scarcely look up even to
the closest reefed canvas.

Again he dropped his anchor, intending to wait the turn of the tide,
sorely regretting that he could not take the fish home in time for
granny to sell on that day.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dame Lanreath and Nelly had been anxiously expecting Michael's return,
and the dame had got ready to set off as soon as he appeared with the
fish they hoped he would catch. Still he did not come.

Paul had more than once inquired for him. He told Nelly to go out and
see how the wind was, and whether there was much sea on.

Nelly made her way under the cliffs to the nearest point whence she
could obtain a view of the mouth of the harbour and the sea beyond. She
looked out eagerly for Michael's boat, hoping to discover her making her
way towards the shore; but Nelly looked in vain. Already there was a
good deal of sea on, and the wind, which had been blowing strong from
the north-west, while she was standing there veered a point or two more
to the northward.

"Where could Michael have gone?" She looked and looked till her eyes
ached, still she could not bring herself to go back without being able
to make some report about him. At last she determined to call at the
cottage of Reuben Lanaherne, a friend of her father's, though a somewhat
older man.

"What is it brings you here, my pretty maiden?" said Uncle Reuben, who,
for a wonder, was at home, as Nelly, after gently knocking, lifted the
latch and entered a room with sanded floor and blue painted ceiling.

"O Uncle Lanaherne," she said, "can you tell me where you think Michael
has gone? he ought to have been back long ago."

"He would have been wiser not to have gone out at all with the weather
threatening as it has been; but he is a handy lad in a boat, N