They are very silent, and their steps are feline.  Peggy worked out her day, and then she would go home and cut up the eels for the next day’s lines.  In the early morning the men came in, and then Peggy had to turn out and carry the fish to the cart that drove inland to the coach or the railway station.  It was not a gay life; but still each fresh day brought the lads and their father home, and Peggy could not have looked at them, and more especially perhaps at her great sons, without being proud of her men-folk.  While they were sleeping she had to be at work, so that the home life was restricted, but it was abundantly clear that in a rough and silent way the whole of the family were fond of each other; and if Peggy could spare little more than a glance when the brown sail of the coble came in sight, it is probable that she felt just as much as ladies who have time for long and yearning looks.

There came a time when Peggy needed no more to look out for the sail.  Her husband went stolidly down to the boat one evening, and her three sons followed with their weighty tread.  The father was a big, rugged man with a dark face; the lads were yellow-haired, taking after their mother.  Some of the fishermen did not like the look of the evening sky, but Peggy’s husband never much heeded the weather.

Next day the wind came away very strong, and the cobles had to cower southward under a bare strip of mainsail.  The men ashore did not like to be asked whether they thought the weather would get worse; and the women stood anxiously at their doors.  A little later and they gathered all together on the rock-edge.  One coble, finely handled, was working steadily up to the bend where the boats ran in for the smooth water, and Peggy followed every yard that the little craft gained.  All the world for her depended on the chance of weathering that perilous turn.  The sail was hardly to be seen for the drift that was plucked off the crests of the waves.  Too soon Peggy saw a great roller double over and fold itself heavily into the boat.  Then there was the long wallowing lurch, and the rudder came up, while the mast and the sodden sail went under.  It was bad enough for a woman to read in some cold official list about the death of her father, her husband, her son; but very much worse it is for the woman who sees her dearest drowning—­standing safe ashore to watch every hopeless struggle for life.  One of the fishers said to Peggy, “Come thy ways in, my woman; and we’ll away and seek them.”  But Peggy walked fast across the sand and down to the place where she knew the set of the tide would carry the dead lads in.  The father came first ashore.  She wiped the froth from his lips and closed his eyes, and then hastened further northward where her eldest son was flung on the beach.  Peggy saw in an instant that his face was bruised, and moaned at the sight of the bruises; his father looked as though he were sleeping.  The other lads did not come ashore till next day, and Peggy would not go home all the night through.  In the dark she got away from the kind fellows who stayed by her; and when they sought her she was kneeling in the hollow of a sand-hill where another of her boys lay—­her face pressed against the grass.