llage for a month, at least, and longed to take a
run down to the little cluster of houses.

"How the waves will dash in there!" he thought; "and I wonder how
those huts stand such a tempest as this? I've a good mind to go,
anyhow,--it's such a good chance to see the place in a gale." He
wavered and walked hesitatingly about in the sand for a few minutes,
and at last decided to go. He ran and walked by turns, the wind
blowing his curly locks in his eyes and taking his breath almost away
with its fierce gusts; yet he kept on. It seemed as if the waves
jarred and thundered heavier on this Culm side than on his own quarter
of the Rock; at any rate, the wind was more powerful, and blew the
spray upon him in showers.

"I'll get drenched, if the wind keeps on like this!" he thought; "if I
weren't so near, I'd turn back; but the houses are in sight, already,
and I've got to get acquainted with salt water. I'll keep on!"

When he drew near the little settlement, he was tired enough with
running and battling the wind, and was content to take a slower pace.
Never had the fishermen's huts looked so forlorn and miserable as now.
Noll half expected to see them come tumbling and rolling along the
sand in every gust of wind which struck them; yet, with some
mysterious attraction to their sandy foundations, they held their own,
though some of them creaked and groaned with the strain which was
brought to bear upon their timbers.

The boy kept on toward the little wharf, over which the waves rolled
and tumbled furiously, without meeting a soul. The water dashed so
high and wildly up the sand that he was obliged to keep well up beside
the houses to escape a drenching. He thought he had never looked upon
so grand a sight as the sea presented here,--all its vast waste
lashed into great waves that came roaring in like white-maned monsters
to dash themselves upon the laud.

Standing here, close by Dirk Sharp's door, Noll suddenly fancied he
heard a faint wail within. He was not at all sure, the sea thundered
so, and the wind screamed so shrilly about the miserable dwelling; but
presently, in a slight lull of the tempest, he heard the wail--if wail
it was--again. It sounded like the voice of a child,--a child
suffering illness or pain.

"I wonder if Dirk has any little ones?" thought Noll; "and what can he
do with them, if they are ill?"

Mentally hoping that his ears had deceived him, and that no one on the
desolate Roc