CHAPTER V.
AFTER THE STORMS.
It was very pleasant on the third day that followed the gale; the sky once more took its steel-grey shade, the sharp breezes stole over gentle rollers and covered each sad-coloured bulge with fleeting ripples.

That blessed breeze, so pure, so crisp, so potently shot through with magic savours of iodine and ozone, exhilarates the spirits until the most staid of men break at times into schoolboy fun.

Do you imagine that religious people are dull, or dowie, as the Scotch say?
Not a bit of it.
They are the most cheerful and wholesome of mortals, and I only wish my own companions all my life had been as genial and merry.

How often and often have I been in companies where men had been feeding--we won't say "dining," because that implies something delicate and rational.

The swilling began, and soon the laughter of certain people sounded like the crackling of thorns under a pot, and we were all jolly--so jolly.