Here is one of the
yarns which he heard. It is stuck in the Diary without reference to
date, place of hearing, or anything else.
Joe Glenn used to say that the queerest Christmas Day he ever spent fell
in 1883, the year of the great gale. In that year there was cruel
trouble, and the number of folks wearing mourning that one met in Hull
and Yarmouth, and the other places, was enough to make the most
light-hearted man feel miserable. Black everywhere--nothing but black at
every turn; and then the women's faces looked so wistful, and the
children seemed so quiet, that I couldn't bear to walk the streets. The
women would question any stranger that came from the quays, and they
scorned to think that there was not always a chance for their men; but
the dead seamen were swinging about in the ooze far down under the grey
waves, and the poor souls who went gaping and gazing day after day had
all their trouble for nothing.
Glenn towed out on the 20th of October, and he cried, "Good-bye, Sal;
back for Christmas!" as they surged away toward Gorleston.
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