The yearly meet for sports was held in the afternoon before the sale,
and was voted by all to be a great success. It is a far cry from the
days when games were introduced here by the Mission. Then the people's
lives were so drab, and they had little idea of the sporting qualities
which every Englishman values so highly. In those early days if in a
game of football one side kicked a goal, they had to wait till the
other had done the same before the game could proceed, or the play
would have been turned into a battle. Now everything in trousers in
the place can be seen of an evening out on the harbour ice kicking a
ball about. The harbour is our very roomy athletic field.

Twenty-two teams had entered for the dog race, and the start, when the
whole number were ranged up in the line, was pandemonium unloosed. The
dogs were barking out threatenings and slaughter to the teams next
them, their masters were shouting unheeded words of command, the crowd
were cheering their favourites, and altogether you would never have
guessed from the racket and confusion that you were north of the
Roaring Forties.

The last event on the sports programme was a scramble for coloured
candies by all the children of the village. Our flock from the Home
participated. The proceeding was as unhygienic as it was alluring, and
our surprise was great when a universally healthy household greeted
the morrow morn.

When I heard the amount the poor folk had raised for charity out of
their meagre pittance, I felt reproached. It is a consistent fact here
that the people give and do more than their means justify, and it
must involve a hard pinch for them in some other quarter.

Coming from the sale at ten at night I looked for our "Yoho" in
passing the churchyard, but was unrewarded, though some of the harbour
people assured me in the morning that they had seen it plainly. Can
there be anything in the current belief that the men of the sea are
more psychic than we case-hardened products of civilization, or is it
merely superstition? There is a story here of a man called Gaulton,
which is vouched for by all the older men who can recall the incident.
It seems that in Savage Cove this old George Gaulton lived till he was
ninety. He died on December 4, 1883. On the 16th he appeared in the
flesh to a former acquaintance at Port au Choix, fifty miles from the
spot at which he had died. This man Shenicks gives the following
account of the curious visitation: