On the second evening the Captain came to eat his dinner with John.  “The storm is over, Mr. Hatton,” he said.  “The sea has been out of her wits, like an angry woman; but,” he added with a smile, “we got the better of her, and the wind has gone down.  There is not breeze enough now to make the yacht lie over.”

“I could hear your voice, strong and cheerful, above all the uproar, Captain, so I had no fear.”

“We had plenty of sea room, sir, a good boat, and—­”

“A good captain.”

“Yes, sir, you may say that.  The Pentland roared and raged a bit, but the sea has her Master.  She hears a voice we cannot hear.  It says only three words, Mr. Hatton, three words we cannot hear, but a great calm follows them.”

“And the three words are—?”

“Peace!  Be still!”

Then John Hatton looked with a quick understanding into his Captain’s face, and answered with a confident smile,

    “O Saxon Sailor thou hast had with thee,
    The Sailor of the Lake of Galilee.”

“I hope, and I believe so, sir.  I have been in big storms, and felt it.”

“I got a glimpse of you in a flash of lightning that I shall never forget, Captain Cook.  You were standing by the wheel, tightening your hat on your head; your feet were firm on the rolling deck, and you were searching the thickest of the storm with a cheerful, confident face.  Do you like a storm?”

“Well, sir, smooth sea-sailing is no great pleasure.  I would rather see clouds of spray driving past swelling sails, than feel my way through a nasty fog.  Give me a sea as high as a masthead, compact as a wall, and charging with the level swiftness of a horse regiment, and I would rather take a ship through it, than make her cut her way through a thick, black fog, as if she was a knife.  In a storm you see what you are doing, and where you are going, but you hev to steal and creep and sneak through a fog, and never know what trap or hole may be ahead of you.  I know the sea in all her ways and moods, sir.  Some of them are rather trying.  But my home and my business is on her, and in her worst temper she suits me better than any four-walled room, where I would feel like a stormy petrel shut up in a cage.  The sea and I are kin.  I often feel as if I had tides in my blood that flow and ebb with her tides.”

“I would not gainsay you, Captain.  Every man’s blood runs as he feels.  You were a different man and a grander man when you were guiding the yacht through the storm than you are sitting here beside me eating and drinking.  My blood begins to flow quick when I go into big rooms filled with a thousand power looms.  Their noise and clatter is in my ears a song of praise, and very often the men and women who work at them are singing grandly to this accompaniment.  Sometimes I join in their song, as I walk among them, for the Great Master hears as well as sees, and though these looms are almost alive in their marvelous skill, it may be that He is pleased to hear the little human note mingling with the voices of the clattering, humming, burring looms.”