ion, his sea-boots, as his forefathers
had done before him for two hundred years at the sound of "John Darby."
The women crammed into the pockets of the men's stiff oilskins a piece
of bread, a half-filled bottle--knowing that, as often as not, their
husbands must pass the night and half the next day on the beach, or out
at sea, should the weather permit a launch through the surf.

There was no need of excitement, or even of comment. Did not "John
Darby" call them from their firesides or their beds a dozen times every
winter, to scramble out across the shingle? As often as not, there was
nothing to be done but drag the dead bodies from the surf; but sometimes
the dead revived--some fair-haired, mystic foreigner from the northern
seas, who came to and said, "T'ank you," and nothing else. And next day,
rigged out in dry clothes and despatched toward Ipswich on the carrier's
cart, he would shake hands awkwardly with any standing near and bob his
head and say "T'ank you" again, and go away, monosyllabic, mystic, never
to be heard of more. But the ocean, as it is called at Farlingford,
seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of such Titans to throw up on
the rattling shingle winter after winter. And, after all, they were
seafaring men, and therefore brothers. Farlingford turned out to a man,
each seeking to be first across the river every time "John Darby" called
them, as if he had never called them before.

To-night none paused to finish the meal, and many a cup raised half-way
was set down again untasted. It is so easy to be too late.

Already the flicker of lanterns on the sea-wall showed that the rectory
was astir. For Septimus Marvin, vaguely recalling some schoolboy
instinct of fair-play, knew the place of the gentleman and the man of
education among humbler men in moments of danger and hardship, which
should, assuredly, never be at the back.

"Yonder's parson," some one muttered. "His head is clear enow, I'll
warrant, when he hears 'John Darby.'"

"'Tis only on Sundays, when 'John' rings slow, 'tis misty," answered a
sharp-voiced woman, with a laugh. For half of Farlingford was already at
the quay, and three or four boats were bumping and splashing against the
steps. The tide was racing out, and the wind, whizzing slantwise across
it, pushed it against the wooden piles of the quay, making them throb
and tremble.

"Not less'n four to the oars!" shouted a gruff voice, at the foot of the
steps, where the salt water,