THE wind swooped down out of the frozen fastnesses of the North and raced across the night, fretting the tips of the swelling seas into lustreless white ridges against the blackness. The stiffened canvas of the little smack boomed and groaned beneath the onslaught, with the reef points beating a mad tattoo, and the weather halyards whined and crackled under the strain. She rose and fell to the ill-tempered tumble of water with the loggy motion of a trawler with her gear down, and the deck-hand, in solitary watch, with his head bent to the squall, hugged the shelter of the mizzen mast, the lashed tiller hunched up under his hip.

Right away to windward, a tiny point of light told of the presence of other toilers taking their harvest, and the deckie watched stolidly; it gave him a sense of companionship on that lonely deck. But, as he watched it rise and fall, there broke out a sudden flare of light below it, a long flame that split the darkness and showed the silhouetted figures of moving men. The deckie

grunted to himself, and, shaking the sleet from the windward side of his oilskins, dropped silently down the hoodway of the little cabin.

Just inside, on the bottom locker, lay curled up the little skipper, dressed even to his oilies, and the deckie shook him by the shoulder.

'Just on dawn, skipper,' he whispered, 'an' the Dutchie to win'ard is haulin'.'

The little man was awake in an instant, every sense alert. In a couple of seconds he had followed the deckie to the deck, noting the steam pressure of the winch on the way. A few moments later, his towsled head was thrust through the cabin top.

'B'low there, turn out to haul-l!' he bawled.

There was a momentary hesitation, and then the bunkslides shot back; into the light of the cabin poked three pairs of stockinged legs followed by their grimy owners, who, yawning and swaying, groped sleepily round for their thigh-boots and mitts, and, after taking toll of the hospitable tea kettle on the cabin stove, struggled into their brinestiffened oilskins and followed each other to the cold, wet deck above.

A brilliant oil lamp shot its glare along the slushy deck, while the stumpy funnel of the steam capstan was roaring out half a foot of flame and a stream of soot and smoke, that eddied and swirled down to leeward.

The smack had come round in the wind, and the big boom swung heavily over; the skipper and deckie, taking advantage of the slack in the trawl warp, the heavy hempen cable that tows the gear along the ocean bottom, had transferred it from the tow-post amidships to the steam winch.

'Stopped to curl yer hair?' inquired the little man, sarcastically, as the hands rose out of the hoodway. 'Bet

ter get a move on; it'll keep you warm.' The deckie chuckled and buffeted his body into warmth, the icicles clinging from his mitts as he swung his arms. 'Cold enough to freeze the scales off'n a dogfish, all the watch,' he volunteered. And no one contradicted him. Then the winch rattled into action, and inboard, out of the depths overside, came the sinuous, dripping warp. With his mitts pulled well over his hands, the third hand paid it into the hold forward, and as the little smack dropped down the long valleys, her low deck occasionally caught a tumbling rush of icy water that tickled that luckless third hand into spurts of profanity. The others laughed uproariously.

For a minute or so, the winch merrily rattled on until, all at once, like some prehistoric monster of the deep, the gaunt trawl-beam, with the wroughtiron hoops at each end, rose out of the sea and went towering upwards to the obscurity of the yards. A hastily-lit flare showed up the streaming meshes of the net that hung to it, as the whole gear was carefully lowered flush with the ice-crowned gunnel.

The skipper called a rest, and the crew warmed their rime-caked hands, already aflame with chilblains and salt water sores, by the glowing winch funnel, while the boy dodged below for mugs of the inevitable tea. They wiped the sleet from their faces and swallowed the scalding stuff in gulps; then the skipper bullied them into action again as he looked around at the sky.

'Come on, we'll be gettin' along,' he said; 'there's heaps t' do, an' more squalls a comin'.'

- In one long line, they hung over the slippery gunnel, clawing up the net that hung in the water below, by their fingers in the meshes. With a united swing, to the grunt of the skipper, they hauled it slowly in, to pile up glistening inboard.

In a moment or two, the apex of the net came into view, a whitey-gray mass on the surface of the water; but it was too heavy to haul in by hand, so they rested again while a block and tackle was rigged up to the yard. The block was frozen, but it was soon kicked into action, and, to the racket of the winch, the night's catch slowly swept up out of the sea and swung round over the deck.

'What did I say?' shouted the skipper; 'look at it! thirty trunks if a skipfull. Winter fish'n's barb'rous - but 'tis fish'n.'

The deckhand slid underneath the streaming bag of fish that hung a foot or two above the deck, and slacked away the rope that held the mouth of the net fast. With a rush and a splatter, the harvest of twelve hours' trawling dropped down on the slippery deck; rocks and weed; great turbot and tiny haddock; shell-fish, sea-shells, and rusted wreckage; brill, skate, cod, and ling;- all went sliding down under the lee rail in an apparently inextricable mass. They lit another flare and waded in to sort it out. Wet and cold, they wasted no time. Overboard went the rocks and weed, small fry and undesirable fish generally, while the rest were quickly sorted into skips for cleaning.

In a little while, the deck was comparatively clear and the gear 'shot' again. The mate went below to warm up on a mess of meat, peas, and duff, preparatory to taking up the morning watch, while the others prepared the catch for packing in the fishroom.

The little skipper took his morning pipe in the shelter of the hoodway, and watched Sammy pack half a dozen huge turbot, carefully, in a fish trunk.

'A dozen lots like that, Sammy,' he said, 'an' ye'll feel a difference in your share, eh? Prime's the stuff for profit -an' winter fish'n for prime fish.'

myself saying when I looked at her. Festas there were none in this desolate spot. What use, then, were the heavy ear-rings, the gaily colored skirt, the white stockings? And if it came to that, the laughing eyes with their witchery, there being no one to bewitch? She was caged like her canary. And when she sang, never was it a full-throated song of happiness: 'L'uccello canta in gabbia, non per amore ma per rabbia.' The pity of it, I thought, and discovered later that Carmelo was of a like opinion. In the evening, she used to run down the hill to the landing-stage and sit on the wooden pier, dangling her feet above the cool waters. Sometimes, Danton was there, too, placidly smoking. More often, he came down for a little while, then sauntered home up the white road.

Queer old fellow! I imagine words came hardly to him; that he was perhaps a poor hand at raillery. But Carmelo was always there. At first, I used to stroll that way to take the evening air. There they were, always, he and she. Discreetly, I gave up going in that direction; instead, I wandered off to drink bad coffee at the village inn and watched the fishermen playing dominoes. Cielo! it was no affair of mine, this love-making; I was not old Danton's watch-dog.

To-day, great scandal in the village. One of the motor-boats is missing, and Annunziata and Carmelo are not to be found. The girl's mother, a sourvisaged contadina, has put in an appearance. She is talking, with ap

propriate gestures, to all and sundry. 'Oimé, Oimé, Madonna santissima, what is one to do!' What, indeed! Someone suggests giving chase, since the second motor-boat remains. Two fishermen who have been pressed into service, somewhat unwillingly, go down with the virago mother to the landing stage. At a distance, I follow them to observe the comedy. The men are trying to start the engine. All to no purpose, so that one may guess Carmelo has taken precautions. Torrents of words, invocations to the saints, maledictions reach my ears; the woman would make a fortune on the stage.

Meanwhile, the truant pair are gaining time. Probably they have landed some miles down the coast. Once they reach a city, who is there who can discover in a labyrinth of streets their hiding-place?

Foolish pair! When the small stock of money has been spent, what will they do? Carmelo will perhaps turn waiter, and Annunziata will weary her pretty feet in trudging up and down the stone steps of some hostelry. The would-be rescue party are turned in my direction and are looking towards the village; I follow their gaze. Danton is not to be seen. They are coming up the hill. The woman, soundly rating the fishermen, brushes past me. The men are grinning broadly.

But it is no laughing matter. In the evening I passed the little house for the last time. Old Danton was sitting at the door beneath the empty cage. I hurried by, for I could not look upon his face.

DURING all the twenty years of our intimate acquaintance I have never been able to think of Philip Gibbs without thinking also of David Copperfield. Even now as a man of forty, with his remarkably youthful countenance, he would still look David Copperfield to the life, if only he wore his hair a little longer, and his trousers a little tighter. There is a great deal of David in his character, no less than in his personal appearance in his grave simplicity, his unobtrusive humor, his depth of feeling, his wide sympathies, his keenly observant interest in everything, human nature most of all. And then, into the bargain, there is his literary and journalistic career. Had David Copperfield gone forth as a 'War Special' who can doubt but that his record would have been just such as the record of Philip Gibbs? Incidentally, he would doubtless have become ‘Sir David.' I like to picture Mr. Wilkins Micawber inditing a letter of congratulation to the young friend whom he can never again address as 'My dear Copperfield.'

cently joined Cassell & Co.'s editorial staff as assistant to the manager of their Education Department, Mr. H. O. Arnold-Forster, M.P., a very serious and strenuous man, and something of a celebrity in the world of politics. The twenty-year-old new-comer put his back into the work and soon made himself quite an educational expert; but a better opening which offered elsewhere put an early end to this stage in his

career.

The better opening was that of editor of Tillotson's Fiction Bureau at Bolton, in Lancashire. Here, also, he made his mark. As a change from the countless novels and short stories which it was his business to procure for those wholesale literary purveyors, he introduced a curiously interesting new 'feature' of his own, under the effective title, 'Knowledge is Power'- a miscellany of extracts from all kinds of books, with a running commentary by himself, and original contributions from chance correspondents, famous or obscure. It was a huge success. That gift of sympathy which was to be so great a factor in his achievements as a war correspondent now revealed itself and brought him all kinds of communications

thousands of them from all corners of the globe. I doubt whether anybody in England, except Mr. Stead of the Review of Reviews, had so wonderful a letter bag.

But Bolton is a dismal hole, and Philip Gibbs and his young wifewhom he had married in his teens longed again for London. So we find