Samuel Alexander White

“ HUGHIE HAY, lookout on the Gloucester schooner Graywing, queen of the American fishing fleet that fished the Labrador waters on the heels of the advantageous Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, paused at the foot of the perpendicular ladder that led from the vessel's deck down into her cramped cabin. In the act of unceremoniously breaking in on the scene below, his captain's uplifted finger held him, and he waited thus, staring across the smoke-blurred forecastle triangle, waiting for the forefinger of the brown sea-fist to fall. ”

“ Swift to devotion, swifter perhaps to action, the captain's finger of warning dropped for his lookout Hughie Hay, and Hughie, himself a fresh-faced, auburn-haired lump of a Gloucester lad with the glowing cheeks of a woman and the wise gray eyes of a child, went on to announce the news he had carried down the ladder. ”

“ Quick with an oath in anger, with a fist-blow in a brawl, they were, nevertheless, each according to his breed, inherently religious, and to Lance's benediction they chorused sonorous "Amen." As into the eyes of God they had looked overlong into the depths of the sea, and the Omnipotence of its creation had bound them with stronger bonds than any landsmen's creed or sect. ”