had eaten well and was comfortable. Now she picked her teeth with a pin,
and snuffed the sea air, and gave a passing neighbor "good-afternoon" with
greater warmth of manner than usual. Presently her mood changed; she
noisily rated herself and her stepdaughter for standing idling; then both
went back to their work.



CHAPTER FOUR

BARRON BEGINS TO LEARN THE GORSE


Between four and five o'clock in the morning of the following day the
master of the white cottage came home. His wife expected him and was
getting breakfast when Michael tramped in--a very tall, square-built man,
clad to the eye in tanned oilskin overalls, sou'wester, and jackboots. The
fisherman returned to his family in high good temper; for the sea had
yielded silvery thousands to his drift-nets, and the catch had already been
sold in the harbor for a handsome figure. The brown sails of Tregenza's
lugger flapped in the bay among a crowd of others, and every man was in a
hurry to be off again at the earliest opportunity. Already the first boats
home were putting to sea once more, making a wide tack across the mouth of
the bay until nearly abreast of St. Michael's Mount, then tearing away like
race horses with foam flying as they sailed before the eastern wind for the
Scilly Islands and the mackerel.

Michael kissed his wife and Joan also, as she came to the kitchen
sleepy-eyed in the soft light to welcome him. Then, while Mrs. Tregenza was
busied with breakfast and the girl cleaned some fish, he went to his own