for a century Allan knew that he would never forget that first walk to
Promoters--the big fisherman at his side, the ocean roaring in his ears,
the lights from the cottage windows dully gleaming through the black
darkness--never forget that moment in which Maggie Promoter turned from
the fire with the "cruisie" in her hand, the very incarnation of
womanhood, crowned with perfect health and splendid beauty.

It was Allan's nature to drift with events, and to easily accommodate
himself to circumstances. In France he had been a gay, fashionable
trifler; in Germany cloudy philosophies and musical ideas had fascinated
him; in Rome he had dreamed in old temples, and painted and smoked with
the artists in their lofty shabby studios. He was equally ready to share
the stirring danger and freedom of the fisher's life, for he was yet
young enough to feel delight in physical exertion, and in physical danger.

When the boat went hammering through cheerless seas, and the lines were
heavy with great ling fish, it was pleasure to match his young supple
thews with those of the strongest men. And it was pleasure, when hungry
and weary, to turn shoreward, and feel the smell of the peat smoke on the
south-west wind, bringing the cottage hearth, and the welcome meal, and
the beautiful face of Maggie Promoter nearer. Even when the weather was
stormy, and it was a hurl down one sea, and a hoist up the next, when the
forty foot mast had to be lowered and lashed down, and the heavy mizzen
set in its place, Allan soon grew to enjoy the tumult and the fight, and
his hand was always ready to do its share.

Very soon after going to the Promoters he procured himself some suits of
fishers' clothing; and Maggie often thought when he came in from the sea,
rosy and glowing, with his brown hair wet with the spindrift, nets on his
shoulders, or lines in his hands, that he was the handsomest fisher-lad