Russel, nominee Sara (no h), rather
nice, lights up well, good voice, _interested_ face; Miss L., nice also,
washed out a little, and, I think, a trifle sentimental; fils Russel, in
a Leith office, smart, full of happy epithet, amusing. They are very
nice and very kind, asked me to come back--"any night you feel dull: and
any night doesn't mean no night: we'll be so glad to see you." _C'est la
mere qui parle._

I was back there again to-night. There was hymn-singing, and general
religious controversy till eight, after which talk was secular. Mrs.
Sutherland was deeply distressed about the boot business. She consoled
me by saying that many would be glad to have such feet whatever shoes
they had on. Unfortunately, fishers and seafaring men are too facile to
be compared with! This looks like enjoyment! better speck than Anster.

I have done with frivolity. This morning I was awakened by Mrs.
Sutherland at the door. "There's a ship ashore at Shaltigoe!" As my
senses slowly flooded, I heard the whistling and the roaring of wind,
and the lashing of gust-blown and uncertain flaws of rain. I got up,
dressed, and went out. The mizzled sky and rain blinded you.

She was a Norwegian: coming in she saw our first gauge-pole, standing at
point E. Norse skipper thought it was a sunk smack, and dropped his
anchor in full drift of sea: chain broke: schooner came ashore. Insured:
laden with wood: skipper owner of vessel and cargo: bottom out.

I was in a great fright at first lest we should be liable; but it seems
that's all right.

[Illustration]

C D is the new pier.

A the schooner ashore. B the salmon house.

Some of the waves were twenty feet high. The spray rose eighty feet at
the new pier. Some wood has come ashore, and the roadway seems carried
away. There is something fishy at the far end where the cross wall is
building; but till we are able to get along, all speculation is vain.

I am so sleepy I am writing nonsense.

I stood a long while on the cope watching the sea below me; I hear its
dull, monotonous roar at this moment below the shrieking of the wind;
and there came ever recurring to my mind the verse I am so fond of:--

"But yet the Lord that is on high
Is more of might by far
Than noise of many waters is
Or great sea-billows are."

The thunder at the wall when it first struck--the rush along ever
growing higher--the great jet of snow-white spray some forty feet above
you--and the "noise o