_Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already
to harvest_."

If pressed in argument he would entrench himself behind the wonderful
plenty of john-doreys: "Which," he would say, "is the mysteriousest
fish in the sea and the holiest. Take a john-dorey or two, and the
pilchards be never far behind. 'Tis well beknown as the fish St
Peter took when Our Lord told 'en to cast a hook; an' be shot if he
didn' come to hook with a piece o' silver in his mouth! You can see
Peter's thumb-mark upon him to this day: and, if you ask _me_, he's
better eatin' than a sole, let alone you can carve en with a
spoon--though improved if stuffed, with a shreddin' o' mint.
Iss, baked o' course. . . . Afore August is out--mark my words--the
pilchards'll be here."

"But shall _we_ be here to take 'em?"

It was a dark, good-looking, serious youth who put the question: and
all the men at the end of the quay turned to stare at him. (For this
happened on the evening of Saturday, the 25th--St James's Day,--when
all the boats were laid up for the week-end.)

The men turned to young Seth Minards because, as a rule, he had a
wonderful gift of silence. He was known to be something of a
scholar, and religious too: but his religion did Dot declare itself
outwardly, save perhaps in a constant gentleness of manner.
The essence of it lay in spiritual withdrawal; the man retiring into
his own heart, so to speak, and finding there a Friend with whom to
hold sweet and habitual counsel. By consequence, young Seth Minards
spoke rarely, but with more than a double weight.