EoEiB set out for the house in search of warmth and
breakfast; but my uncle was bent upon examining the
shores of Aros, and I felt it a part of duty to accom-
pany him throughout. He was now docile and quiet,
but tremulous and weak in mind and body ; and it was
with the eagerness of a child that he pursued his ex-
ploration. He climbed far down upon the rocks ; on
the beaches, he pursued the retreating breakers. The
merest broken plank or rag of cordage was a treasure in



60 THE MERET MEN.
his eyes to be secured at the peril of his life. To see
him, mth weak and stumbling footsteps, expose him-
self to the pursuit of the surf, or the snares and pitfalls
of the weedy rock, kept me in a perpetual terror. My
arm was ready to support him, my hand clutched him
by the skirt, I helped him to draw his pitiful discoyeries
beyond the reach of the returning wave ; a nurse accom-
panying a child of seven would have had no different
experience.
Yet, weakened as he was by the reaction from his
madness of the night before, the passions that smould-
ered in his nature were those of a strong man. His
terror of the sea, although conquered for the moment,
was still undiminished ; had the sea been a lake of
living flames, he could not have shrunk more panicaUy
from its touch; and once, when his foot slipped and he
plunged to the midleg into a pool of water, the shriek
that came up out of his soul was like the cry of death.
