nd fares worse." Which statement of the case he
appeared to think amusing.

"But then why do they sometimes stay out?" said Mr. Linden,--"because I
have read of men who 'toiled all the night and caught nothing'."

"Wall, you see," said the fisher, "they goes in shoals or flocks like,
and they's notional. Some of 'em won't come at one time o' tide, and
some won't come at another--and they has their favourite places too.
Then if a man sets his nets where the fish _aint_, all creation might
work and catch nothin'. This side the river is better now than over
there."

"These men that I was talking of," said Mr. Linden, "once found a
difference even between the two sides of their ship. But the other
time, when they had caught nothing all the night, in the morning they
caught so many that their net broke and both their ships began to sink."

"What kind o' folks was them?" said the oarsman a little scornfully.

"Why they were fishermen," said Mr. Linden. "They followed your calling
first, and then they followed mine."

"What's yourn?" said the other, in his tone of good-humoured interest.
"Guess you're a speaker o' some sort--aint ye?"

"Yes--" Mr. Linden said, with a little demure gesture of the head,--"I
am--'of some sort,' as you say. But I've got an account of these men in
my pocket--don't you want to hear it?--it's more interesting than any
account you could have of me."

"Like to hear it well enough--" said the man at the net, setting
himself astride the gunwale to listen, with the net hanging from his
hand.

"I wouldn't mind knowing how they worked it--" said the other man,
while Mr. Linden threw a rope round one of the thole-pins of the
fishing boat and gave the other end to Faith, and then took out his
book. And Faith was amused at the men's submissive attention, and the
next minute did not wonder at all!--as she noted the charm that held
them--the grace of mingled ease, kindliness, and power, in Mr. Linden's
manner and presence. Nothing could have greater simplicity, and it was
not new to Faith, yet she looked at him as if she had never seen him
before.

"A great many years ago," he said, "when the Son of God, our Lord Jesus
Christ, was in this world, he went about healing sick people, and
teaching every one the way to heaven; and the people came in great
numbers to hear him.

"'And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the
word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesareth, and saw