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Speaker 1: Christmas at Sea by Robert Lewis Stephenson. The sheets were

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frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand. The decks

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were like a slide where a seaman scarce could stand.

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The wind was in norwester blowing squally off the sea,

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and cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a lee.

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They heard the surfer roaring before the break of day,

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But twas only with the peep of light we saw

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how ill we lay. We tumbled every hand on deck

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in stanter with a shout, and we gave her the

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main tops and stood by to go about. All day

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we tacked and tacked between the south head and the

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north All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got

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no further forth. All day, as cold as charity, in

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bitter pain and dread for very life and nature, we

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tacked from head to head. We gave the south the

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wider berth, for there the tide race roared. By every

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tack we made. We brought the north head close aboard

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so's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers

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running high, and the coast guard in his garden with

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his glass against his eye. The frost was on the

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village roofs as white as ocean foam. The good red

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fires were burning bright in every longshore home. The window

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sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out, and I vowed

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we'd sniffed the victuals. As the vessel went about, the

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bells upon the church were wrung with a mighty jovial cheer.

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For it's just that I should tell you how, of

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all days in the year, this day of our adversity

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was blessed Christmas morn. And the house above the coast

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guards was the house where I was born. Oh well,

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I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there, my

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mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair. And well I

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saw the fire light like a flight of homely elves

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go dancing round the china plates that stand upon the shelves.

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And well I knew the talk they had, the talk

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that was of me, of the shadow on the household,

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and the sun that went to sea. And oh, the

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wicked fool, I seemed in every kind of way to

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be here and hauling frozen ropes. On blessed Christmas day.

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They lit the high sea light, and the dark began

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to fall. All hands to loose stop gallant sails. I

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heard the captain call by the Lord. She'll never stand it.

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Our first mate, Jackson cried. It's the one way or

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the other. Mister Jackson, he replied. She staggered to her bearings,

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but the sails were new and good, and the ship

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smelt up to windward, just as though she understood, as

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the winter's day was ending. In the entry of the night,

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we cleared the weary headland and passed below the light,

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and they heaved them mighty breath, every soul on board,

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but me, as they saw her nose again pointing handsome

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out to sea. But all that I could think of,

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in the darkness and the cold, was just that I

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was leaving home, and my folks were growing old.