Our little boat flew on, and suddenly the rolling and pitching ceased as if some magic had oiled the waters.  Within the land-locked cove the wind no longer howled and the surface was smooth.  It was like awaking from the unrest of a nightmare to the peace of one’s bed.  We glided on, losing headway, for Frenchy had let the sheets run.  With movements apparently slow, yet with the deftness which brings quick results, the sails were gathered about the masts and made fast, and presently we drifted against the small forest of poles supporting the flakes and fishhouses.  These were black and glistening with the rain and from them came an odor, acrid and penetrating, of decaying fish in ill-emptied gurry-butts and of putrefying livers oozing out a black oil in open casks.

We made our way over the precarious footing of unstable planks and shook ourselves like wet dogs, while Sammy stopped for a moment to hunt beneath his oilskins for a sodden plug of tobacco, from which he managed to gnaw off a satisfactory portion.

“Well, we’s here, anyways,” he observed, quietly.

“Sammy, you’re a wonderful man!” I exclaimed, earnestly.

The old fellow looked at me, but his seamed face appeared devoid of understanding.  Slowly there seemed to dawn upon his mind the idea that this might be some sort of jest on my part, and the tanned leather of his countenance wrinkled further into a near approach to a smile, as we started up the steep path leading up to the village.

Yet I had meant no pleasantry whatever, for really I was awed by the mystery of it all.  In the fog that rolled in with the north-east gale we had left Will’s Island, ten miles away, and skirted, without ever seeing them, some miles of cliffs.  We had avoided scores of rocks over which the seas broke fiercely, and had finally dashed through a narrow opening in the appalling face of the huge ledge, unerringly.  To me it seemed like a gigantic deed, beyond the powers of man.

The path began to widen, and Sammy again vouchsafed some information, taking up his slender thread of narrative as if it had never been interrupted.

“So they carries him up to th’ house, on a fishbarrow, an’ they sends for me, an’ wuz all talkin’ to onst, sayin’ I must git you quick an’ never mind what it costs.  Them people don’t mind what-nothin’ costs, ’pears to me.”

By this time we had risen well above the waters of Sweetapple Cove.  The few scattered small houses appeared through the mist, their eaves dripping in unclean puddles.  The most pretentious dwelling in the place is deserted.  It boasts a small veranda and a fairly large front window over which boards have been nailed.  In very halt and ill-formed letters a sign announces “The Royal Shop,” a title certainly savoring of affluence.  But it is a sad commentary upon the prosperity of the Cove that even a Syrian trader has tried the place and failed to eke out a living there.