e was no one on the quay. The street was deserted, but the lights
within the cottages glowed warmly through red blinds here and there. The
majority of windows were, however, secured with a shutter, screwed
tight from within. The man trotted steadily up the street. He had an
unmistakable air of discipline. It was only six o'clock, but night had
closed in three hours ago. The coast-guard looked neither to one side
nor the other, but ran on at the pace of one who had run far and knows
that he cannot afford to lose his breath; for his night's work was only
begun.

The coast-guard station stands on the left-hand side of the street,
a long, low house in a bare garden. In answer to the loud summons, a
red-faced little man opened the door and let out into the night a smell
of bloaters and tea--the smell that pervades all Farlingford at six
o'clock in the evening.

"Something on the Inner Curlo Bank," shouted the coast-guard in his
face, and turning on his heel, he ran with the same slow, organised
haste, leaving the red-faced man finishing a mouthful on the mat.

The next place of call was at River Andrew's, the little low cottage
with rounded corners, below the church.

"Come out o' that," said the coast-guard, with a contemptuous glance
of snow-rimmed eyes at River Andrew's comfortable tea-table. "Ring yer
bell. Something on the Inner Curlo Bank."

River Andrew had never hurried in his life, and like all his fellows,
he looked upon coast-guards as amateurs mindful, as all amateurs are, of
their clothes.

"A'm now going," he answered, rising laboriously from his chair.
The coast-guard glanced at his feet clad in the bright green
carpet-slippers, dear to seafaring men. Then he turned to the side of
the mantelpiece and took the church keys from the nail. For everybody
knows where everybody else keeps his keys in Farlingford. He forgot to
shut the door behind him, and River Andrew, pessimistically getting into
his sea-boots, swore at his retreating back.

"Likely as not, he'll getten howld o' the wrong roup," he muttered;
though he knew that every boy in the village could point out the rope of
"John Darby," as that which had a piece of faded scarlet flannel twisted
through the strands.

In a few minutes the man, who hastened slowly, gave the call, which
every man in Farlingford answered with an emotionless, mechanical
promptitude. From each fireside some tired worker reached out his hand
toward his most precious possess