door, with an arm across his
eyes.

The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in a
frosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed to black
substances; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind dark
masts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on
fire. Lizzie, looking for her father, saw him coming, and stood upon the
causeway that he might see her.

He had nothing with him but his boat, and came on apace. A knot of those
amphibious human-creatures who appear to have some mysterious power
of extracting a subsistence out of tidal water by looking at it, were
gathered together about the causeway. As her father's boat grounded,
they became contemplative of the mud, and dispersed themselves. She saw
that the mute avoidance had begun.

Gaffer saw it, too, in so far as that he was moved when he set foot on
shore, to stare around him. But, he promptly set to work to haul up his
boat, and make her fast, and take the sculls and rudder and rope out of
her. Carrying these with Lizzie's aid, he passed up to his dwelling.

'Sit close to the fire, father, dear, while I cook your breakfast.
It's all ready for cooking, and only been waiting for you. You must be
frozen.'

'Well, Lizzie, I ain't of a glow; that's certain. And my hands seem
nailed through to the sculls. See how dead they are!' Something
suggestive in their colour, and perhaps in her face, struck him as he
held them up; he turned his shoulder and held them down to the fire.

'You were not out in the perishing night, I hope, father?'

'No, my dear. Lay aboard a barge, by a blazing coal-fire.--Where's that
boy?'

'There's a drop of brandy for your tea, father, if you'll put it in
while I turn this bit of meat. If the river was to get frozen, there
would be a deal of distress; wouldn't there, father?'

'Ah! there's always enough of that,' said Gaffer, dropping the liquor
into his cup from a squat black bottle, and dropping it slowly that it
might seem more; 'distress is for ever a going about, like sut in the
air--Ain't that boy up yet?'

'The meat's ready now, father. Eat it while it's hot and comfortable.
After you have finished, we'll turn round to the fire and talk.'

But, he perceived that he was evaded, and, having thrown a hasty angry
glance towards the bunk, plucked at a corner of her apron and asked:

'What's gone with that boy?'

'Father, if you'll begin your breakfast, I'll sit by a