A POOR MAN'S HOUSE

by

STEPHEN REYNOLDS

"_We understand the artificial betterthan the natural. More soul, but lesstalent, is contained in the simple thanin the complex. _"--NOVALIS. 

London: John Lane The Bodley HeadNew York: John Lane Compy. MCMIXAll rights reserved

Turnbull and Spears, Printers, Edinburgh

TOBOBAND TOEDWARD GARNETT

A few chapters, chosen from the completed work, have appeared in the_Albany Review_, the _Daily News_ and _Country Life_. To the editorsof those periodicals the author's acknowledgments are due. 

_PREFACE_

The substance of "A Poor Man's House" was first recorded in a journal, kept for purposes of fiction, and in letters to one of the friends towhom the book is dedicated. Fiction, however, showed itself aninappropriate medium. I was unwilling to cut about the material, tomodify the characters, in order to meet the exigencies of plot, form, and so on. I felt that the life and the people were so much better thananything I could invent. Besides which, I found myself in possession ofconclusions, hot for expression, which could not be incorporated at allinto fiction. "A Poor Man's House" consists then of the journal andletters, subjected to such slight re-arrangement as should enable me todraw the truest picture I could within the limits of one volume. 

Primarily the book aims at presenting a picture of a typical poor man'shouse and life. Incidentally, certain conclusions are expressedwhich--needless to say--are very tentative and are founded not alone on_this_ poor man's house. Of the book as a picture, it is not theauthor's place to speak. But its opinions, and the manner of arrivingat them, do require some explanation; the right to hold such opinionssome substantiation. 

Educated people usually deal with the poor man's life deductively; theyreason from the general to the particular; and, starting with a theory, religious, philanthropic, political, or what not, they seek, and tooeasily find, among the millions of poor, specimens--very frequentlyabnormal--to illustrate their theories. With anything but humanbeings, that is an excellent method. Human beings, unfortunately, haveindividualities. They do what, theoretically, they ought not to do, and leave undone those things they ought to do. They are even said topossess souls--untrustworthy things beyond the reach of sociologists. The inductive method--reasoning from the particular to thegeneral--though it lead to a fine crop of errors, should at least helpto counterbalance the psychological superficiality of the deductivemethod; to counterbalance, for example, the nonsense of thosewell-meaning persons who go routing about among the poor in search ofevil, and suppose that they can chain it up with little laws. Chaineddogs bite worst. 

For myself, I can only claim--I only want to claim--that I have livedamong poor people without preconceived notions or _parti pris_; neitheras parson, philanthropist, politician, inspector, sociologist norstatistician; but simply because I found there a home and more beautyof life and more happiness than I had met with elsewhere. So far as ispossible to a man of middle-class breeding, I have lived their life, have shared their interests, and have found among them some of myclosest and wisest friends. Perhaps I may reasonably anticipate onetype of criticism by adding that I have felt something of the pinch andhardship of the life, as well as enjoyed its picturesqueness. Since thebook was first written, it has fallen to me, on an occasion of illness, to take over for some days all the housekeeping and cooking; and I haveworked on the boats sometimes fifteen hours a day, not as an amateur, but for hard and--what is more to the point--badly-needed coin. It tookthe gilt off the gingerbread, but it didn't spoil the gingerbread!

Would it were possible to check by ever so little the class-conceit ofthose people who think that they can manage the poor man's life betterthan he can himself; who would take advantage of their education toplay ducks and drakes with his personal affairs. For it is my firmbelief that in the present phase of national evolution, and as regardsthe things that really matter, the educated man has more to learn ofthe poor man than to teach him. Even Nietzsche, the philosopher ofaristocracy, went so far as to say that _in the so-called culturedclasses, the believers in 'modern ideas, ' nothing is perhaps sorepulsive as their lack of shame, the easy insolence of eye and handwith which they touch, taste, and finger everything; and it is possiblethat even yet there is more_ relative _nobility of taste, and more tactfor reverence among the people, among the lower classes of the people, especially among peasants, than among the newspaper-reading_ demi-monde_of intellect, the cultured class_. 

S. R. 

SEACOMBE, 1908. 

_A POOR MAN'S HOUSE_

I

 EGREMONT VILLAS, SEACOMBE, _April_. 

1

The sea is merely grinding against the shingle. The _Moondaisy_ liesabove the sea-wall, in the gutter, with her bottom-boards out and apuddle of greenish water covering her garboard strake. Her hunchbackedLittle Commodore is dead. The other two of her old crew, George Widgerand Looby Smith are nowhere to be seen: they must be nearly grown upby now. The fishermen themselves appear less picturesque and saltythan they used to do. It is slack time after a bad herring season. They are dispirited and lazy, and very likely hungry. 

These old lodgings of mine, with their smug curtains, aspidestriaplant, china vases and wobbly tables and chairs. .. . 

But I can hear the sea-gulls screaming, even here. 

2

[Sidenote: _GEORGE GONE TO SEA_]

Yesterday morning I met young George Widger, now grown very lanky butstill cat-like in his movements. He was parading the town with a coupleof his mates, attired in a creased blue suit with a wonderful yellowscarf around his neck, instead of the faded guernsey and raggedsea-soaked trousers in which he used to come to sea. What was up? Iasked his father, and Tony had a long rigmarole to tell me. George hadgot a sweetheart. Therefore George had begun to look about him for asure livelihood. George was not satisfied with a fisherman's prospects. "Yu works and drives and slaves, and don't never get no forarder. " SoGeorge had gone to the chief officer of coastguards without saying aword to his father and had been found fit. George had joined the Navy. He was going off to Plymouth that very day at dinner-time. 

It is like a knight of romance being equipped by his lady for the wars. But what must be the difficulty to a young fisherman of earning hisbread and cheese, when all he can do for his sweetheart is to leave herforthwith! There's a fine desperation in it. 

Tony seemed rather proud. "They 'ouldn't think as I had a son oldenough for the Navy, wude they, sir? I married George's mother, herthat's dead, when I wer hardly olden'n he is. I should ha' joined theNavy meself if it hadn' been for the rheumatic fever what bent me like. I am. 'Tis a sure thing, you see--once yu'm in it an' behavesyourself--wi' a pension at the end o'it. But I'm so strong an'capable-like for fishing as them that's bolt upright, on'y I 'ouldn'tha' done for the Navy. Aye! the boy's right. Fishing ain't no job for aman nowadays; not like what it used to be. They'll make a man of him inthe Navy. "

In the evening, after dark, I saw Tony again. He was standing outside abrilliantly lighted grocer's shop, his cap awry as usual, and a reeferthrown over his guernsey. Something in the despondency of his attitudehaled me across the road. "Well, Tony? George is there by now?"

"Iss . .. I-I-I w-wonder what the boy's thinking o'it now. .. . "

The man was crying his heart out. "I come'd hereto 'cause it don' seem's if I can stay in house. Went in for some supper a while ago, but Icuden' eat nort. 'Tisn' 's if he'd ever been away from home before, yuknow. "

"Come along down to the Shore Road, Tony. "

It seemed wrong, hardly decent, to let his grief spend itself in thelighted-up street. The Front was deserted and dark, for there was rainin the wind, and the sound of the surf had a quick savage chop in it. Away, over the sea, was a great misty blackness. 

As we walked up and down, Tony talked between tears and anger--tearsfor himself and George, anger at the cussedness of things. He lookedstraight before him, to where the row of lamps divided the lesser fromthe greater darkness, the town noises from the chafing surf; it is theonly time I have ever seen a fisherman walk along shore without aconstant eye on the sea. 

"He's taken and gone away jest as he was beginning to be o' some usewi' the boats, an' I thought he wer settling down. _I_ didn' know whatwer going on, not till he came an' told me he wer off. But 'tisn'that, though I bain't so strong as I was to du all the work be meself;'tis what he's a-thinking now he've a-lef' home an' 'tis tu late tocome back if he wants tu. He's ther, sure 'nuff, an' that's all aboutit. "

In the presence of grief, we are all thrown back on the fine oldplatitudes we affect to despise. "You mustn't get down over it, Tony, "I said. "That won't make it a bit the better. If he's steady--woman, wine and the rest--he'll get on right enough. He's got his wits abouthim; knows how to sail a boat and splice a rope. That's the sort theywant in the Navy, I suppose. _He_'ll make his way, never fear. Thinkhow you'll trot him out when he comes home on leave. Why, they say aDevon man's proper place is the Navy. "

"Iss, they du. _I_ should ha' been there meself if it hadn' been forthe rheumatics--jest about coming out on a pension now, or in thecoastguards. I _be_ in the Royal Naval Reserve, but I ain't smartenough, like, for the Navy. The boy. .. . "

"He's as smart and strong as they make 'em. "

"Aye! he's smart, or cude be, but he'll hae to mind what he's a-doin'there. _They_ won't put up wi' no airs like he've a-give'd me. Yu've got to du what yu'm told, sharp, an' yu mustn't luke [look] whatyu thinks, let 'lone say it, or else yu'll find yourself in chokey[cells] 'fore yu knows where yu are. 'Tis like walking on a six-inchplank, in the Navy, full o' rules an' regylations; an' he won't get fedlike he was at home nuther, when us had it. "

[Sidenote: _GROG AS A SLEEPING DRAUGHT_]

"Why don't you go to bed and sleep, Tony?"

"How can I sleep wi' me head full o' what the boy's thinking o'it all!"

More walking and he calmed down a little. 

"Come and have some hot grog for a sleeping draught, Tony, and then gohome to bed. "

"Had us better tu?"

"Come along, man; then if you go straight to bed you'll sleep. "

"I on'y wish I cude. The boy must be turned in by this time. 'Tis likeas if I got a picture of him in my mind, where he is, an' he ain'thappy--_I_ knows. "

When Tony went down the narrow roadway, homewards, he had had just theamount of grog to make him sleep: no more, no less. That father'sgrief--the boy gone to sea, the father left stranded ashore--it was badto listen to. While going up town, I wondered with how much sorrow theNavy is recruited. We look on our sailors rather less fondly than onthe expensive pieces of machinery we send them to sea in. I don't thinkI shall ever again be able to regard the Navy newspaper-fashion. Itseems as if someone of mine belongs to it. .. . 

Lucky George! to be so much missed. 

This morning, when I saw Tony on the Front, he was more than a littleawkward; looked shyly at me, from under his peaked cap, as if to readin my face what I thought of him. He had slept after all, and spoke ofthe hot grog as a powerful, strange invention, new to him as a sleepingdraught. When, in talking, I said that I have only a back bedroom and afripperied sitting room, and that my old lodgings do not please me asthey used to, he clapped me on the shoulder with a jollity intended, Ithink, to put last night out of my mind. "What a pity yu hadn't let weknow yu cuden't find lodgings to your liking. Us got a little room inhouse where they sends people sometimes from the Alexandra Hotel whenthey'm full up. My missis 'ould du anything to make 'ee comfor'able. Yuan't never see'd her, have 'ee? Nice little wife, I got. Yu let us knowwhen yu be coming thees way again; that is, if yu don' mind coming wi'the likes o' us. We won't disturb 'ee. "

[Sidenote: _A NOISY PLACE_]

Good fellow! It was his thanks. However I shall be going hometo-morrow. Tony Widger lives, I believe, somewhere down the Gut, inUnder Town, a place they call the Seacombe slum. You can see a horde ofchildren pouring in and out of the Gut all day long, and in the eveningthe wives stand at the seaward end of it, to gossip and await theirhusbands. Noisy place. .. . 

II

 SALISBURY, _July_. 

A card from Tony Widger:

 Dear Sir in reply to your letter I have let to the hotel which is full for the 28th july until the 6th Aus, but I have one little room to the back but you did not say about the time it would take you to walk down also John to Saltmeadow have let so you can have that room if you can manage or you can see when you come down their are a lot of People in Seacombe or you write and let me know and I will see if I can get rooms for you if you tell me about the time you will be hear from yours Truly Anthony Widger. 

Risky; but never mind. There is always the sea. It is something to havethe certainty of a bed at the end of a long day's tramp. Besides, Iwant to see Tony, and George too, if by chance he is at home. And theremay be a little fishing. And--

 And stepping westward seems to be A kind of _heavenly_ destiny. 

That's the real feeling at the back of my mind. _I want_ to go west, towards the sunset; over Dartmoor, towards Land's End, where thedeparting ships go down into the sea. 

III

 SEACOMBE, _July-August_. 

1

After a hundred miles of dusty road, it is good to snuff the delicatelysalted air. The bight of the Exe, where we crossed it by steam launch, was only a make-believe for the sea. How wonderfully the slightrippling murmur of a calm sea flows into, and takes possession of one'smind. 

I stood by the shore and watched the boats, and was very peaceful. ThenI went down the Gut to the house that I guessed was Anthony Widger's. Many children watched me with their eyes opened wide at my knapsack. Apleasant looking old woman--short, stout, charwoman-shaped--came out ofthe passage just as I raised my hand to knock the open door. "Are youMrs Widger?" said I. 

"Lor' bless 'ee! I ben't Mrs Widger. Here, Annie! Here's a gen'leman tosee 'ee. "

Mrs Widger, the afternoon Mrs Widger, is a quite slim womanwho--strangely enough for a working man's wife--looks a good dealyounger than she is. She has rather beautiful light brown hair anddresses tastefully. I am afraid she will not feel complimented if theold woman tells her of my mistake. 

Her manner of receiving me indicated plainly a suspended judgment, inclined perhaps towards the favourable. I was shown my room, a littlelong back room, with ragged wall-paper, and almost filled up by a huge, very flat, squashy bed. After a wash-over (I did not ask for a bath forfear of exposing the lack of one) I went down to tea. 

Bread, jam and cream were put before me, together with fairly good hottea from a blue, smoky, enamelled tin teapot which holds any quantityup to a couple of quarts. Mrs Widger turned two guernseys, a hat, several odd socks, and a boot out of a great chintz-covered chair whichlacked one of its arms. To my _made_ conversation she replied shortly:

"Dear me!" "My!" "Did you ever. .. . " She was taking stock of me. 

Presently she went to a cupboard, which is also the coal-hole, andbrought out an immense frying-pan, black both inside and out. Sheheated it till the fat ran; wiped out it with a newspaper; then placedin it three split mackerel. "For Tony's tea, " she explained. "He's tosea now with two gen'lemen, but I 'spect he'll be in house sune. "

Voices from the passage: "Mam! Tay! Mam, I wants my tay!"

[Sidenote: _TEA-TIME_]

A deeper voice: "Missis, wer's my tay? Got ort nice to eat?"

It was Tony himself, accompanied by a small boy and a slightly largersmall girl. 

"Hullo, sir! Yu'm come then. Do 'ee think you can put up wi' our littleshanty? Missis ought to ha' laid for 'ee in the front room. Us got alittle parlour, you know. --I be so wet as a drownded corpse, Missis!"

The two children stood on the other side of the table, staring at me asif I were a wild beast behind bars which they scarcely trusted. "'Tis agen'leman!" exclaimed the girl. 

"Coo'h!" the boy ejaculated. 

Tony turned on them with make-believe anger: "Why don' 'ee git yer tay?Don' 'ee know 'tis rude to stare?"

"Now then, you children, " Mrs Widger continued in a strident voice, buttering two hunks of bread with astonishing rapidity. "Take off thichat, Mabel. _Sit_ down, Jimmy. "

"Coo'h! Jam!" said Jimmy. "Jam zide plaate, like the gen'leman, please, Mam Widger. "

"When you've eat that. "

I never saw children munch so fast. 

Tony took off his boots and stockings, and wrung out the ends of histrousers upon the hearth-rug. He pattered to the oven; opened the door;sniffed. 

"Her's got summat for my tay, I can see. What is it, Missis? Fetch itout----quick, sharp! Mackerel! Won' 'ee hae one, sir? Ther's plentyhere. "

Whilst Mrs Widger was helping him to the rest of his food, he ate themackerel with his fingers. Finally, he soaked up the vinegar withbread, licked his finger-tips and turned towards me. "Yu'm in thecourting chair, sir. That's where me an' Missis used to sit when we wascourting, en' it, Annie? Du 'ee see how we've a-broke the arm? When yugets a young lady, us'll lend 'ee thic chair. Didn' know as I'd got alittle wife like thees yer, did 'ee? Ay, Annie!"

He turned round and chucked her under the chin. 

"G'out, you dirty cat!" cried Mrs Widger, flinging herself back in thechair--yet not displeased. 

It was a pretty playful sight, although Mrs Widger's voice is ratherlike a newspaper boy's when she raises it. 

2

This morning, when I arrived downstairs, the kitchen was all of acaddle. Children were bolting their breakfast, seated and afoot; werewashing themselves and being washed; were getting ready and being gotready for school. Mrs Widger looked up from stitching the seat of asmall boy's breeches _in situ_. "I've a-laid your breakfast in thefront room. "

Thither I went with a book and no uncertain feeling of disappointment. 

[Sidenote: _BREAKFAST IN THE PARLOUR_]

The front room looks out upon Alexandra Square. It is, at once, parlour, lumber room, sail and rope store, portrait gallery ofrelatives and ships, and larder. It is a veritable museum of thehousehold treasures not in constant use, and represents prettyaccurately, I imagine, the extent to which Mrs Widger's house-pride isable to indulge itself. But I have had enough at Salisbury of eating mymeals among best furniture and in the (printed) company of great minds. The noise in the kitchen sounded jolly. Now or never, I thought. Soafter breakfast, I returned to the kitchen and asked for what badbehaviour I was banished to the front room. 

"Lor'! If yu don't mind this. On'y 'tis all up an' down here. .. . "

3

I went yesterday to see my old landlady at Egremont Villas. She askedme where I was lodging. 

"At Tony Widger's, in Alexandra Square. "

"Why, that's in Under Town. "

"Yes, in Under Town. "

"Oh, law! I can't think how you can live in such a horrid place!"

On my assuring her that it was not so very horrid, she rearranged hersilken skirts on the chair (a chair too ornamentally slight for herweight) and tilted up her nose. "I must get and lay the table, " shesaid, "for a lady and gentleman that's staying with me. _Very_ nicepeople. "

[Sidenote: _ALEXANDRA SQUARE_]

Under Town has, in fact, an indifferent reputation among the elect. Notthat it is badly behaved; far from it. The shallow-pated resent its nothaving drawn into line with their cheap notions of progress. If UnderTown had put plate-glass windows into antique buildings. .. . Visitors toSeacombe, not being told, hardly so much as suspect the existence ofits huddled old houses and thatched cottages. The shingle-paved Gutruns down unevenly from the Shore Road between a row of tall lodginghouses and the Alexandra Hotel, then opens out suddenly into a littlesquare which contains an incredible number of recesses and sub-corners, so to speak, with many more doors in them than one can discover housesbelonging to the doors. Two cottages, I am told, have no ground floorsat all. Cats sun themselves on walls or squat about gnawing fish bones. A houdan cockerel with bedraggled speckly plumage and a ragged cresthanging over one eye struts from doorstep to doorstep. The children, when any one strange walks through the Square, run like rabbits in awarren to their respective doors; stand there, and stare. Tony Widger'shouse is the largest. Once, when Under Town was Seacombe, a lawyerlived here--hence the front passage. It has a cat-trodden front garden, in which only wall-flowers and some box edging have survived. Over thefront door is a broken trellis-work porch. Masts and spars lean againstthe wall. The house is built of red brick, straight up and down like anovergrown doll's house, but the whole of the wall is weathered andtoned by the southerly gales which blow down the Gut from the open sea. Those same winds see to it that Alexandra Square does not smellsqualid, however it may look. At its worst it is not so depressing as arow of discreet semi-detached villas. It is, I should imagine, a prettyaccurate mirror of the lives that are lived in it--poor men's livesthat scarcely anybody fathoms. If one looks for a moment at a housewhere people have starved, or are starving. .. . What a gift of hope theymust possess--and what a sinking in their poor insides!

4

This morning they told me how my little hunchbacked Commodore died. Hehad been ailing, they said; had come to look paler and more pinched inhis small sharp face. Then (it was a fisherman who told me this): "Hewas in to house one morning, an' I thought as 'e were sleepin', an' Isaid, 'Harry, will 'ee hae a cup o' tay; yu been sleeping an't 'ee?'An' 'e says, 'No, I an't; but I been sort o' dreaming. ' An' 'e said ashe'd see'd a green valley wi' a stream o' water, like, running down themiddle o' it, an' 'e thought as 'e see'd Granfer there (that us lostedjest before 'en) walking by the stream. A'terwards 'e sat on 'smother's lap, like 's if 'e wer a child again, though 'e wer nearlynineteen all but in size; an' 'e jest took an' died there, suddent an'quiet like; went away wi'out a word; an' us buried 'en last January upto the cementry on land. "

So the _Moondaisy_'s luckiest fisherman packed up and went. 

5

It is astonishing how hungry and merry these children are, especiallythe boys. They rush into the kitchen at meal times and immediately makegrabs at whatever they most fancy on the table. 

[Sidenote: _MAN AND GEN'LEMAN_]

"Yu little cat!" says their mother, always as if she had neverwitnessed such behaviour before. "Yu daring rascal! Put down! I'll giethee such a one in a minute. Go an' sit down to once. " Then they climbinto chairs, wave their grubby hands over the plates, in a pretence ofgrabbing something more, and spite of the whacks which sometimes fall, they gobble their food to the accompaniment of incessant tricks androars of shrill laughter. Never were such disorderly, hilarious meals!If Tony is here they simply laugh at his threats of weird punishment, and if he comes in late from sea, they return again with him and make asecond meal as big as the first. Sometimes, unless the food is clearedaway quickly, they will clamour for a third meal, and clamoursuccessfully. What digestions they must have to gobble so much and sofast!

To judge by their way of talking, they divide the world into folk andgentlefolk. "Who gie'd thee thic ha'penny?" Mrs Widger asked Jimmy. 

"A man, to beach. "

"G'out!" said Mabel. "Twas a gen'leman. "

"Well. .. . "

"Well, that ain't a _man_!"

Usually, at breakfast time, the voices of Tony's small nieces may beheard coming down the passage: "Aun-tieAnn-ie! Aunt-ieAnn-ie!" Theirtousled, tow-coloured little heads peep round the doorway. If we havenot yet finished eating, they are promptly ordered to 'get 'long hometo mother. ' Otherwise, they come right in and remain standing in themiddle of the room, apparently to view me. Unable to remember which isDora and which Dolly, I have nicknamed them according to their hair, Straighty and Curley. What they think of things, there is no knowing;for they blush at direct questions and turn their heads away. So also, when I have been going in and out of the Square, they have stoppedtheir play to gaze at me, but have merely smiled shyly, if at all, inanswer to my greetings. Yesterday, however, they had a skipping rope. Ijumped over it. Instantly there was a chorus of laughter and chatter. The ice was broken. This morning, after a moment or two's considerationbehind her veil of unbrushed hair, Straighty came and clambered uponthe arm of the courting chair--dabbed a clammy little hand down myneck, whilst Curley plumped her fist on my knee and stayed looking intomy face with very wondering smiling blue eyes. By the simple act ofjumping a rope, I had gained their confidence; had proved I was reallya fellow creature, I suppose. Now, when I pass through the Square, somesmall boy is sure to call out, "Where yu going?" And my name isbrandished about among the children as if I were a pet animal. Theyhave appropriated me. They have tamed that mysterious wild beast, 'thegen'leman. '

One boy, Jimmy--a very fair-headed, blue-eyed, chubby little chap, seven years old--Tony's eldest boy at home--seems to have taken aparticular fancy to me. Whether it began with bananas, or with mygiving him a pick-a-back to the top of the cliffs, I hardly know. Atall events he has decided that I am a desirable friend. He has shown mehis small properties--his pencil, and his boats that he makes out of apiece of wood with wing-feathers for sails and a piece of tin, stuckinto the bottom, for centre-keel;--has told me what standard he is inat school; and one of the first things I hear whenever he comes intothe house, is: "Mam! Wher's Mister Ronals?"

[Sidenote: _JIMMY OUT TO TEA_]

To-day, on my way to the Tuckers' to tea, I passed Jimmy's school. Theboys were just let loose. Jimmy left a yelling group of them to comealong with me. Nearby the Tuckers' gate, I told him where I was going, and said _Good-bye_. Jimmy fell behind. But whilst we were at tea, Irepeatedly saw a white head sneaking round the laurels outside thewindow, and blue eyes peeping. Miss Tucker had him in; whereupon, rather shyly, with hands horribly grubby from the school slates, Jimmyate much bread and butter and many cakelets, and ended up by tuckingthree apples into his blouse. He came home very pleased indeed withhimself. 

Tony was almost angry. "However come'd 'ee, Missis, to let 'em go outto a gen'leman's to tay in thic mess?"

"Stupid! How cude I help o'it?"

"What did 'ee think o'it, Jimmy?"

"The lady gie'd I dree apples!"

Tony, though shocked, was also pleased; Jimmy delighted. Every now andthen he draws himself up with a "Coo'h! I been out to tay wi' MisterRonals!"

They have a strange way, these children, of placing their hands on one, smiling up into one's face, and saying nothing. It has the effect ofmaking one feel their separate, distinct personalities, and, additionally, of making one feel rather proud of the approbation ofthose small personages who think so much and divulge so little. 

6

There has been no fishing. Either the sea has been too rough to ride toa slingstone[1] for blinn and conger, or else too calm, so that themackerel hookers[2] could not sail out and therefore no fresh bait wasto be had. It is quite useless to fish for conger with stale bait. Tonytells me that I ought to be here in a month's time, when he will havefewer pleasure parties to attend to, and will go out for mackerel, rowing if he cannot sail. He says there will _have_ to be a goodSeptember hooking season, because, though the summer has been fair, thefisherfolk have not succeeded in putting by enough money to last outthe winter, should the herrings fail to come into the bay, as they havefailed the last few years. I should like to _work_ at the mackerelhooking with him. Indeed, although I am looking forward to a glorioustramp across Dartmoor, yet I am more than half sorry that I have a roombespoken at Prince Town for the day after to-morrow. 

 [1] A heavy stone used instead of an anchor over rocks, among which an anchor might get stuck and lost. 

 [2] After the end of July, the mackerel are mostly caught not in nets, but by trailing a line behind a sailing boat. 

[Sidenote: _AN INOPPORTUNE REMARK_]

Putting aside one or two things that are unpleasant--a fewdisagreeables resolutely faced--it is wonderful how rapidly one feelsat home here. The welcome, the goodfellowship, is so satisfying. Thismorning, the visitor from the hotel, who has Mrs Widger's frontroom, so far presumed on the fact that we were educated men amonguneducated--both gen'lemen, Tony would say--as to remark flippantlythough not ungenially, "The Widgers are not bad sorts, are they? Isay, what a mouth Mrs Widger's got!"

Mrs Widger has a noticeably wide mouth; I know that perfectly well; butI can hardly say how indignant I felt at his light remark; howinsulted; as if he had spoken slightingly of someone belonging to me. 

IV

 PRINCE TOWN, _August_. 

1

When I took leave of the Widgers, there was the question of payment formy board and lodging. We were just finishing breakfast; the childrenhad been driven out, Mrs Widger was resting awhile, and the table, thewhole kitchen, was in extreme disorder. 

I asked Mrs Widger what I owed, and, as I had expected, she repliedonly: "What you'm minded to pay. "

"Three and six a day, " I suggested. 

"Not so much as that, " said Mrs Widger. "'Tisn't like as if us could dufor 'ee like a proper lodging house. "

"Don' 'ee think, Missis, " said Tony, "as we might ask 'en jest to makehisself welcome. "

It was out of the question, of course. The mackerel season has been sobad. Mrs Widger shot at Tony a look he failed to see. Otherwise, shedid not let herself appear to have heard him. 

The discussion hung. 

"Say three shillings, then, " I suggested again. 

"That 'll du, " returned Mrs Widger, allowing nothing of the last fewminutes' brain-work to show itself in her voice. 

[Sidenote: _HOTEL LIFE_]

Mrs Widger knows what it is to have to keep house and feed severalhungry children on earnings which vary from fairly large sums (sumswhose very largeness calls for immediate spending) to nothing at allfor weeks together. 

As I was setting out, Jimmy said to his mother: "Don' 'ee let MisterRonals go, Mam 'Idger. " He followed me to the end of the Gut; wouldhave come farther had I not sent him back. That, and Tony's desire tomake me welcome, brightened the bright South Devon sunshine. I keptwithin sight of the sea as long as possible. The little sailing boatson it looked so nimble. I have a leaning to go back, a sort ofhunger. .. . 

2

[Sidenote: _DAWDLING v. WALKING_]

I don't think I can remain here. To-morrow I shall move on, and tramparound the county back to Seacombe. The Moor is as splendid as ever, but this hotel life, following so soon on the life of Under Town. .. . Though the good, well-cooked food, neither so greasy nor so starchy asMrs Widger's, is an agreeable change, I sit at the table d'h�te andrage within. I am compelled to hear a conversation that irritates mealmost beyond amusement at it. These people here are on holiday. Mostof them, by their talk, were never on anything else. They chirp inlively or bored fashion, as the case may be, of the things that don'tmatter, of the ornamentations, the superfluities and the relaxations oflife. At Tony Widger's they discuss--and much more merrily--the thingsthat do matter; the means of life itself. Here, they say: "Is the tabled'h�te as good as it might be? Is the society what it might be? Is itnot a pity that there is no char-�-banc or a motor service to CranmerePool and Yes Tor?" There, the equivalent question is: "Shall us haemoney to go through the winter? Shall us hae bread and scrape to eat?"Here, a man wonders if in the strong moorland air some slightnon-incapacitating ailment will leave him: illness is inconvenient anddisappointing, but not ruinous. There, Tony wonders if the exposure andcontinual boat-hauling are not taking too much out of him; if he is notageing before his time; if he will not be past earning before theyounger children are off his hands. Here, they laugh at trifles, keeping what is serious behind a veil of conventional manners, lest, appearing in broad daylight, it should damp their spirits. There, theylaugh too, and at countless trifles; but also courageously, in the faceof fate itself. By daring Nemesis, they partially disarm her. With alaugh and a jest--no matter if it be a raucous laugh and a coarsejest--they assert: "What will be, will be; us can't but du our best, for 'tis the way o'it. " Here, they skate over a Dead Sea upon the iceof convention; but there, they swim in the salted waters, swallow greatgulps, and nevertheless strike out manfully, knowing no more thananyone else exactly where the shore lies, yet possessing, I think, aninstinct of direction. Here, comfort is at stake: there, existence. Coming here is like passing from a birth and death chamber into atheatre, where, if the actors have lives of their own, apart frommummery, it is their business not to show them. It is like watching agame from the grand stand, instead of playing it; betting on a raceinstead of running it. The transition hither is hard to make. Retiredathletes, we know, suffer from fatty degeneration of the heart; retiredmen of affairs decay. I have walked lately at five miles an hour withthe Widgers, and I do not relish dawdling at the rate of two with thesepeople here. Better risk hell for heaven than lounge about paradise forever. 

V

 UNDER TOWN, SEACOMBE, _September_. 

1

A fine tramp from Totnes--and such a welcome back! Jimmy met methree-quarters of a mile up the road, very much farther than he usuallystrays from the beach. "I thought as yu was coming this way 'bout now, Mister Ronals. Dad's been out hooking an' catched five dozen mackerelbefore breakfast. Mam's sick. I be coming out wiv yu t'morrow morning. Dad couldn't go out after breakfast, 'cause it come'd on to blow. I've'schanged my pencil, what yu give'd me, for a knife wi' two blades. " Soanxious was he to take me in house that he scarcely allowed me time togo down to the Front and look at the sea and at the boats lying among alitter of nets and gear the length of the sunny beach. 

Mrs Widger hastened to bring out the familiar big enamelled teapot, flung the cloth over the table and began to cut bread and butter. "Coo'h! tay!" exclaimed Jimmy. "That's early, 'cause yu be come, MisterRonals. "

"Be yu glad Mr Ronals 's come back?" his mother asked. 

[Sidenote: _THE CHILDREN_]

"Iss. .. . "

"What for?" I asked jocularly. 

"'Cause yu gives us bananas--an' pennies sometimes. "

"'Sthat all yu'm glad for?" said Mrs Widger. "Pennies an' bananas?"

"No vear!" said Jimmy; and he meant it. 

All the while, Tommy (Jimmy's younger brother, about five years old)was sitting up to table, looking at the jam-jar with one eye and at mewith the other. He squints most comically, and is a more self-containedyoung person than Jimmy. Four of the children are at home; Bessie, Mabel, Jimmy and Tommy; George and the eldest girl are away. Bessie andMabel, too, are out the greater part of the day, either at school, orelse helping their aunts, or minding babies (poor little devils!), orrunning errands for the many relatives who live hereabout. Both of themare more featureless, show less of the family likeness, than the boys. One cannot so easily forecast their grown-up appearance. At times, during the day, they come in house with a rush, but say little, exceptto blurt out some (usually inaccurate) piece of news, or to tell theirstep-mother that: "Thic Jimmy's out to baych--I see'd 'en--playin' wi'some boys, an' he's got his boots an' stockings so wet as. .. . "

"Jest let 'en show his face in here! _He_ shan't hae no tea! He shallgo straight to bed!" shouts Mrs Widger, confident that hunger willeventually drive Jimmy into her clutches. 

The two girls, in fact, do not seem to enter so fully as the boys intothe life of the household, though they are always very ready to take upthe responsibility of keeping the boys in order. 

"Jimmy! Tommy--there! Mother, look at thic Jimmy! Mother, Tommy'sfingering they caakes!"

"I'll gie thee such a one in a minute! Let 'lone. .. . Ther thee a't, Mabel, doin' jest the same, 's if a gert maid like yu didn't ought toknow better. "

"Did 'ee ever hear the like o'it?" asks Tony. "Such a buzz! Shut up, will 'ee, or _I'll_ gie thee summut to buzz for! Wher's thic stick?"

The children merely laugh at him. 

2

[Sidenote: _TONY'S WEDDING_]

At supper to-night, Tony was talking about his second wedding and abouthis children, who, dead and alive, number twelve. "Iss, 'tis a rounddozen, though I'd never ha' thought it, " he said reckoning them up onhis fingers. "Ther be six living an' four up to the cementry, an' twomissing, like, what nobody didn' know nort about, did they, Annie?Janie--that's my first wife, afore this one, --her losted three boyswhen they was two year an' ten months old, an' one year an' sevenmonths, an' nine months old. An' her died herself when Mabel here wassix months old, didn' 'er, Annie? An' yu've a-losted Rosie, an' theones what never appeared in public. Our last baby, after Tommy, wer twoboys, twinses. One wer like George an' one like Tommy most; one wer mychild an' t'other wer yours, Annie. Six on 'em dead! Aye, Tony've asee'd some trouble, I can tell 'ee, an' he ain't so old as what some on'em be for their age, now, thru it all. But it du make a man's headturn like. "

Mrs Widger's gaze at him while he talked about the dead children waswonderful to see--wide-eyed, soft, unflinching--wifely and motherly atonce. 

"John, " Tony continued, speaking of his youngest brother who has onlytwo children, "John du say as a man what's got seven or eight childernbe better off than a man what's got on'y two, like he, 'cause he don'tspend so much on 'em. 'Tis rot, I say! Certainly, he du spend so muchon each o' his as us du on two o' ours p'raps; but I reckon a hundredpounds has to be wrenched an' hauled out o' these yer ol' rheumaticyarms o' mine for each child as us rears up. "

"Yes--'t has--gude that, " said Mrs Widger. 

"'Tisn' that I don' du it willingly. I be willing enough. But it dumaake a man du more'n he'd hae to du otherwise, an' it wears 'en outafore his time. Tony's an ol' man now, almost, after the rate, thoughhe bain't but forty or thereabout, an' s'pose us has six or a dozenmore come along, Annie. .. . "

"Gude Lord! 'Twon't be so bad as that, for sure. An' if 'tis, can't behelped. Us must make shift wi' 'em. "

Then they went on to talk about their wedding. Best remembered, apparently, are the _hot_ wedding breakfast (an innovation then inthese parts), the Honiton lace that Mrs Widger's mother made her, andthe late arrival home from the village where they were married--a trickwhich procured them quietness, whilst depriving the people in theSquare of an excitement they had stayed up half the night to witness. "When us come'd home, 'twas all so dark and quiet as a dead plaace, an'the chil'ern asleep upstairs, an' all, " said Tony. 

"Yes, 'twer, " Mrs Widger broke in, her eyes brightening at therecollection of the successful trick. "But 'twer queer, like, wi' thechildern asleep upstairs what wer to be mine, an' wasn't. I did wonderto meself what I wer starting on. Howsbe-ever I wer fair maazed allthic day. _I_ wasn' ready when Tony drove out to where us lived, notI. "

"No-o-o! Her had her sleeves tucked up like 's if her 'adn't finishedher housework. Her wern't dressed nor nothin' to ree-ceive me. "

"I didn' know what I wer doing all thic day. "

[Sidenote: _LOVE-PLAY_]

"An' the parson, _I_ had to pay for he, an' he give'd the money back toshe 'cause her wer a nice li'I thing--bit skinny though. 'Twer a maazedmuddle like. _I_ ought to ha' had thic money be rights. "

"G'out! But I did the ol' parson up here. Us didn' hae no banns put upto Seacombe. I told the clergyman to our home that Tony'd been livin'there dree days, or dree weeks, or whatever 'twas, an' _he_ didn' knowno better. 'Twon't be the first lie I've told, says I to meself n'eet[nor yet] the last. I saved thee thic money, Tony. "

"Ah, yu'm a saving dear, ben' 'ee. Spends all my money. "

"Well for yu! I should like to know what yu'd do wi' it if yu hadn'thad me to lay it out for 'ee. "

Tony did not wish to question that. The recollection of the wedding hadput him in high spirits. He got up from his second supper (so long asfood remains on the table he takes successive meals with intervals forconversation between them), and pirouetted round the table singing, "Sweet Ev-eli-na, sweet Ev-eli-na! My lo-ove for yu-u Shall nev-ver, never die. .. . "

He dragged Mrs Widger out of her chair, whisked her across the room. "There!" he said, setting her down flop. "'En't her a perty li'I dear!"

Once again, after another little supper, he got up and held Mrs Widgerfirmly by the chin, she kicking out at his shins the while. "Did 'eeever see the like o'it? Eh? Fancy ol' Tony marryin' thic! Wouldn' 'eelike a kiss o'it? I du dearly. Don' I, Missis?"

"G'out!" says Mrs Widger, speaking furiously, but smiling affectionately. "G'out, you fule! Yu'm mazed!"

Tony returned to his third supper quite seriously, only remarking: "Idaresay yu thinks Tony a funny ol' fule, don' 'ee?"

[Sidenote: _BIRTH IN THE SQUARE_]

That, I did not. Indeed, I begin to think them peculiarly wise. Thereis the spontaneity of animals about their play, and a good deal of theunembarassed movements of animals--with something very humansuperadded. One reads often enough about the love-light in the eyes oflovers, and sometimes one catches sight of it. Either frank ridicule, or else great reverence, is the mood for witnessing so delicate andstrong, so racial a thing. Yet this love-light, seen in the eyes of aman and wife who have been married ten years, and have settled downlong ago to the humdrum of married life, seems to me a far finermanifestation of the hither mysteries, a far greater triumph. Whatfreshness, what perpetual rejuvenation they must possess! The more oneregards such a thing, the more magnificent and far-reaching it appears. No philosophical bulwark against trouble can compare with it. Such loveceases to be a matter for novels and selected moments and certain lustyages; ceases to be exceptional. It is the greatest of those very greatthings, the commonplaces. Tony tells me that when he comes in at night, cold from fishing, Mrs Widger always turns over to the other side ofthe bed, leaving him a warm place to creep into. Mrs Widger says thatno matter what time Tony comes in or gets up, he never fails to make, and take her up, a cup o' tay. So does their love direct the prosaicdetails of living in one house together. I do not think I am wrong infancying that it percolates right down through the household, and evencontributes to the restfulness I feel here, spite of unorderly childrenand the strident voices. "Yu dang'd ol' fule!" can mean so much. Hereit appears to be an expression of almost limitless confidence. 

Mrs Widger has put me this time into the front bedroom, which overlooksthe Square and has, through the Gut, a narrow view of the sea. 

Tony's sister, who lives almost next door, is giving birth to a childthis evening. I can see the light in her window--a brighter light thanusual, --and the shadows passing across the yellow blind. Many othereyes are turned towards the window. There is a subdued chatter in theSquare. 

3

Little did I foresee what sleeping in the front bedroom means. Tony'ssister gave birth to a boy about ten o'clock. On hearing thateverything was as it should be, I went to bed, but, alack! not tosleep. For the subdued chatter grew into an uproar which continued tillfully midnight. All the women in the neighbourhood seemed to have comethis way; and they meg-megged, and they laughed, and when theirchildren awoke they shouted up at the windows from outside. I heardsnatches of childbearing adventures, astonishing yarns, interspersedwith hard commonsense, not to say cynicism--the cynicism of people whocannot afford to embroider much the bare facts of existence or to turntheir attention far from the necessities of life. "Her'll be weak, " onewoman said, "an' for a long time--never so strong as her was before. 'Tis always worse after each one you has, 'cepting the first, which isworst of all, I say. But there, her must take it as it comes. .. . "

Sundry other bits of good practical philosophy I perforce listened to;and at last, when everybody had turned in (I imagined their pleasantlightheadedness as they snuggled under the bedclothes in the stuffycottage rooms--the witticisms and echoes of laughter that were runningthrough their heads); when, I say, everybody had turned in, an offendeddog in the hotel yard began to howl. 

If it were not that the window of the back bedroom is over thescullery, the ash-heap and the main drain, I would ask to move backthere. 

In Under Town a birth makes the stir that is due to such a stupendousevent. 

4

[Sidenote: _THE KITCHEN_]

The Widger's kitchen is an extraordinary room--fit shrine for thathousehold symbol, the big enamelled tin teapot. At the NW. Corner isthe door to the scullery and to the small walled-in garden whichcontains--in order of importance--flotsam and jetsam for firewood, oldmasts, spars and rudders, and some weedy, grub-eaten vegetables. At thetop of the garden is a tumble-down cat-haunted linhay, crammed to itsleaky roof with fishing gear. No doubt it is the presence everywhere ofboat and fishing gear which gives such a singular unity to the wholeplace. 

The kitchen is not a very light room: its low small-paned window is inthe N. Wall. Then, going round the room, the courting chair stands inthe NE. Corner, below some shelves laden with fancy china andsouvenirs--and tackle. The kitchener, which opens out into quite acomforting fireplace, is let into the E. Wall, and close beside it isthe provision cupboard, so situated that the cockroaches, having amplefood and warmth, shall wax fat and multiply. Next, behind a low dirtydoor in the S. Wall, is the coalhole, then the high dresser, and thenthe door to the narrow front passage, beneath the ceiling of which arelodged masts, spars and sails. The W. Wall of the kitchen is decoratedwith Tony's Oddfellow 'cistificate, ' with old almanacs and with anumber of small pictures, all more or less askew. 

There is an abundance of chairs, most of them with an old cushion onthe seat, all of them more or less broken by the children's racket. Over the pictures on the warm W. Wall--against which, on the otherside, the neighbour's kitchener stands--is a line of cleanunderclothing, hung there to air. The dresser is littered with fishinglines as well as with dry provisions and its proper complement of oddpieces of china. Beneath the table and each of the larger chairs areboots and slippers in various stages of polish or decay. Every jug notin daily use, every pot and vase, and half the many drawers, containlines, copper nails, sail-thimbles and needles, spare blocks andpulleys, rope ends and twine. But most characteristic of the kitchen(the household teapot excepted) are the navy-blue garments and jerseys, drying along the line and flung over chairs, together with innumerablephotographs of Tony and all his kin, the greater number of them inseafaring rig. 

Specially do I like the bluejacket photographs; magnificent men, someof them, though one strong fellow looks more than comical, seated amidthe photographer's rustic properties with a wreath of artificial fernleaves around him and a broadly smiling Jolly-Jack-Tar face protrudingfrom the foliage. Some battleships, pitching and tossing in fearfulphotographers' gales[3] and one or two framed memorial cards completethe kitchen picture gallery. 

 [3] Composite pictures apparently; made from a photograph of a ship and of a bad painting of a hurricane. 

It is a place of many smells which, however, form a not disagreeableblend. 

An untidy room--yes. An undignified room--no. Kitchen; scullery (thescullery proper is cramped and its damp floor bad for the feet); eatingroom; sitting room; reception room; storeroom; treasure-house; and attimes a wash-house, --it is an epitome of the household's activities anda reflexion of the family's world-wide seafaring. Devonshire is the seacounty--at every port the Devonian dialect. It is probably the picturesand reminders of the broad world which, by contrast, make Mrs Tony'skitchen so very homely. 

5

[Sidenote: _A DUTCH AUCTION_]

Almost every evening, just now, Mrs Widger goes off to a Dutch auctionof hardware and trinkets at the Market House. She usually brings homesome small purchase, worth about half the money she has paid; but ifshe were to go to an entertainment at the Seacombe Hall she would benot nearly so well amused as by the auctioneer and the otherhousewives, and at the end of the evening she would have nothingwhatever to show for her money. Besides, the children would never gooff to bed quietly if they imagined that she was going to a realentertainment. As she did not return very early last night, Tony and Igot our own supper--bread, cheese, a great deal of Worcester sauce, anda pint of mother-in-law [stout and bitter] from the Alexandra. Then wedrew up to the fire and smoked. John, healthy and powerful fellow, hadbeen arguing in the daytime on the beach, that if a youth cannot do aman's work at seventeen, he never will. Tony disagreed. Twenty-five tothirty-five, he says, is a man's prime for strength and endurancetogether. Nevertheless, he is sure that he often did more than a man'swork long before he was seventeen, which led him to talk about hisboyhood, when Granfer and Gran Widger had frequently not enough food inthe house for their many children to eat. "Us had to rough it when Iwer a boy, I can tell 'ee, " says Tony. "'Twer often bread an' a scraapeo' fat an' _Get 'long out o'it_!"

[Sidenote: _TONY'S DUTIES_]

At nine years old, Tony was put with old Cloade, the grocer, now dead;and by the time he was twelve, he was earning four shillings a week, not a penny of which he ever saw or had as 'spending money'; for hismother used to go to the shop every Saturday night and lay out all poorTony's wages in groceries. The only pocket-money he ever received was acopper or two 'thrown back' from what he could earn by going to sea formackerel early enough to return to work by half-past six in themorning. Besides running errands, he had to clean boots and knives andto scrub out and tidy up the bar, which in those days was attached toevery Devon grocery. Then he could go home to breakfast. And if oldCloade was going up on land, shooting, Tony had to get up and wake himat half-past three and to cork bottles or something of that sort beforethe master started out for his day's sport. And again, if Tony hadfallen foul of any of the shop assistants during the day, had cheekedthem perhaps, or stayed overlong at meals, then, waiting till closingtime at eight or nine in the evening, they would send him a couple ofmiles inland, to the top of the hills, with a late parcel of groceries. His possible working day was from 3. 30 a. M. To 10. 0 p. M. 

The chief part of his work, when he was not cleaning up or runningerrands, was the sorting of fruit and the cracking of sugar. Every nailof his fingers has come off more than once on account of the damagedone them by the sugar-cracker. Better than any national event, herecollects the introduction of cube sugar. "When they tubs o'ready-cracked sugar fust come'd down to Seacombe, 'twer thought a gertthing--an' so 'twas. "

Nearly every year an attack of (sub-acute?) rheumatic fever gave him apainful holiday, during which he crawled about the crowded cottage athome on his hands and knees. The one advantage of his irregularly longhours was that, if work were slack, he could linger over his meals. Itwas the assistants who kept a sharp eye on his movements. Them hehated--and cheeked. "The more I done, the worse they treated me. An' asI grow'd up an' did often enough more'n a man's work, so I got to knowit. One day I stayed home more'n an hour to breakfast, an' one on 'emasted me wer I'd a-been, an' I said as I'd had me half-hour tobreakfast, an' he said as I'd had an hour an' a half, an' I told 'en'twern't no business o' his an' dared 'en to so much as touch me or I'dknock his head in, which I could easily ha' done--an' there wer themaster standin' by! 'Fore I knowed, he gie'd me one under one yer wi'one hand, an' one under t'other yer wi' t'other hand; knocked me halfsilly; an' said if he had any more o' my chake he'd send me goingthereupon. 'Iss, I said, 'an I _will_ go, an' if I can't pick up alivin' on the baych wi' fishin' (I 'adn't no boats then, n'eet foryears a'ter), an' if I couldn't pick up a livin' wi' fishin', I'd go tosea. An' I took an' lef the shop, an' went wi'out me pay due nor nortfurther about it. 

"Well, I should think as I stayed away two or dree days, saying as, ifI couldn' live _by_ the sea, I'd go off _tu_ sea. By'm-by, ol' MrCloade--I could al'ys get on all right wi' he hisself--'twer theyassistants. .. . Mr Cloade come'd down to baych an' said as he'd rise mewages be two shillings, from four shillings to six a week. So I wentback. But 'twern't for long, for I wer turned seventeen then, an'strong, an' I knowed that six shillin's a week, every penny o' whichmother laid out in groceries--p'raps givin' me dreepence for meselflatterly--that wern't no wage for me doing more'n a man's work, earlyan' laate, at everybody's beck an' call. 'Twern't vitty. 

[Sidenote: _BRUISED ORANGES AND BRUISES_]

"It come'd soon a'ter. .. . I wer sorting oranges, an' one o' theassistants called like they al'ays did: 'Widger, Widger! _Widger!_Yer, Widger!' 'Twer al'ays, 'Widger! Widger!' in thic show--blarstedrow! 'I wants 'ee to take thees yer parcel to Mr Brindley-Botton's(what used to live to Southview House) in time for lunch. Hurry up!'"

Tony, in short, put a couple of the bruised oranges into his pocket, ran off, and delivered his parcel at Southview House. On the way back, he ate one of the oranges and, boyishly, threw the peel about outsideMr Brindley-Botton's side gate. He heard someone shouting to himand--but without turning his head--he shouted "Hell about it!" airilyback. Then, as it was the dinner hour, he loitered on the Green Patchto play marbles with some other lads, and to share the second bruisedorange. On returning to Cloade's:

"Whu did I see but Mr Brindley-Botton's coachman wi' a little packet inwhite paper. 'Twas thic orange peel, all neatly done up, an' a li'Inote saying as I'd a-been cheeky to him, which I hadn't, not knowingly. Mr Cloade, he called me into his little office, asted me what I'd beendoing, where I went, an' where I got the oranges. 

"'Bought 'em, ' says I. 

"'Twas a lie, an' I hadn't no need for to tell it, seeing I was al'aysfree to take a bruised orange or two when I wer sorting of 'em. On'y Iwer frightened. 'Where did you get them?' he asked. 

"'Up to Mrs Ashford's for a penny, ' says I. 

"'Did you?'

"'Yes, sir, ' says I. 

"'Are you telling me a lie? I can find out, mind. '

"'No, sir, ' I said. 

"'Be you sure you ain't telling of a lie?'

"Then I broked down, an' I said they was bruised ones what I'd a-took. Father, he wer working to Mr Cloade's then, fishing being bad, an' themaster called he. _He_ walloped me--walloped me with a rope's end. An'I swore as I'd never go back no more, an' I didn't. Every time Fathertried to make me, I up an' said as I'd go to sea. 

[Sidenote: _OUT DRIFTING ALL NIGHT_]

"Ay! for all I'm a man now, I 'ouldn't like to work like I didthen--more'n a man's work an' less'n a boy's pay, an' hardly a pennyfor meself. I tells John _he_ don't know what 'tis to work like I didthen. _I_'ouldn't du it no more. "

But, with his father's boat, Tony did work far harder--hooking mackerelat dawn, in with a catch and out to sea again, or up on land hawkingthem round; out drifting all night; crabbing, lobster-potting, shrimping, [4] wrinkling, [5] or taking out frights, [6] wet and dry, rough and calm, day and night. "Aye, an' I be suffering from it now. Thees yer bellyache what thins me every summer an' wears a fellow out, don't come from nothing but tearing about then. I wer al'ays on thetear, day an' night, in from sea to meals an' out again 'fore I'd hadtime to bolt down two mouthfuls. Often I wer so tired that Father'd haeto call me a dozen times afore I cude wake up, an' then I'd cry, _cry_, if I wer ten minutes laate to work--when I had summut to du on land, that was. Half the day I wer more asleep than awake, wi' bein' outfishing all night. But I didn' let 'em see it. Not I! Rather'n that, I'd go up to the closet an' catch off there for five minutes, beforethey shude see I wern't fit to du me work. An' I never had nort o' meown for years, for all I done. Whether I earned two pound, or thirtyshillings, or nothing at all, I never had so much as a penny forpocket-money, to call me own. I had to take it all in house--aye! an'tips too, when I got 'em. Father, he wern't doing much then, an' therwere seven younger'n me. That's where my earnings went. An' me, as didthe work, was wearing Mother's boots an' Father's jacket. "

 [4] Prawning. 

 [5] Periwinkle gathering. 

 [6] Freights, _i. E. _ pleasure parties. 

When Tony was indisputably grown up, one half of what he earned went, according to custom, to the boat-owner, in this case his father, frequently had be thu to pay for repairs and new gear. That went on foryears after he was married--'hauling an' rowing an' slaving an' pullingme guts out wi't!'--until, in fact, the present Mrs Widger insisted onhis buying boats of his own. 

[Sidenote: _THE DEAD NOT WHOLLY SO_]

Our talk shifted to Tony's first wife, who died (and Tony almost diedtoo) as the result of the landlord's taking up the drains, and leavingthem open, in the height of a hot summer. Tony told me about her peopleand her native place, a fishing village along the coast. He showed mephotographs of her, and a framed, pathetically ugly, imitation cameomemorial, which is getting very dirty now. I knew he loved her verymuch. He nearly went out of his mind when she died, leaving him withfour young children. The untidy little kitchen, with its bright fire, its deep shadows and its white clothes hung along the line; Tony'sdrooping figure, bent over the hearth in an old blue guernsey: thecontrasting redness of his face, and the beam of light from a crackedlamp-shade falling across his wet, memory-stuck blue eyes. .. . Thekitchen seemed full of the presence of the long-dead woman whom Tonywas still grieving for in some underpart of his mind. "Iss, her was anice woman, " he said, "a gude wife to me; a gude wife: I hadn't nocomplaint to make against she. "

The one shabby sentence hit into me all his sorrow, that which remainsand that which has sunk into time. 

 * * * * *

The Mrs Widger that is, returned from the Dutch auction with anelaborate badly-plated cruet. "Al'ays using up my saxpinces what I hasto slave for, " said Tony. 

"G'out! 'Tis jest what us wants. "

"You won't never use it. "

"We'll hae it out on thy birthday--there! Will that zatisfy thee?"

"Not afore then? I wer born at the end o' the year, an' that's why Ial'ays gets lef' behind. "

"Not a day before thy birthday! What'll yu be saying if I buys saucesto put in all they bottles?"

"Cut glass, is it?"

"No! What d'yu think?"

"What a woman 'tis! Gie yer Tony a kiss then. "

"G'out yu fule!"

The wise fool took a kiss. We had a second supper and hot grog. We weremerry. But when I said _Good night_, I saw in Tony's eyes a recognitionthat I had understood (so he felt, I think) some part of what heseldom, if ever, brings up now to talk about. 

Only a yarn about a man's first wife. .. . If so, why did I go to bedfeeling I had been privileged beyond the ordinary? Wives die every day;worn out, most of them. There came into my mind's eye with thesethoughts a picture of the open sea; yet hardly a picture, for I wasthere in the midst of it. On the waves and low-lying clouds, andthrough the murk, was the glimmer of a light which, I felt, would makeeverything plain, did it but increase. For a moment it flickeredup--and there, over the stormy sea, I saw death as a kindly illusion. Ido not understand the wherefore of my little vision, nor why it made myheart give one curious great thump. .. . 

A cats' courtship beneath my window broke it off. 

6

[Sidenote: _THE "MOONDAISY"_]

Five or six years ago, when I was ill and left Seacombe, as I thought, for good, I did not relish selling the _Moondaisy_. I was too fondof her. So I gave her to the two men who had asked for the first andsecond refusals of her, and neither of whom possessed a small sailingboat. But I reckoned without those superficial beach jealousies whichoverlie the essential solidarity of the fishermen. Neither man used hermuch. Neither man looked after her. She was a bone of contention thateach feared to gnaw. While the poor little craft lay on the beach, orin the gutter above the sea-wall, the mice ate holes into her old sailand her gear was distributed half-way over Under Town. 

Granfer, however, had in his cottage an old dinghy sail that fits the_Moondaisy_. Her yard and boom were in his linhay, the sheet anddownhaul in Tony's. One oar, the tholepins, and the ballast bags havenot yet been found. I bent on the sail, spliced the sheet to the boom;borrowed tholepins from Uncle Jake, [7] ballast bags and a mackerel linewith a very rusty hook from Tony, an oar from John--and, at last, putto sea. 

 [7] Granfer's brother, Tony's uncle. 

The wind--westerly, off land--was too puffy for making the sheet fast. I held it with one hand and tried to fish with the other. In order notto stop the way of the boat and risk losing the lead on the sea-bottom, I wore her round to lew'ard, instead of tacking to wind'ard. A squallcame down, the sail gybed quickly, and the boom slewed over with ajerk, just grazing the top of my head. Had that boom been a couple ofinches lower, or my head an inch or two higher. .. . I should have beenprevented from sailing the _Moondaisy_ home, pending recovery froma bashed skull. Everything aboard that was loose, myself included, scuttled down to lew'ard with a horrid rattle. A malicious little gushof clear green water, just flecked with foam, spurted in over the gun'lamidships. I wondered whether I could have swum far with a crackedskull: the _Moondaisy_'s iron drop-keel would have sunk her, ofcourse. Why I was fool enough to wear the boat round so carelessly, Idon't know. 

Anyhow, I wound up the mackerel line; my catch, nil. Such an occurrencemakes one very respectful towards the fisherman who singlehanded cansail his boat and manage five mackerel lines at once--one on the thwartto lew'ard and one to wind'ard; a bobber on the mizzen halyard and twobobbers on poles projecting from the boat. He must keep his hands onfive lines, the tiller and the sheet; his eyes on the boat's course, the sea, the weather and the luff of the sail. Probably I know rathermore of the theory of sailing than he does; but, when a squall blackensthe sea to wind'ard, whilst I am thinking whether to run into the windor ease off the sheet; whilst by doing neither or both, I very nearlycapsize, or else stop the boat's way and lose my mackerel leads on thebottom--he, almost without thinking, does precisely what is needful, and another mackerel is hooked long before I should have brought theboat up into the wind again. 

[Sidenote: _FISHERMEN'S SKILL_]

The greatest charm of sailing lies in this: that it is the art ofmaking a boat move by dodging, by taking advantage of, a score ofpossible dangers. Except when running before the wind, it is thecapsizing-power of the wind which propels the boat. The fisherman is anartist none the less because his skill seems partly inborn; because hesails his boat airily and carelessly, yet grimly--for life and thebread and cheese of it. The 'poor fisherman' for whom appeals tocharity are made, as if he were a hardworking, chance-fed, picturesquebut ignorant and helpless creature, is more than a trader, more than askilled labourer in a factory. To a peculiar extent he sells himself aswell as his skill and his goods. He lives contingently on his own life. 

7

All that day the wind out in the Channel was blowing fresh from thesou'west, as we could see by the blackness of the horizon and thesaw-edged sea-line beyond the outer headlands. During the afternoon, aground-sea crept into the bay, silently rolling in like an unbiddenunannounced guest who will not name his business. And when, at the turnof the tide, the breeze in-shore also backed to the sou'west, a busylop was superposed on the long heaving swell. [8] About half-past seven, the Widgers were gathered together near their boats. 

 [8] A _lop_ is a short choppy sea raised by the immediate action of a breeze. A _swell_ consists of the long heaving waves which follow, and sometimes precede, a storm. The diverse action of different sorts of waves on a shingle beach is interesting. Short seas (_i. E. _ short from crest to crest), even when they are very high, have not nearly the force or _run_ of a long, though much lower ground-swell; that is they neither run so far up the beach nor so greatly endanger the boats. All kinds of waves possess more run at spring than at neap tides. A lop on a swell at spring tide is therefore the most troublesome of all to the fishermen. 

"What time be it high tide?" asked Granfer. "'Bout ten, en' it?"

"Had us better haul the boats up over?" said Tony. "Tides be dead, en'tthey?"

"No-o-o, " replied Uncle Jake. "They 'en making. "

"'Tis goin' to blow, I tell 'ee, " said Granfer. "See how brassy thesun's going down. Swell coming in too. Boats up be boats safe. "

"Hould yer bloody row, " said John. "What be talking 'bout? Plenty o'time to haul up if the sea makes. "

"All very well for yu, " Tony protested, "living right up to Saltmeadow. If the sea urns up to the boats in the night yu won't be down to lend ahand, no, not wi' yer own boats. 'Tis us as lives to the beach what hasto strain ourselves to bits hauling your boats up over so well as ourown. "

"Let 'em bide, then!"

"Looks dirty, I say, " said Granfer. "Might jest so well haul up as bidehere talking about it. _I_ shan't sleep till I knows the boats be allright. "

"Thee't better lie awake then. An't got no patience wi' making such abuzz afore you wants tu. " With that, John shouldered his coat andstrode homewards. 

[Sidenote: _JOHN WIDGER_]

The rest of us pulled the boats up, John's included, till their stemstouched the sea-wall, and we placed the two sailing boats, John's andTony's, close beside the steps, handy for hauling up over if needshould be. 

Tony and Granfer went in house. Uncle Jake watched them go with anironical smile on his wrinkled old face. "Don't like the looks o' thisyer lop on a ground-swell, " he said. "There! Did 'ee see how thic sealicked the baych? Let one o' they lift yer boat. .. . My zenses! 'Tis allup wi' it, an' I should pick it up in bits, up 'long, forfirewood. --Well, John's gone home along. .. . "

John is the youngest, handsomest and most powerfully built of theWidgers; the most independent, most brutal-tongued and most logical, though not, I fancy, the most perceptive. The inborn toughness, thefamily tendency to health and strength, which made fine men of theelder Widgers in spite of their youthful exposure and privations, has, in the case of John who underwent fewer hardships, resulted in thedevelopment, unimpeded, of a wonderful physique. "Never heard o' Johnbeing tired, " says Uncle Jake. 

Premature toil did not bend him; what he is the others had it in themto be, and by their labour helped to make him. Because his spirit hasnever been so buffeted, let alone broken, by hard times, he is also themost self-reliant. And like the majority of lucky men, he takes fate'sforbearance as his due and adds it to his own credit. Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his clean-shaven face deeply and clearly coloured; acombination of the Saxon bulldog type with the seafaring man'salertness; his heavy yet lissome frame admirably half-revealed by thesimplicity of navy-blue guernsey and trousers, --it is one of the sightsof Seacombe to see him walk the length of the Front with his two smallboys. He lacks, however, the gift of expressing himself, except when heis angry--and then in a torrent of thrashing words. He communicates hisgood-will by smiling all over his face with a tinge of mockery in hiseyes and the bend of his long neck; whether mockery at oneself or atthings in general is not evident. (It is mainly, I think, by smiling atone another that we remain the very good friends we are. ) In anydiscussion, his "Do as yu'm minded then!" is his signal for makingothers do as _he_ is minded. The advantages possessed by him--health, strength, clear-headedness, and good looks--he knows how to use, andthat without scruple. He is never hustled by man or circumstance;seldom gives himself away; and seldom acknowledges an obligation. Whatone might reasonably expect him to do in return for help or evenpayment, he carelessly, deliberately, leaves undone, and performsinstead some particularly nice action when it is least of allanticipated. His opinion is respected less because it is known, thanbecause it isn't known, and by playing in the outer world with a crackfootball team he adds to his prestige here. "What du John say?" isoften asked when it doesn't matter even what John thinks. Withoutgratitude for it, unconsciously perhaps, he exacts from others a sortof homage, which is certainly not rendered without protest. "There'smore'n one real lady as John could ha' married if he'd a-been liked, " Iheard Granfer say over his beer one day. "The way they used to get heto take 'em out bathing in a boat. .. . Put 'en under the starn-sheets, Is'pose--he-he-he-he-he! But they real ladies du tire o' gen'lemensometimes. Some on 'em had rather have a strong fellow like John. Hemarried out o' the likes o' us, as 'twas. Her what he married used toeat wi' the gen'leman's family what her come'd yer with; sort o'companion-nurse her was. "

[Sidenote: _A NICE DISTINCTION_]

Once, when the _Moondaisy_ was mine, John charged me sixpence forputting me ashore from the steamer, after he had been earning moneywith my boat that very same day. There is no meanness in his face, andI wondered who had taught him so to distinguish between the borrowingof a private boat and the use of a craft that was on the beach forhire--a perfectly sound distinction. Probably it was somecommercial-minded lodger or beach-chatterer, from whom he picked up theopinion that nowadays, to get on, you must run with the hare and huntwith the hounds--a precept which he quotes with cynical gusto butcarries out only so far as suits his feelings. He aims at beingbusinesslike, but the businesslike side of his character is the moresuperficial. Pride will not allow him to boggle over bargains. "Takeit, or leave it, " is his way. Most up-to-date in what he does do, he isno pioneer, and follows a lead grudgingly when innovations are inquestion. Most progressive outwardly, he is the most conservative atheart. A reader of his daily paper, he speaks the broadest Devon ofthem all; scrupulously groomed after the modern way, and a smoker ofcigarettes (he was laughed out of a pipe I've heard say), he stillwears the old-fashioned seaman's high-heeled shoes. Tobacco is hisobvious, his humane, weakness. What his other weaknesses are, I don'tknow. He strikes one as master of his fate, never yet wrecked, norcontemplating it. Did such a misfortune occur . .. Who knows what wouldhappen? He is now, in his youth, so full of strength. 

 * * * * *

About ten o'clock, Tony, who was snoozing in the courting chair (MrsWidger had gone on to bed) woke up with a "How about they boats?" Iwent out to look. 

[Sidenote: _THE HIGH TIDE WAVES_]

The sea was covered with that pallid darkness which comes over it whenthe moon is hidden behind low rain-clouds. Out of the darkness, thewaves seemed to spring suddenly, without warning at one's very feet. Every now and then, when a swell and a lop came in together, theircombined steady force and quick energy swept right up the beach, rattling the pebbles round the sterns of the boats. For the better partof an hour I waited. Then, after a sea had thrown some shingle rightinto a boat, I called Tony. 

"'Tis past high water, en' it?" he said sleepily. 

"Thee't better come out an' see for thyself!"

He dragged himself up and out. "'Tis al'ys like thees yer wi' the likeso' us. 'Tis a life o'it!"

"Aye, " he said, "the say's goin' down now sure 'nuff. Better git inhouse again. Raining is it?"

"God! Look out!"

A sea lifted Tony's and John's sailing boats; was sweeping them downthe beach. We rushed, one to each boat, and hung on. Another sea sweptthe pebbles from under our feet--it felt as if the solid earth weregiving way. 

"Those was the high tide waves, " said Tony. "If us hadn' a-come outboth they boats 'ould ha' been losted. Yu've a-saved John his--all bychance. Aye! that's like 'tis wi' us, I tell thee. Yu never knows. --Be'ee going to bed now?"

I stayed out a little while longer: the loss of boats means so much tomen whose only capital they are. Just after Tony had gone in, theclouds parted and the moonlight burst with a sudden glory over the sea. In the moonglade, which reached from my feet to the far horizon, thewaters heaved and curled, most silvery, as if they were alive. That wasthe wistful gentle sea from which, but a moment or two before, we hadwrested back our property--that sea of little strivings within a largepeace. I thought at the time that there was surely a God, and that assurely He was there. For which reason, I was glad, when I came inhouse, that Tony had gone on to bed. 

 * * * * *

This morning John asked me: "Whu's been moving my boat?"

"The sea, last night. "

"Oh. .. . "

"I'm going to make a salvage claim on your insurance company. "

"H'm?"

"Happened to be out here and hung on, or else she'd have been sweptdown the beach. "

"Did you?"

"That's it--while yu were snug. "

"Have 'ee got a cigarette on yu?--Match?--Thank yu. "

8

[Sidenote: _MRS PINN_]

When I came into the kitchen early last evening, there was an old womansitting bolt upright in the courting chair. At least, I came to theconclusion that she really was old after a moment or two'swatchfulness. Her flowered hat, her shape--though a little angular andstiff, --her gestures and her bright lively damson-coloured eyes wereall youthful enough. But one could see that her inquiet hands, whichwere folded on her lap, had been worn by many a washing-day. Her skin, though wrinkled, was taut over the outstanding facial bones, as if thewrinkles might have opened out and have equalized the strain, had agenot hardened them to brown cracks--and the tan of her complexion hadold age's lack of clearness. As so often happens when the teeth remaingood in spite of receding gums, her mouth was tightly stretchedsemicircular-wise around them, and the lips had become a long, verylong, expressionless line, shaded into prominence, as in a drawing, bya multitude of lines up and down, from chin and nose;--a Simian jaw, remindful of the Descent of Man. All the accumulated hand-to-mouthwisdom of generations of peasantry seemed to lurk behind the oldwoman's quick eyes; to be defying one. 

I was introduced to her--Mrs Pinn, Mrs Widger's mother. She was boundto shake my proffered hand; she did it, half rising, with a comicmixture of respect and defiance; then sat back in the courting chair asif to intimate, 'I knows how to keep meself to meself, I du!'

I went outdoors, leaving them to talk; helped Tony haul up the beachhis lumpy fourteen-foot sailing boat, the _Cock Robin_, and returnedwith him to supper. 

"Hullo, Gran Pinn!" he roared. "Yu here! Didn' know I'd got a new matefor hauling up, did 'ee? Have her got 'ee yer drop o' stout eet? Ustwo'll take 'ee home if yu drinks tu much. "

"Oh yu. .. . " screeched Mrs Pinn with facetious rage followed by a swiftcollapse into company manners again. 

"Thees yer be my mother-in-law, sir. "

"Mr Whats-his-name knaws that, an' I knaws yu got he staying with'ee--there!"

"Well then, gie us some supper then. "

Mrs Pinn--'twas to be felt in the air--had been hearing all about me. Beside her glass of stout and ale, she looked a little less prim anddefiant. But she was still on company manners. She sat delicately, onthe extreme edge of a chair, by the side of, not facing, her plate ofbread, cheese and pickles; approached them; mopped up, so to speak, amouthful and a gulp; then receded into mere nodding propinquity. Hersupper was a series of moppings-up. Me she kept much in her eye, and tomy remarks ejaculated "Aw, my dear soul!" or "Did yu ever?" I said withfeeble wit, in order to grease the conversation, that stout and bitter, being called _mother-in-law_, was just the thing for Mrs Pinn. 

"Aw, my dear life!" she exclaimed, taking a mouthy sip. "What chake tobe sure!"

It was Mrs Widger who, with a glint of amusement in her eyes, cametactfully to my rescue. 

[Sidenote: _MY NIGHTCAP_]

About ten o'clock, Mrs Widger took down two glasses and the sugarbasin, and set the conical broad-bottomed kettle further over the fire. Mrs Pinn glanced at the top shelf of the dresser where my whiskeybottle stands. Her bright eyes kept on returning to that spot. I shouldhave liked to ask Mrs Pinn to take a glass, but knew I could not affordto let it be noised abroad that 'there's a young gen'leman to TonyWidger's very free with his whiskey. ' I dared not make a precedent Ishould have to break; the breaking of which would give moredisappointment than its non-creation. Equally well, I knew that it wasno use going to bed without something to make me sleep. .. . I told TonyI would go out and look at the weather. 

"Yu must 'scuse me 'companying of 'ee 'cause I got me butes off. Myveet _du_ ache!"

On my return, the bright eyes were still travelling to and fro, frombottle to glasses. I yawned, Tony yawned noisily, Mrs Widgercapaciously. Mrs Pinn was herself infected. "'Tis time I was home. .. . Oh, Lor'!" she yawned. 

She went; and when I asked Tony to share my customary nightcap, it waswith ill-hidden glee that he replied as usual: "Had us better tu?"

His native politeness prevented him from saying anything, however, andMrs Widger showed not a sign of having observed the little victory, someanly necessary, so galling in every stage to the victor. 

Tony declares that he will really and truly start mackerel hookingto-morrow morning--"if 'tis vitty, " and "if the drifters an't catchednort, " and "if 'tis wuth it, " and "if he du. "

9

A creaking and shaking in the timbers of the old house, very early thismorning, must have half awakened me; then there was a muffled rap on mydoor. "Be 'ee goin' to git up?"

"Yes. .. . 'Course. .. . What time is it?"

The only answer was a _pad-pad-pad_ down the stairs. I looked out overthe bedclothes. The window, a grey patch barred with darker grey, waslike a dim chilly ghost gazing at me from the opposite wall. By thesaltiness of the damp air which blew across the room and by the grindof the shingle outside, I could tell that the wind was off sea. The seaitself was almost invisible--a swaying mistiness through which thewhite-horses rose and peeped at one, as if to say, "Come and share ourfrolic. Come and ride us. "

[Sidenote: _MACKEREL LINES_]

Tony, sleepy and sheepish in the eyes, was pattering about the kitchenin his stockings (odd ones), his pants and his light check shirt. Thefire was contrary. We scraped out ashes; poked in more wood and paper. Soon a gush of comfortable steam made the lid of the kettle dance. Thebig blue tin teapot was washed out, filled and set on the hob. Thecupboards and front room were searched for cake. Tony went upstairswith a cup o' tay for the ol' doman and came down with a roll ofbiscuits. (Mrs Widger takes the biscuits to bed with her as maidenladies take the plate basket, and for much the same reason. )

Faint light was showing through the north window of the kitchen. "Coomon!" said Tony. "Time we was to sea. " He refilled the kettle, huntedout an old pair of trousers, rammed himself into a faded guernsey andpicked up three mackerel lines[9] from the dresser. He took some saltedlasks from the brine-pot, blew out the lamp--and forth we went. Aftercollecting together mast, sails and oars from where they were lying, strewn haphazard on the beach, we pushed and pulled the _Cock Robin_down to the water's edge, and filled up the ballast-bags with ourhands, like irritable, hasty children playing at shingle-pies. "A li'lbit farther down. Look out! Jump in. Get hold the oars, " commandedTony. With a cussword or two (the oars had a horrid disposition to jumpthe thole-pins) we shoved and rowed off, shipping not more than acouple of buckets of water over the stern. 

 [9] The fishermen's line is very different from the tackle makers' arrangements. It varies a little locally. At Seacombe, the upper part consists of 2-3 fathoms of stoutish conger line, to take the friction over the gunwale, and 5-6 fathoms of finer line, to the end of which a conical 'sugarloaf' lead is attached by a clove hitch, the short end being laid up around the standing part for an inch or so and then finished off with the strong, neat difficue (corruption of _difficult_?) knot. A swivel, or better still simply an eyelet cut from an old boot, runs free, just above the lead, between the clove hitch and difficue knot. To the eyelet is attached the 'sid'--_i. E. _, two or three fathoms of fine snooding;--to the sid a length of gut on which half an inch ofclay pipe-stem is threaded, and to the gut a rather large hook. The bait is a 'lask, ' or long three-cornered strip of skin, cut from the tail of a mackerel. The older fishermen prefer a round lead, cast in the egg-shell of a gull, because it runs sweeter through the water, but with this form the fish's bite is difficult to feel on account of the jerk having to be transmitted through the heavy bulky piece of lead. 

 The lines are trailed astern of the boat as it sails up and down, where the mackerel are believed to be. When well on the feed they will bite, even at the pipe clay and bare hook, faster than they can be hauled inboard. River anglers and even some sea fishers are disposed to deny the amount of skill, alertness and knowledge which go to catching the greatest possible number of fish while they are up. It is often said that the mackerel allows itself to be caught as easily by a beginner as by an old hand. One or two mackerel may: mackerel don't. In hooking, as opposed to fishing fine with a rod, the sporting element is supplied by fish, not _a_ fish; by numbers in a given time, not bend and break. The tackle brought to the sea by the superior angler, who thinks he knows more than those who have hooked mackerel for generations, is a wonder, delight, and irritation to professional fishermen: it is constructed in such robust ignorance of the habits, and manner of biting, of mackerel, and it ignores so obstinately the conditions of the sport. Likewise the fish ignore _it_. 

[Sidenote: _DAWN AT SEA_]

Tony scrambled aboard over the starboard bow, his trousers and bootsdripping. "'Tis al'ays like that, putting off from thees yer damn'd ol'baych. No won'er us gits the rhuematics. " He hung the rudder, loosedthe mizzen. I stepped the mast, hoisted the jib and lug, and made fasthalyards and sheets. Our undignified bobbing, our impatient wallowingon the water stopped short. The wind's life entered into the craft. Shebowed graciously to the waves. With a motion compounded of air andwater, wings and a heaving, as if she were airily suspended over thesea, the _Cock Robin_ settled to her course. Spray skatted gleefullyover her bows and the wavelets made a gurgling music along theclinker-built strakes of her. 

Tony put out the lines: tangled two of them, got in a tear, as he callsit, snapped the sid, bit the rusty hook off, spat out a shred of oldbait, brought the boat's head too far into the wind, cursed theflapping sail and cursed the tiller, grubbed in his pockets for a newhook, and made tiny knots with clumsy great fingers and his teeth. "An't never got no gear like I used tu, " he complained, and then, standing upright, with the tiller between his legs and a line in eachoutstretched hand, he unbuttoned his face and broke into the merriestof smiles. "What du 'ee think o' Tony then, getting in a tear fuststart out? Do 'ee think he's maazed--or obsolete? But we'll catch 'emif they'm yer. Yu ought to go 'long wi' Uncle Jake. He'd tell 'eesummut--and the fish tu if they wasn't biting proper!"

By the time the lines were out, the dun sou'westerly clouds all aroundhad raised themselves like a vast down-hanging fringe, a tremendouscurtain, ragged with inconceivable delicacy at the foot, between which, and the water-line, the peep o' day stared blankly. The whitish light, which made the sea look deathly cold, was changed to a silvery sheenwhere the hidden cliffs stood. From immaterial shadows, looming overthe surf-line, the cliffs themselves brightened to an insubstantialfabric, an airy vision, ruddily flushed; till, finally, ever becomingmore earthy, they upreared themselves, high-ribbed and red, bush-crownedand splashed with green--our familiar, friendly cliffs, for each andevery part of whom we have a name. The sun slid out from a parting ofclouds in the east, warming the dour waves into playfulness. 

 'Twas all a wonder and a wild delight. 

As I looked at Tony, while he glanced around with eyes that were atonce curiously alert and dreamy, I saw that, in spite of use and habit, in spite of his taking no particular notice of what the sea and skywere like, except so far as they affected the sailing of the boat, --thedawn was creeping into him. Many such dawns have crept into him. Theyare a part of himself. 

[Sidenote: _A TENDERHEART BY NATURE_]

"Look to your lew'ard line!" he cried, "they'm up for it!"

He hauled a mackerel aboard, and, catching hold of the shank of thehook, flicked the fish into the bottom of the boat with one and thesame motion that flung the sid overboard again; and after it the lead. Wedging the mackerel's head between his knees, he bent its body to acurve, scraped off the scales near its tail, and cut a fresh lask fromthe living fish. He is a tenderheart by nature, but now: "That'll hae'em!" he crowed. 

The mackerel bit hotly at our new baits. [10] Before the lines wereproperly out, in they had to come again. Flop-flop went the fish on thebottom-boards as we jerked them carelessly off the hooks. Every momentor two one of them would dance up and flip its tail wildly; beat on thebottom-boards a tattoo which spattered us with scales; then sink backamong the glistening mass that was fast losing its beauty of colour, its opalescent pinks and steely blues, even as it died and stiffened. 

 [10] Undoubtedly, if the mackerel are only half on the feed, a fresh lask is better than any other bait, better than an equally brilliant salted lask. It is the shine of the bait at which the fish bite, as at a spinner, but probably the fresh lask leaves behind it in the water an odour or flavour of mackerel oil which keeps the shoal together and makes them follow the boat. 

Suddenly the fish stopped biting, perhaps because the risen sun wasshining down into the water. The wind dropped without warning, assoutherly winds will do in the early morning, if they don't come on toblow a good deal harder. The _Cock Robin_ wallowed again on the water. "We'm done!" said Tony. "Let's get in out o'it in time for the earlymarket. There ain't no other boats out. Thees yer ought to fetch'leven-pence the dizzen. We've made thees day gude in case nort elsedon't turn up. "

While I rowed ashore, he struck sail, and threw the ballast overboard. Most pleasantly does that shingle ballast plop-rattle into the waterwhen there is a catch of fish aboard. We ran in high upon a sea. Willing hands hauled the _Cock Robin_ up the beach: we had fish togive away for help. The mackerel made elevenpence a dozen to JemimaCaley, the old squat fishwoman who wears a decayed sailor hat with asprig of heather in it. "Yu don' mean to say yu've a-catched all theylovely fish!" she said with a rheumy twinkle, in the hope of gettingthem for tenpence. 

"'Levenpence a dozen, Jemima!"

"Aw well then, yu must let I pay 'ee when I sold 'em. An't got it now. Could ha' gived 'ee tenpence down. "

With a mackerel stuck by the gills on the tip of each finger, I came inhouse. The children were being got ready for school. When I returneddownstairs with some of the fishiness washed off, Mrs Widger wasdistributing the school bank-cards and Monday morning pennies. (By thetime the children leave school, they will have saved thus, penny bypenny, enough to provide them with a new rig-out for service--or Sundaywear. ) There was a frizzling in the topsy-turvy little kitchen. 

[Sidenote: _A DARING RASCAL_]

"Mam! Vish!"

"Mam! I wants some vish. Mam 'Idger. .. . "

"Yu shall hae some fish another time. "

"No-o-o!"

"Go on!"

"Well, jam zide plaate then. "

Jimmy's finger was in the jampot. 

"Yu daring rascal!" shrieks Mam Widger. "Get 'long to school with 'ee!Yu'll be late an' I shall hae the 'spector round. Get 'long--and seewhat I'll hae for 'ee when yu comes back. "

"Coo'h! Bulls' eyes! Ay, mam? Good bye, Dad. Good bye, Mam. Bye, MisterRonals. Gimme a penny will 'ee?"

"God damn the child--that ever I should say it--get 'long! _I'll_ hae abull's eye for 'ee. Now go on. "

A tramp of feet went out through the passage. 

Mrs Widger shovelled the crisp mackerel from the frying-pan into ourplates. Tony soused his with vinegar from an old whiskey bottle. Welingered over our tea till he said: "Must go out an' clean they therboats--the popples what they damn visitors' children chucks in for toamuse theirselves, not troubling to think us got to pick every one on'em out be hand, an' looking daggers at 'ee when you trys to tell 'emo'it so polite as yu can. Ay, me--our work be never done. "

"No more ain't mine!" snapped Mrs Widger, moving off to her washtub. 

10

For the last two or three days there has been a large flat brown-paperparcel standing against the wall on the far side of my bed. I havewondered what it was. 

This evening, after we had all finished tea, while Tony was puffinggingerly at a cigarette (he is nothing of a smoker) with his chairtilted back and a stockinged foot in Mrs Widger's lap, Jimmy said, asJimmy usually says: "Gie us another caake, Mam 'Idger. " He laid a verygrubby hand on the cakelets. 

"Yu li'l devil!" shouted his mother. "Take yer hands off or I'll gie'ee such a one. .. . Yu'd eat an eat till yu busted, I believe; an yu'mthat cawdy [finical] over what yu has gie'd 'ee. .. . "

Tony took up the poker and made a feint at Jimmy, who jumped into thecorner laughing loudly. With an amazing contrast in tone, Mrs Widgersaid quietly: "Wait a minute an' see what I got to show 'ee, if yu'mgude. "

[Sidenote: _ROSIE'S PHOTOGRAPH_]

She went upstairs with that peculiar tread of hers--as if the feet werevery tired but the rest of the body invincibly energetic, --and returnedwith the flat parcel. She undid the string, the children watching withgreedy curiosity. She placed on the best-lighted chair an enlargementof a baby's photograph, in a cheap frame, all complete. "There!" shesaid. 

"What is ut?" asked Tony. "Why, 'tis li'l Rosie!"

"Wer did 'ee get 'en?" he continued more softly. "Yu an't had 'engive'd 'ee?"

"Give'd me? No! Thic cheap-jack. .. . But 'tisn' bad, is it?"

"What cheap-jack?"

"Why, thic man to the market-house--wer I got the cruet. "

"O-oh! I didn' never see he. .. . What did 'ee pay 'en for thic then?"

"Never yu mind. 'Twasn't none o' yours what I paid. What do 'ee thinko'it?"

"'Tisn' bad--very nice, " remarked Tony, bending before the picture, examining it in all lights. "Iss; 'tisn' bad by no means. Come yer, Jimmy an' Tommy. Do 'ee know who that ther is?"

"Rosie!" whispered Jimmy. 

"What was took up to cementry, " added Tommy in a brighter voice. 

"Iss, 'tis our li'l Rosie to the life (mustn' touch), jest like herwas. "

A moment's tension; then, "A surprise for 'ee, en' it?" Mrs Widgerenquired. 

"My ol' geyser!"

The children's riot began again. "Our Rosie. .. . " they were saying. Mam'Idger, slipping out of Tony's grasp, carried the picture off to thefront room. She was sometime gone. 

Wordsworth's _We are Seven_ came into my mind:

 "But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!" 'Twas throwing words away; for still The little maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

I knew, of course, intellectually, that the poem records more than achild's mere fancy; but never before have I felt its truth, have I beencaught up, so to speak, into the atmosphere of the wise, simple soulswho are able to rob death of the worst of its sting by refusing to letthe dead die altogether, even on earth. Rosie is dead and buried. Iperceive also--I perceived, while Tony and the children stood roundthat picture--that Rosie is still here, in this house, hallowing it alittle. The one statement is as much a fact as the other; but how muchmore delicately intangible, and perhaps how much truer, the second. 

11

[Sidenote: _ROSIE'S DEATH_]

While we waited for Tony to come in to supper, Mrs Widger told me aboutRosie's death. "It must be awful, " she said, "to lose a child fo themas an't got nor more. I know how I felt it when Rosie was took. Nothingwould please me for months after but to go up to the cementry, to herlittle grave. 'Most every evening I walked up after tea--didn' feel asif I could go to bed an' sleep wi'out. Tony had to fend for hisself ifhe wanted his supper early. Ther wasn't no reason, but it did ease me, like, to go up there, an' it heartened me a little for next day's work. 'Twas a sort o' habit, p'raps. What broke me of it was my bad illness. [When the twins, 'what nobody didn' know nort about, ' were born. ] Atfirst, I used to think o' Rosie, when I were lyin' alone upstairs, most'specially at night time if Tony wer out to sea an' it come'd on toblow a bit. I used to think, if ort happened to Tony. .. . Our room tothe top o' the house, sways when it do blow. I don't trouble me headabout Tony when he's to sea ordinary times--expects 'en when I sees'en--but then I wer weak, like, an' full o' fancies. An' after I gotabout again I wer much too weak to go to cementry: I used to faintevery time I come'd downstairs. Howsbe-ever, I did come down again, an'Tony used to go out and get me quinine wine and three-and-sixpenny portan' all sorts o' messes, to put me on me legs wi'out fainting. 'Twasthic illness as broke me o' going up to Rosie's grave. "

"You walk up now on Sunday evenings. .. . " I hazarded, recollecting thatthen the children run wild for a couple of hours and come in tired anddirty to cry for their mam. 

"Yes. .. . " said Mrs Widger. 

I saw that I had trespassed into one of the little solitary tracts ofher life. 

"One day, " she continued, backing the conversation with an imperfectlyhidden effort, "when Dr Bayliss come to see me, Tony was asleep in thenext bed, snoring under the clothes after a night to sea. Dr Baylissdidn' say nort, 'cept he said: 'Your husband's a fisherman, isn't he, Mrs Widger?' But I saw his shoulders a-shaking as he went out the door, an' that evening he sent me a bottle o' port wine out o' his owncellar, an' it did me a power o' gude. Tony--he was that ashamed o'hisself, though I told 'en 'twasn't nothing for a doctor to see'en. .. . "

[Sidenote: _FRANKNESS AND SMUT_]

At that moment Tony returned. He really was ashamed of the doctorfinding him in bed, whether as a breach of manners or of propriety wasnot plain. Possibly the latter. He has an acute sense of decency, though its rules and regulations are not the same as those of thepeople he calls gentry. Our conversation here would hardly suit adrawing-room. Tony, if he comes in wet, thinks nothing of strippingdown to his shirt. But, curiously enough, one of his chief complaintsabout the people who hire boats, is their occasionally uncleanconversation. "The likes o' us 'ould never think of saying what theydu. Me, I didn' know nort about half the things they say till I wergrow'd up an' learnt it from listening to the likes o' they. Yu'dhear bad language wi' us an' plain speaking, but never what some o'they talks about when they got no one to hear 'em 'cept us they hires, an' they thinks us don't matter. " Tony is right, I believe. Most ofthe impropriety I used to hear at school, university, and in thesmoking room, though often little but a reaction against sillyconventions, a tilt against whited sepulchres, --was well-named _smut_. It was furtive, a distortion of life's facts and inimical therefore tolife. Impropriety here, on the other hand, is a recognition of life'sfacts, an expression of life, a playful ebullition. 

Tony, when he came in, enquired of Mam 'Idger what she had done withthe picture. "Did Rosie die in the summer?" I asked, remembering howthe children will run out to the milkman with a dirty can unless asharp eye is kept upon them, and how also the larder is fixed up overthe main drain. 

"Her died late in the autumn with convulsions from teething, " MrsWidger replied. "An' her didn't ought to ha' died then but for DrBrown. When her was took ill, proper bad, I sent one of the maidens forDr Bayliss, but he was out to the country for they didn' know how long. So off I sends the maid to Dr Brown, an' he sends back a message as hecuden' attend Dr Bayliss's patients wi'out Dr Bayliss asked him. Certainly 'twas late; but my blood jest boiled, an' I took Rosie intoGrannie's an' goes up myself. Rosie didn' belong to no doctor. Her'dnever had one. Howsbe-ever, Dr Brown says to me the same as he'd toldthe maid, that he cuden' come. An' then he says, 'My good woman, I_won't_ come!' Jest like that! My flare was up; I wer jest about to letfly my mind at 'en--an' I remembered Rosie lying in convulsions toGrannie's, an' flew out o' his house like a mad thing. Rosie wer allbut dead. Her was gone when Dr Bayliss come'd next morning. "

"Aye!" added Tony. "That wer it. Some doctors be kind, an' some don'ttrouble nort about the likes o' us when they got visitors to run a'ter. I don' say they treats the likes o' us worse'n other people; I don'know: oftentimes they'm so kind as can be; but when they don't behavelike they ought to, other people has the means to make 'em sorry forit, an' us an't. They knows that. Us can't do nort an' that's the wayo'it. Rosie didn' never ought to ha' died. "

"No-o-o!" said Mrs Widger. 

One can see the tigress in most women, in every mother, if one waitslong enough. I saw it in Mrs Widger then. If she ever has the whip-handof Dr Brown. .. . 

12

This mackerel hooking, which is a two-man job though Tony could andwould do it by himself were I not here, has most fortunately raised meout of the position of a mere lodger, a household excrescence, tolerated only for the sake of certain shillings a week. It hasprovided me with a niche of my own, which I occupy--at sea the mate ona mackerel hooker, on shore a loafer 'ready to lend a hand, ' and in thehouse a sort of male Cinderella. It is far pleasanter, I find, to be asmall wheel in the machine than to remain seated on a mound of pounds, shillings and pence--beflunkeyed, as if in a soulless hotel!

[Sidenote: _THE EARLY CUP O' TAY_]

Tony cannot fill his spare time by reading: it makes his long-sightedeyes smart. On account of that, and of nights at sea, with rest takenwhen and where possible, he has developed an amazing talent for'putting it away'; that is, for sleeping. He can turn out perfectlywell at any hour, if need be, but at ordinary times he is most contentto follow somebody else's first. I on my part, sleeping indifferentlywell, wake usually before dawn, and greatly dislike waiting for anearly cup o' tay. 

About half-past four I jump out of bed, creep downstairs and chop wood. That warms me. Then with a barbaric glee, I scrape out the ashes, sending clouds of dust over the guernseys and boots that have been setnear the fire to dry. No matter; being light and fire-dry, it willbrush off the one and shake out of the other. People who never lightfires at dawn can have no idea of the exhilaration to be obtained froma well-laid, crackling, flaming fire. 

Tony appears at the door, half-dressed, yawning and stretching his armson high. "Yu an't been an' made tay, have 'ee?" he says with delightedcertainty. The cups are filled. He takes up Mam 'Idger's cup andreturns with the paper roll of 'Family Biscuits. ' We forage fortit-bits, feed standing, yawn again, and go out to 'see what to makeo'it. '

Unless the sea is broken by the wind, there is about it just beforedawn a peculiar creeping clamminess. It seems but half awake, likeourselves. It has no welcome for us. "Can't you wait, " it seems to say, "till I begin to sparkle?"

Tony looks out over. "Had us better tu?" he asks with a shiver. 

"Why not?"

"Shove her down then. There's macker out there!"

By the time the sun is rising (it never rises twice the same) south ofthe easternmost headland, Tony has worked himself into a tear overself-tangling lines, and has been laughed out of it again. We areperhaps a mile or two out, and if the mackerel are biting well, we arehauling them in, swiftly, silently, grimly; banging them off the hook;going _Tsch!_ if they fall back into the sea; cutting baits from fishnot dead. If, however, they are not on the feed, we sing blatant orromantic or sentimental songs (it is all one out there), and laugh witha hearty sea-loudness. And if the mackerel will not bite at all weinvent a score of reasons and blame a dozen people and things. Butthere we are--ourselves, the sea, and the heavenly dawn--the seaheaving up to us, and ourselves ever heaving higher, up and over thelop. It exalts us with it. We hardly need to talk. A straight look inthe face, a smile. .. . We are in the more immediate presence of oneanother. Did we lie to each other with our tongues, the greater part ofour communications would yet be truth. 

[Sidenote: _THE PRICE OF FISH_]

We sail or row home, turn the mackerel out on the beach, count themback into the box, wash the blood off them, and stoop low, turning themover and over, whilst we haggle for our price. The other day, with theexuberance of the sea still upon me, I slapped old Jemima Caley's rustyshoulder and lo! she rose her price one penny. 

"Damme!" she said, "I'll gie 'ee ninepence a dozen if I has to go wi'out me dinner for't! They _be_ fine fish. "

"_Sweet_ fish, Jemima!"

"Lor' bless 'ee, yes!"

But she hawked them at twopence-halfpenny or threepence a pairaccording to the customer. And now, her wry sly smile, peeping fromunderneath her battered hat-brim, meets me at every back-street corner. 

Soap and water, the buzz of the children, their mother's loud voice, and mackerel for breakfast. .. . It is all quite prosaic and perfectlycommonplace, it is far from idyllic; yet it would need the touch of apoet to bring out the wonder, the mystery, of it all: to light up thedoor of the soul-house through which we pass to and fro, scarceknowing. 

Tony comes in early to dinner after a morning's frighting. His objectis to get an hour or so for sleep before the visitors come out fromtheir later lunch. Mam 'Idger says we are lazy; that she 'don't gie wayto it, she don't!' (She did a couple of days ago. ) When theafter-dinner tea is finished, Tony makes a start for 'up over!' MrsWidger enquires if I have some writing to do--and asks also if I wouldlike to be awakened before tea-time!

Never does sleep at night come so graciously as that afternoon snooze, while the sound of the sea and the busy noises of the square floatgently in at the windows; float higher and higher; float right away. About half-past two, Tony goes down to take somebody out for a sail orto paint his boats. I frequently do not hear him. 

13

Is there not more than one signification to the words "And I, if I belifted up, will draw all men unto Me?" There are times when the mind islifted up by a master-emotion, arising one hardly knows how, norwhither leading; a feeling that takes charge of one, as a big wave issaid to take charge of a boat when it destroys steerageway; an emotionso powerful that it does but batten on all which might be expected toclash with it. These are the periods when day and night are envelopedin one large state of mind, and life ceases to be a collection ofdiscrete, semi-related moods. These are the dawns of the soul, thespring seasons of the spirit. The world is created afresh. 

Everything, and nothing, is prosaic. 'Tis _all according_. But it isstartling indeed how suddenly sometimes the earth takes on a newwonderfulness, and Saint Prosaic a new halo. What, to put it in theplainest manner possible, am I doing here? Merely fishing and sailingon the cheap (not so very cheaply); roughing it--pigging it, as onewould say--with people who are not my people and do not live as I havebeen accustomed to do. Yet, as I know well _all_ the time, this changefrom one prosaic life to another has brought about a revelation which, like great music, sanctifies things, makes one thankful, and in a sensevery humble; incapable of fitting speech, incapable of silence. 

14

[Sidenote: _UNDER TOWN_]

Astonishment at, and zest in, these Under Town lives; the discovery ofso much beauty hitherto unsuspected and, indeed, not to be caught sightof without exceptional opportunity, sets one watching and waiting inorder to find out the real difference of their minds from the minds ofus who have been through the educational mill; also to find out whereand how they have the advantage of us. For I can feel rather than see, here, the presence of a wisdom that I know nothing about, not even byhearsay, and that I suspect to be largely the traditional wisdom of thefolk, gained from contact with hard fact, slowly accumulated and handedon through centuries--the wisdom from which education cuts us off, which education teaches us to pooh-pooh. 

Such wisdom is difficult to grasp; very shy. My chance of observing itlies precisely in this: that I am neither a sky-pilot, nor a districtvisitor, nor a reformer, nor a philanthropist, nor any sort of'worker, ' useful or impertinent; but simply a sponge to absorb and, sofar as can be, an understander to sympathize. It is hard entirely toshare another people's life, to give oneself up to it, to be receivedinto it. They know intuitively (their intuitions are extraordinarilyacute) that one is thinking more than one gives voice to; putting twoand two together; which keeps alive a lingering involuntary distrustand a certain amount, however little, of ill-grounded respectfulness. (Respectfulness is less a tribute to real or fancied superiority, thanan armour to defend the poor man's private life. ) Besides which, thesepeople are necessary to, or at least their intimacy is greatly desiredby, myself, whereas their own life is complete and rounded without me. I am tangential merely. They owe me nothing; I owe them much. It is Iwho am the client, they the patrons. 

[Sidenote: _CLASS DISTINCTIONS_]

We are told often enough nowadays that capital fattens on labour, naturally, instinctively, without much sense of wrong-doing, and hasso fattened since the days when Laban tried to overreach Jacob. Whatwe are not so often told is that the poor man not less instinctivelylooks upon the gen'leman as legitimate sport. 'An 'orrible lie'between two poor people is fair play from a poor man to a wealthier, just as, for instance, the wealthy man considers himself at liberty tomake speeches full of hypocritical untruth when he is seeking thesuffrage of the free and independent electors or is trying to teachthe poor man how to make himself more profitable to his employer. Itis stupid, at present, to ignore the existence of class distinctions;though they do not perhaps operate over so large a segment of life asformerly, they still exist in ancient strength, notwithstanding thefashionable cant--lip-service only to democratic ideals--about thewhole world kin. There is not one high wall, but two high wallsbetween the classes and the masses, so-called, and that erected inself-defence by the exploited is the higher and more difficult toclimb. On the one side is a disciplined, fortified Gibraltar, held bythe gentry; then comes a singularly barren and unstable neutral zone;and on the other side is the vast chaotic mass. In Under Town, Inotice, a gentleman is always _gen'leman_, a workman or tramp is_man_, but the fringers, the inhabitants of the neutral zone, arecalled _persons_. For example: "That _man_ what used to work for thecouncil is driving about the _gen'leman_ as stays with Mrs Smith--the_person_ what used to keep the greengrocery shop to the top of HighStreet afore her took the lodging house on East Cliff. " It is, infact, strange how undemocratic the poor man is. (Not so strange whenone realises that far from having everything to gain and nothing tolose by a levelling process, he has a deal to lose and his gains areproblematical. ) I am not sure that he doesn't prefer to regard thegen'leman as another species of animal. Jimmy and Tommy have a name oftheir own for the little rock-cakes their mother cooks. They call them_gentry-cakes_ because such morsels are fitted for the--as Jimmy andTommy imagine--smaller mouths of ladies and gentlemen. The otherafternoon Mabel told me that a boat she had found belonged not to aboy but to a _gentry-boy_. Some time ago I begged Tony not to _sir_me; threatened to punch his head if he did. It discomforted me to bebelaboured with a title of respect which I could not reasonably claimfrom him. Rather I should _sir_ him, for he is older and at least myequal in character; he has begotten healthy children for his countryand he works hard 'to raise 'em vitty. ' Against my book-knowledge hecan set a whole stock of information and experience more directlyderived from and bearing upon life. I don't consider myself unfit tosurvive, but he is fitter, and up to the present has done more tojustify his survival--which after all is the ultimate test of a man'sposition in the race. At all events, he did cease _sir-ing_ me excepton ceremonial occasions. At ordinary times the detested word isunheard, but it is still: "Gude morning, sir!" "Gude night, sir!" Andsometimes: "Your health, sir!" At that the matter must rest, Isuppose, though the _sir_ is a symbol of class difference, and to doaway with the symbol is to weaken the difference. 

[Sidenote: _THE WORD "LIKE"_]

But at the same time, I am lucky enough to possess certain advantages. I have, for instance, managed to preserve the ability to speak dialectin spite of all the efforts of my pastors and masters to make me talkthe stereotyped, comparatively inexpressive compromise which goes bythe name of King's English. Tony is hard of hearing, catches themeaning of dialect far quicker than that of standard English, and Inotice that the damn'd spot _sir_ seldom blots our conversation whenit is carried on in dialect. Finally there is the great problem ofself-expression. There, at any rate, I am well to windward. 

The cause of the uneducated man's use of the word _like_ isinteresting. He makes a statement, uses an adjective, and--especiallyif the statement relates to his own feelings or to somethingunfamiliar--he tacks on the word _like_, spoken in a peculiarlyexplanatory tone of voice. What does the word mean there? Is it merelya habit, a 'gyte, ' as Tony would say? And why the word _like_?

When a poet wishes to utter thoughts that are too unformulated, thatlie too deep, for words--

 Break, break, break, On thy cold grey stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me--

he has recourse to simile and metaphor. Take, for example, thetransience of human life, a subject on which at times we most of ushave keen vague thoughts that, we imagine, would be so profound couldour tongues but utter them. 

Blake's Thel is a symbol of the transience of life. 

 O life of this our Spring! why fades the lotus of the water? Why fade these children of the Spring, born but to smile and fall?

"Thel, the transient maiden, is. .. . What is Thel?" says Blake, ineffect. Thel cannot be described straightforwardly. "What then is Thel_like_?"

 Ah! Thel is like a watery bow, and like a parting cloud, Like a reflection in a glass, like shadows on the water, Like dreams of infants, like a smile upon an infant's face, Like the dove's voice, like transient day, like music in the air. 

[Sidenote: _DIALECT_]

Shakespeare, in a corresponding difficulty, uses one convincing simile:

 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 

Drummond of Hawthornden exclaims:

 This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children's breath. .. . 

Bacon speaks more boldly and concisely. He forsakes simile formetaphor, leaving the word _like_ to be understood. 

 The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man Less than a span. .. . 

Were Tony to try and express himself by the same means, he would say:"The world's a bubble, like, and the life of man less than a span, like. "

_Like_, in fact, with the poor man as with the poet, connotes simileand metaphor. The poor man's vocabulary, like the poet's, is quiteinadequate to express his thoughts. Both, in their several ways, aredriven to the use of unhackneyed words and simile and metaphor; bothuse a language of great flexibility;[11] for which reason we find thatafter the poet himself, the poor man speaks most poetically. Witnessthe beautiful description: "All to once the nor'easter springed outfrom the land, an' afore us could down-haul the mainsail, the sea werfeather-white an' skatting in over the bows. " New words are eagerlyseized; hence the malapropisms and solecisms so frequently made fun of, without appreciation of their cause. _Obsolete_ has come hereto fromthe Navy, through sons who are bluejackets. Now, when Tony wishes tosum up in one word the two facts that he is older and also lessvigorous than formerly, he says: "Tony's getting obsolete, like. " Asoulless word, borrowed from official papers, has acquired for us apoetic wealth of meaning in which the pathos of the old ship, ofdeclining years, and of Tony's own ageing, are all present with oneknows not what other suggestions besides. And when _obsolete_ is fullydomesticated here, the _like_ will be struck off. 

 [11] The flexibility and expressiveness of dialect lies largely in its ability to change its verbal form and pronunciation from a speech very broad indeed to something approaching standard English. For example, "You'm a fool, " is playful; "You'm a fule, " less so. "You're a fool, " asserts the fact without blame; while "Thee't a fule, " or "Thee a't a fule!" would be spoken in temper, and the second is the more emphatic. The real differences between "I an't got nothing, " "I an't got ort, " and "I an't got nort, "--"Oo't?" "Casn'?" "Will 'ee?" and "Will you?"--"You'm not, " "You ain't, " "You bain't, " and "Thee a'tn't, "--are hardly to be appreciated by those who speak only standard English. _Thee_ and _thou_ are used between intimates, as in French. _Thee_ is usual from a mother to her children, but is disrespectful from children to their mother. 

[Sidenote: _THOUGHTS AND MIND PICTURES_]

In short, every time Tony uses _like_, he is admitting, and explaining, that he has expressed himself as best he could, but inadequatelynotwithstanding. He has felt something more delicately, thought uponsomething more accurately, than he can possibly say. He is alwayspathetically eager to make himself plain, to be understood. One knowswell that touching look in the eyes of a dog when, as we say, it allbut speaks. Often have I seen that same look, still more intense, inTony's eyes, when he has become mazed with efforts to express himself, and I have wished that as with the dog, a pat, a small caress, couldchange the look into a joyfulness. But it is just because I am fond ofhim that I am able to feel with him and to a certain extent to divinehis half-uttered thoughts; to take them up and return them to himclothed in more or less current English which, he knows, would conveythem to a stranger, and which shows him more clearly than before whathe really was thinking. That seems to be one of my chief functionshere--thought-publisher. Evidently grateful, he talks and talks, usually while the remains of a meal lie scattered on the table. "Aye!"he says, at the end of a debauch of _likes_. "I don' know what I duknow. Tony's a silly ol' fule!"

He does not believe it; nor do I; for I am often struck with wonder atthe thoughts and mind-pictures which we so curiously arrive attogether. 

15

The old feudal class-distinctions are fast breaking down. But are wearriving any nearer the democratic ideal of _Libert�_, _�galit�_, _Fraternit�_? In place of the old distinctions, are we not setting upnew distinctions, still more powerful to divide? There is to-day agreater social gulf fixed between the man who takes his morning tub andhim who does not, than between the man of wealth or family and him whohas neither. New-made and pink, the 'gentleman' arises daily from hiscircle of splashes, a masculine Venus from a foam of soap-suds. (Aboutwomenfolk we are neither so enquiring nor so particular. ) For the cultsof religion and pedigree we have substituted the cult of soap andwater, and 'the prominent physician of Harley Street' is its highpriest. Are you a reputed atheist? Poor man! doubtless God willenlighten you in His good time. Are you wicked? Well, well. .. . Have youmade a fortune by forsaking the official Christian morality in favourof the commercial code? You can redeem all by endowing a hospital oruniversity. But can they say of you that somehow or other you don'tlook quite clean? Then you are damn'd!

The cottage where the heroine of the 'nice' book lives is alwaysspotlessly clean. A foreigner who adopts the bath-habit, is said to bejust like an Englishman. It is the highest praise he can earn, and willgo further in English society than the best introductions. 

[Sidenote: _CLEANLINESS_]

Cleanliness is our greatest class-symbol. In living with people whohave been brought up to different ways of life, a considerationof cleanliness is forced upon one; for nothing else rouses soinstantaneously and violently the latent snobbery that one would fainbe rid of. Religiously, politically, we are men and brothers all. Yetstill--there _are_ men we simply cannot treat as brothers. By what termof contempt (in order to justify our unbrotherliness) can we call them?Not _poor men_; for we have _Poor but honest_ too firmly fixed in ourminds, and we would all like a colonial rich rough diamond of an uncleto appear suddenly in our family circle. Hardly _men of no family_; formen of no family are received at court. Not _workmen_; for behold theCarlylese and Smilesian dignity of labour! Not _the masses_; for themasses are supposed to be our rulers. What then can we call thesepeople with whom we really cannot associate on equal terms? Why, call them THE GREAT UNWASHED. O felicitous phrase! O salve of theconscience! That is the unpardonable social sin. At the bottom of oursocial ladder is a dirty shirt; at the top is fixed not laurels, but atub! The bathroom is the inmost, the strongest fortress of our Englishsnobbery. 

Cleanliness as a subject of discussion is, curiously enough, consideredrather more improper than disease. Yet it has to be faced, and thatresolutely, if we would approach, and approaching, understand, themajority of our fellow-creatures. 

Chemically all dirt is clean. Just as the foods and drinks of a gooddinner, if mixed up together on a dish, would produce a filthy mess, soconversely, if we could separate any form of dirt into the pure solid, liquid and volatile chemical compounds of which it is composed, intopretty crystals, liquids and gases, exhibited in the scientific manneron spotless watch-glasses and in thrice-washed test-tubes, --we mightindeed say that some of these chemicals had an evil odour, but we couldnot pronounce them unclean. Prepared in a laboratory, the sulphurettedhydrogen gas which makes the addled egg our national political weapon, is a quite cleanly preparation. Dirt is merely an unhappy mixture ofclean substances. The housewife is nearest a scientific view of thematter when she distinguishes between 'clean dirt' and 'dirty dirt, 'and does not mind handling coal, for instance, because, being cleandirt, it will not harm her. Cleanliness is a process by which we keepnoxious microbes and certain poisons outside our systems or in theirproper places within. (It has been shown that we cannot live withoutmicrobes, and that there exist normally in some parts of the bodysubstances which are powerfully poisonous to other parts. ) Rationalcleanliness makes for health, for survival. It is, ultimately, anexpression of the Will to Live. 

[Sidenote: _DIRT_]

Far, however, from being rational, our notions on cleanliness are inthe highest degree superficial. We make a great fuss over a flea;hardly mention it in polite company; but we tolerate the dirty houseflyon all our food. We eat high game which our cook's more natural tastecalls muck. We are only just beginning to realise the indescribablefilthiness of carious teeth, than which anything more unclean, a fewdiseases excepted, can scarcely be found in slums. Even in this greatage of pseudo-scientific enlightenment, we do not have a carious toothextracted until it aches, though we have a front tooth cleaned andstopped on the first appearance of decay. What the eye doth not see. .. . Yet we presume to judge men by their deviation from our conventionalstandards of cleanliness. 

My lady goes to the doctor for her headaches and _crises de nerfs_. "Dyspepsia and autotox�mia, " says the doctor. "Try such-and-such a dietfor a month, then go to Aix-les-Bains. " But how would my lady beashamed did he tell her plainly: "Madam, though I observe that youbathe frequently, your cleanliness, like your beauty, is onlyskin-deep. You are fair without and foul within. Your alimentary canalis overloaded and your blood is so unclean that it has poisoned yournervous system. Eat less, take more exercise and drink plenty--ofwater. Try to be as clean as your gardener. " It has been remarked thatthe labourer who sweats at his work is, in reality, far cleaner thanthe bathing sedentary man, for the labourer has a daily sweat-bath, whereas the other only washes the outside of him: the cleanliness ofthe latter is skin-deep, and of the former blood-deep. Once stated, thefact is obvious. Moreover, the labourer has the additional advantage ofbeing self-cleansing, whereas the sedentary man, for his inferior kindof cleanliness, requires a bath and all sorts of apparatus. No doubt, in time we shall learn to value both kinds of cleanliness, each at itsworth. The Martians of fiction, when in a fair way to conquer theearth, succumbed before earthly microbes to which they wereunaccustomed, against which they had not acquired immunity. If byantiseptics they could have kept these microbes at bay, they would havedone well, but if, like mankind, they had possessed self-resistanceagainst them (that is, if they had been self-cleansing) it would havebeen still better. There is no paradox in saying that, practically, itis very difficult for a healthy person to be genuinely unclean; andthat ideally, in the surgeon's eyes, we are, all, rich man and tramp, so unclean that there is little to choose between us, and every one ofus requires a comprehensive scrubbing in an antiseptic tub. 

[Sidenote: _DISADVANTAGES_]

But just as the habit of aiding nature by eating predigested food isbad, so too rigid a habit, too great a need of cleanliness is apositive disadvantage in the struggle for existence. Harry Stidstonsays fleas are loveable little creatures. I have had to learn to put upwith one or two sometimes. Tommy makes his mother undress him in themiddle of dinner to find one. In other words, Harry Stidston can do hiswork and live under conditions which would put me to flight, and I havea like advantage over Tommy. Again, Tony can do with an occasional bathand can eat his food with fishy hands, while I am a worm and no manwithout my daily bath, or at least a wash-over, and, except at sea, turn against the best of food if I can smell fish on my fingers. Theadvantage is Tony's. It is good to be clean, but it is better to beable to be dirty. 

The upshot is half-a-dozen--maybe unpleasant--truths, withoutrecognition of which the latter-day citadel of snobbery cannot bestormed, nor the poor man and his house appreciated at their worth;namely:--

 1. _Ideally_: We are all so unclean that there is little to choose between us. 

 2. _Scientifically_: Cleanliness, as practised, is conventional and irrational. 

 3. Blood-cleanliness is better than skin-cleanliness. 

 4. To be self-cleansing is better than to be cleansed by outside agents. 

 5. It is hard for a healthy, active person to be really unclean. 

 6. _Practically_: The need of cleanliness is a weakness. 

According to the orthodox standards, this house of Tony's is by nomeans so clean as the rose-embowered cottage of romance. It was nothygienically built. The children gain health by grubbing about outside, then come in house and demonstrate their healthy appetite by grabbing. I could wish at times that they were a little more conscious of theirnoses. We cannot, try how we will, get wholly rid of fleas, becausefleas flourish in beaches, boats and nets. There are several thingshere to turn one's gorge, until prejudices are put aside and the matterregarded scientifically. For, as one may see, the effective cleanlinessof this household strikes a subtle balance between more contendingneeds than can be fully traced out. If, for instance, Mrs Widger camedown earlier and scrupulously swept the house, her temper would sufferlater on in the day. If she did not sometimes 'let things rip, ' andtake leisure, her health, and with it the whole delicate organisationof the household, would go wrong. Of a morning, I observe she hasneck-shadows. Horrid! Perhaps, but being a wise woman, pressed alwaysfor time, she postpones her proper wash until the dirty work is done. Were we to kill off the wauling cats which make such a mess of thegarden, the neighbourhood would lose its best garbingers. Baked dinneris never so tasty as when the tin, hot from the oven, is placed upon afolded newspaper on the table. Tony and the children tear fish apartwith their fingers. It does not look nice, but that is the reason whythey never get bones in their throats, for, as a fish-eatinginstrument, sensitive fingers are much superior to cutlery and plate, and so on. .. . 

I used to think that I was pigging it here. Now I do not. [12]

 [12] On the moral aspect of cleanliness I have not touched. Miss M. Loane, a Queen's Nurse, in her remarkable book _The Next Street but One_, observes "Cleanliness has often seemed to me strangely far from godliness. Where the virtue is highly developed there is often not merely an actual but an absolute shrinkage in all sweet neighbourly charities. If an invalid's bedroom needs scrubbing and there is no money to pay for the service, or if a chronic sufferer's kitchen is in want of a 'thorough good do-out, ' if two or three troublesome children have to be housed and fed during the critical days after an operation on father or mother, do I look for assistance from 'the cleanest woman in the street?' Alas, no; whether she be wife, widow, or spinster, I pass her by, careful not to tread on her pavement, much less her doorstep, and seek the happy-go-lucky person whose own premises would be better for more water and less grease, but from whose presence neither husband nor child ever hastens away. "

16

[Sidenote: _JIMMY COMES HOOKING_]

The dawns are later now. We do not need to get up quite so early, andusually, just as we are drinking our cup o' tay, we hear a pattering ofnaked feet on the staircase. Jimmy, the Dustman still in his eyes, appears at the door. He has an air of being about to do somethingimportant. He picks out his stockings and old grey suit from thecorners where they were left to dry. He does not ask to have his bootslaced up nor complain of their stiffness. Then with his coatexceedingly askew on his shoulders, he demands: "Tay! please. "

"What do _yu_ want? Git up over to bed again. "

"I be comin' hooking wiv yu. "

"Be 'ee? Yu'll hae to hurry up then. "

When the sea is not too loppy nor the wind too cold, Jimmy goes withus. The soft-mouthed mackerel need hauling up clear of the gunwale witha long-armed swing, beyond Jimmy's power to give, and therefore as arule he is not at first allowed to have a line; for fish representmoney and mackerel caught now will be eaten as bread and dripping inthe winter. Jimmy sits huddled up on the lee side for'ard. He becomespaler, looks plaintively, and sighs a big sigh or two. 

"What's the matter, Jim-Jim? Do 'er feel leery?"

If Jimmy volunteers a remark, nothing is the matter. But if hemerely answers "No-o-o!" he means _yes_, and in order to stave offsea-sickness he must be given a line. 

[Sidenote: _EDUCATION EVILS_]

Then is Jimmy 'proper all right. ' Then does he brighten up. "How manyhave us catched?" he asks. The sight of him fishing in the stern-sheetsre-assures me as to his future, about which I am sometimes fearful, just as some men are depressed by a helpless baby because they foresee, imaginatively, the poor little creature's life and all possibletroubles before it. When I watch Jimmy in house, rather naughtyperhaps, or when I hear Bessie, fresh from the twaddle that they putinto her head at school, saying, "If Dad'd earn more money, mother, uscould hae a shop an' he could buy me a pi-anno;" or when, as I am outand about with the boats, a grubby small hand is suddenly slipped intomine and a joyful chirping voice says, "What be yu 'bout?"--then, andat a score of other times, I am fearful of what they may be led to dowith Jimmy; fearful lest they may put the little chap to an inlandtrade where he is almost bound to become a lesser man than his father, be removed from the enlarging influence of the sea, and have it givenhim as the height of ambition to grow up a dram-drinking orpsalm-smiting, Sunday-top-hatted tradesmen. Then I desire savagely tohave the power of a God, not that I might direct his life--he can sailhis own boat better than I, --but that I might keep the ring clear forhim to fight in, and prevent foul play. What indeed would I not do toremove some of the guilt of us educated men and women who force ourideas on people without asking whether they need them, without caringhow maimed, stultified and potent for evil the ideas become in processof transmission, without seeing that for the age-old wisdom of thosewhom we call the uneducated we are substituting a jerry-builtknowledge--got from books--which we only half believe in ourselves? Newlamps for old! The pity of it! The farce!

But when I watch Jimmy fishing, I grow confident that the sea has itsgrip on him; that it will drag him to itself as it dragged his fatherfrom the grocery store; that whatever happens, it will always be partof his life to keep trivialities, meannesses and education from quiteclosing in around him. 

17

[Sidenote: "_THE FISHER FATHER AND CHILD_"]

 _The Fisher Father and Child_

 As I pulled the boat across a loppy sea-- The bumping and splashing boat, With the sail flapping round my head, And the pile of mackerel amidships ever growing larger and lovelier in the light-- And the sun rose behind the cliffs to eastward, and the sky became lemon-yellow (A graciously coloured veil twixt the earth and all mystery beyond), And the wavelets sparkled and darted like ten thousand fishes at play in the ambient dawn, -- It seemed that the sky and the sea and the earth gathered themselves together, And became one vast kind eye, looking into the stern of the boat, At the father and boy. 

 Navy-blue guernsey, and trousers stained by the sea, scarce hiding the ribbed muscles; Tan-red face, the fresh blood showing through; Blue eyes, all of a flash with fishing and the joy of hauling 'em in; now on the luff of the sail (out of habit, there being hardly a sail-full of air), now to wind'ard, and again smiling on the child; Big pendulous russet hands, white in the palms from salt water, and splashed with scales-- Hands that seem implements rather, appearing strangely no part of the man, but something, like the child, that has grown away from him and has taken a life of its own-- Strong for a sixteen-foot sweep, delicate to handle the silken snood of a line-- A man that the winds and the spray have blown on, gnarled and bent to the sea's own liking, The Father!

 And the boy-- Like delicate dawn to the sunset was the child to his father-- A sturdy slight little figure, as straight as the mast, A grey and more gently coloured figure, glancing round with the father's self-same gestures softened, and with childish trustful sea-blue eyes; Pattering with naked feet on the stern-sheets, and hauling the fish with a wary cat-like motion. .. . O splendid and beautiful pair! O man of the sea! O child growing up to the sea! You have given yourselves to the waters, and the waters have given of their spirit to you, And I know when you speak that the sea is speaking through you, And I know when I look at the sea, 'tis the likeness of your souls, And I know that as I love you, I am loving also the sea-- O splendid and beautiful portions of the sea!

18

[Sidenote: _MRS FINN'S PROFESSIONS_]

Mrs Pinn has put aside her respectful defiance, has ceased addressingme as _sir_, and turns out to be a most jolly old woman, possessed ofany amount of laughing _camaraderie_. She frankly explains the changethus: "I used to think yu was reeligious. Yu du look a bit like apasson [parson] sometimes. Do 'ee know 't?--No, not now; be blow'd ifyu du! Yu'm so wicked as the rest of 'em, _I_ believe, but yu ben'tlike they ol' passons. I'll 'llow yu'm better'n they. " My ownrecollection, however, runs back to the evening when she brought herdamped-down washing round, and I turned the mangle for her. It ishardish work. 'Tis a wonder how she, an old woman, can do it when, ifbirths are scarce, she is reduced to taking in washing for a week ortwo. Tony calls her the Tough Old Stick. Excellent name! I can pictureher in her cottage up on land, bringing up her long family with muchshouting, much hard common sense, some swearing and a deal of usefulprejudice. Now, in her second youth--not second childhood--she ismainly a lace-worker and midwife. One night, Tony and myself broke intoher cottage, locked the door behind us and helped ourselves to whatsupper we could find--which was pickled beetroot and raw eggs. GranniePinn climbed in upon us through the little window, and afterwards, togain breath, she sat down to her lace pillow. Her dexterity wasmarvellous. She _threw_ the bobbins about. I could not follow them withmy eyes. She makes stock patterns only; refuses to be taught freshpatterns at her time of life, and cannot read them up for herselfbecause she has never learned to read. The butterfly is hermasterpiece. Working from early morning till evening's gossip-time, shecan earn no less than nine pennies a day. What the lace-selling shopmakes out of her, the lace-selling shop does not state. 

As a midwife, no doubt, she earns more. She must be full of tonicsayings. I am told that when her patients are dying, she takes away thepillow 'so that they can die more proper like, ' and also in order thatthey may get the dying over quicker. What scenes the Tough Old Stickhave must been present at! Yet she is spryer by far than those who keepclear of tragedy. When I ask her to tell me truly how many patients shehas killed off in her professional career, her eyes glitter and shebursts out: "Aw, yu! What chake yu got, to be sure!"

She has her share of professional pride, but nevertheless I should liketo know how many corpses she really has laid out for burial--and whatshe thought the while. 

Usually she comes in just before supper-time:

"Ain't yu gone yet? I know; yu got some mark or other to Seacombe. Comeon! which o' the young ladies is't? Out wi' it! Which on 'em is't?"When I tell her that she is the best girl in Seacombe and that I won'tgive her the chuck until she finds me a mark as youthful as herself anda hundred times as rich, she says:

"Then yu'm done! her won't hae nort still, 'cause I an't got nort, an'a hundred times nort be nothing--he-he-he! I knaws thiccy. "

The jokes, 'tis true, are poor. But the Tough Old Stick's enjoymentfranks them all. You may fling a stinging fact in her face; tell her, if you like, that she could find plenty of marks for herself because, being old, she will have to die soon and then the poor fellow would befree again. "I know't!" she says, and flings you back another stingingfact. Admirable Old Stick! She never flinches at a fact, howsoevergrisly it be. 

Above all, she revels in a little mild blasphemy; hardlyblasphemy--imaginary details, say, about hell, in the manner of MarkTwain. "Aw, my dear soul!" she exclaims. "How yu du go on! Aw, my dearsoul! Yu'm going to hell, sure 'nuff yu be!"

[Sidenote: _AGNOSTICISM_]

But her horror is only a pretence. She does not take such mattersseriously. Indeed, few things have surprised me so much as thethoroughgoing agnosticism that prevails here. Uncle Jake is thereligious member of the Widger family. For the rest, religion is thebusiness of the clergy who are paid for it and of those who take it upas a hobby, including the impertinent persons who thrust hell-firetracts upon the fisherfolk. "Us can't 'spect to know nort about it, "says Tony. "'Tain't no business o' ours. May be as they says; may benot. It don't matter, that I sees. 'Twill be all the same in a hunderdyears' time when we'm a-grinning up at the daisy roots. "

Nevertheless, he is not atheistical, nor even wholly fatalistic. Whenhis first wife was lying dead, he saw her in a dream with one of herdead babies in her arms, and he is convinced that that meant somethingvery spiritual, although what it meant he does not care to enquire. Theagnosticism refers not so much to immortality or the existence of aGod, as to the religions, the nature of the God, the divinity ofChrist, and so on. 

"Us don' know nort about that, n'eet does anybody else, I believe, an'all their education on'y muddles 'em when they comes to weigh up thicsort o' thing. "

[Sidenote: _SPARROWISM_]

If the sparrows themselves had been acquainted with 'Are not twosparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to theground without your Father, ' their attitude towards religion might haveresembled Tony's--a mixture of trust and _insouciance_, neither ofthem driven to any logical conclusion and both tempered by fatalism. "When yu got to die, yu got tu, " says Tony, and it makes littledifference to him whether the event has been decreed since thebeginning of time, or whether it is to be decreed at some future dateby a being so remote as God. The thing is, to accept the decreecourageously. 

The children go to Sunday School, of course; it is convenient to havethem out of the way while Sunday's dinner is being cooked and theafternoon snooze being taken. Besides, though the Sunday Schoolteaching is a fearful hotch-potch of heaven, hell and self-interest, the tea-fights concerts and picnics connected with it are well worthgoing to. But the household religion remains a pure _sparrowism_, and an excellent creed it is for those of sufficient faith and courage. 

Of how the Sunday School teaching is translated by the children intoterms of every day life, we had a fine example two or three weeks ago. Jimmy came home full of an idea that 'if you don' ast God to stop it, Satant 'll have 'ee, ' and Mrs Widger asked him: "What's the differencethen between God an' Satant?"

"Ther ain't nort. "

"Yes, there is. What does God du?"

"God don't do nort unless yu asks Him. "

"An' what does Satant du?"

"Oh--I know!--Satant gets into yer 'art, an' gives 'ee belly-ache an'toothache. "

Not many days afterwards, Tommy was being sent to bed for getting hisfeet wet. "Yu daring rascal! I'll knock yer head off if yu du it again. Yu'll die, yu will! An' what'll yu du then?"

"Go to heaven, o' course. "

"An' what do you think they'll say to 'ee there? Eh?"

Tommy was puzzled. 

"You can ask 'em to send us better weather. " I suggested. 

"Tell 'ee what I'll do, " said Tommy with a prodigiously wise squint. "I'll take up a buckle-strap to thiccy ol' God, if 'er don't sendbetter weather, an' then yu won't none on 'ee get sent to bed for wetfeet!"

19

At a corner near here, there is a very blank cottage wall, and inthe centre of it a little window. Behind the closed window, allday and every day, sits an old woman at her lace pillow. Someportraits--Rembrandt's especially--give one the impression that ashutter has suddenly been drawn aside; that behind the shutter we areallowed to watch for a moment or two a face so full of meaning as tobe almost more than human. The same impression is given me by the oldlace-maker in the window when I pass to and fro, and catch sight ofher face so still, her hands so active, her bobbins so swift and, because of the intervening glass, so silent. How nervously the handsspeed with the bobbins, how very deliberately with the pins that makethe pattern! How hardly human it is!

One evening, however, the window was open, children stood round in agroup, and I heard the small click of the bobbins through the stillair. The children were laughing, delighted with the old woman'sswiftness. She that had been a picture, was become a living being. 

No doubt, she is working at her lace pillow now. She has several mouthsto feed. I wonder does she earn as much as Grannie Pinn?

20

[Sidenote: _CONGERING_]

This long time I have wished to go congering all night, but have beenunable to do so for want of a mate. It is more than one man's work tohaul a boat up the beach in daytime, let alone the middle of the nightor at early dawn. If the _Moondaisy_'s old crew was here. .. . 

Ah! those were days--when George and the Little Commodore and the Loobyand myself used to row out with a swinging stroke at sundown toElm-beech-tree[13] and Conger Pool. The choosing of the mark; thecareful heaving of the sling-stone; the blinn, skate, pollack, spider-crabs, and conger eels, we used to catch; the fights with theconger in the dark or by the light of matches or of an old lantern thatblew out when it was most wanted; the absurd way the crew turned uptheir noses at my nice tomato sandwiches and gobbled down stringycorned beef; their quiet slumber round the stern seats and my solitarywatch amidships over all the lines, and at the sea-fire trailing in theflood-tide; their crustiness when I awoke them to shift our mark andtheir jubilation when a whopper was to be gaffed; the utterpeacefulness of the night after they had gone to sleep again; our merryrow home and hearty beaching of the boat; the cup of hot tea. .. . It isall clean gone. George is in the Navy and the Little Commodore is undera glass box of waxen flowers up on land. Did I bring back a catchalone, perhaps the old boat would be stove in. 

 [13] A spot found by getting an elm-tree on the cliffs in a line with a beech-tree up on land. 

Tony, however, has been saying that, on the rough ground a mile or soout, good-sized conger can be caught by day. On Saturday, therefore, Icollected gear from the Widger linhays, borrowed a painter and anchor, and, the wind being easterly, I luffed the _Moondaisy_ out a mileand a half south-east. There I dropped anchor. 

Tony had given me two mackerel for bait, one fresh and the othersomewhat otherwise; that is to say it was merely fishmongerfresh--quite good enough for eating but hardly good enough for congerwho, though they have a reputation for feeding on dead men, will onlytouch the freshest of bait. With the fresh mackerel I caught one largeconger (it ripped in the sail a hole that took Mam Widger an hour tomend) and two dog-fish. Nothing at all would bite at the stalemackerel. The easterly sea was making a little and skatting in over thebows. Besides which, the _Moondaisy_ began to drag her anchor. Myhand to jaw-and-tail fight with the conger had made me a littleunsteady; had made my muscles feel as if they might string up withcramp; which is not good for stepping a heavyish mast and sailing aboat. So I stepped the mast and set sail, to make sure, and ranhomewards with the wind almost abeam. 

We decided to save the conger for Sunday's dinner. 

Mrs Widger made a most savoury stew of it, and when Tony came in asusual, asking, "Be dinner ready, Missis?" she placed the stew on thetable. 

Tony's face fell. 

"Be this my dinner, Annie?"

"Iss, for sure. "

"_Thees?_"

[Sidenote: _HOT BAKE_]

"What d'yu think then?"

"_Thees!_ Wer's yer baked spuds?"

"Do' ee gude to hae a change. Ther's some cold taties to the larder ifyou likes to get 'em. "

"_Thees!_ Why, I wish thees yer conger hadn't never been catched!"

"G'out!--Now then, you childern. .. . "

Tony picked over the fish, going _Tsch!_ for every bone his fingerscame across. 

"Thee't look so sulky as an ol' cow, " said Mam Widger. 

"Well, what do 'ee think? Thees yer. .. . Did 'ee ever see the likeo'it?"

Presently it occurred to him to peep inside the oven. His facebrightened. "I know'd her 'ouldn't du me out o' me Sunday dinner. Bringit out, Missis. Sharp! Gie thiccy stuff to the cat. Baked spuds! What'sSunday wi'out baake? 'Tain't no day at all! I couldn' ha' put away anhour after thic. "

For the remainder of the meal, when Tony was not eating, he wassinging; and several times he chucked Mam Widger under the chin, andshe retorted: "G'out, yu cupboard-loving cat!"

21

This is the recipe for baked dinner:

Turn out the children and turn on the oven. Into the middle of a largebaking tin place a saucer piled up with a mixture of herbs (mainlyparsley), one sliced onion and breadcrumbs, the whole made sticky witha morsel of dripping. Round about the saucer put a layer of largepeeled potatoes, and on top of all, the joint. Set the baking tin onthe hob and into it pour just enough warm water to run over the rim ofthe saucer. Soon after the water boils, transfer the whole to a fairlyquick oven. When the meat is brown outside, slow the oven down. Servepiping hot from the oven, placing the tin on a folded newspaper and thejoint, if large, on a hot plate. 

To dish up hot bake in the ordinary way would be to let the nature outof it. The smell is a wonderful blend, most hunger-provoking. True, thejoint, unless pork or veal, is apt to be a little tough, but the tatiesare a delicious shiny brown, their soft insides soaked through andthrough with gravy. Bake is a meal in itself. Pudding thereafter is awork of supererogation--almost an impertinence. 

Mrs Widger's cookery, though sometimes a little greasy for one who doesno great amount of manual labour and undergoes no excessive exposure, is far from bad. 

[Sidenote: _FOOD_]

Food reformers; patrons of cookery schools where they try, happily invain, to teach the pupils to prepare dishes no working man wouldadventure on; physical degenerates who fear that unless the working manimitates them, he will become as degenerate as they are, and quiteunfit to do the world's rough work--forget that whereas they have onlyone staple food, if that, namely bread, the poor man has several stapledishes which he likes so well that he is loth to touch any other. 

One day we did have at my suggestion a rather fanciful supper. Tonytasted, ate, and cleared the dish. Then he asked: "An't 'ee got nort tomake a meal on, Missis? no cold meat nor spuds?" He believes in thetheory that good digestion waits on appetite rather than on digestibleor pre-digested foods; that the meal which makes a man's mouth water isthe best to eat; and that solid foods give solid strength. And if thesame dish can make his mouth water nearly every day in the week, howmuch more fortunate is he than fickle gourmets!

When I first came here, I used periodically to run after theflesh-pots. I used to sneak off to tea at a confectioner's. Now Iseldom feed out of house--simply because I don't want to. We start theday about sunrise with biscuits and a cup of tea which I make and takeup myself. (Mam Widger and Tony look so jolly in bed, her indoorcomplexion and white nightgown beside his blue-check shirt andmagnificently tanned face, that I've dubbed them 'The Babes in theWood. ') For breakfast, we have fried mackerel or herrings, when theyare in season; otherwise various mixtures of tough bacon and perhapseggs (children half an egg each) and bubble and squeak. [14] Sometimesthe children prefer kettle-broth, [15] but they never fail to clamour for'jam zide plaate. ' Bake, hot or cold, and occasionally (mainly for me, I think) a plain pudding, or on highdays a pie, make up the dinner thatis partaken of by all. But before the pudding is eaten, Tony and myselfare already looking round to see that the kettle is on a hot part ofthe fire, and when the children are gone off to school, Mam Widgerthrows us out a cup o' tay each, with now and then a newly bakedgentry-cake. Tony, who would like meat or a fry of fish for tea, hasusually to content himself with bread and butter. The children go offto bed with a biscuit or a small chunk of cheese, and we may eat thesame with pickles, or else fried or boiled fish if there is any in thehouse. .. . Supper, in fact, is the meal of many inventions, includingall sorts of crabs, little lobsters, and such unsaleable fish asdun-cow [dog-fish], conger, skate or weever, together withdree-hap'orth, or a pint, of stout and bitter from the Alexandra. Justbefore turning in, Tony and myself have a glass of hot grog. 

 [14] Fried mixed vegetables. 

 [15] Bread broth with butter, or dripping, and water instead of milk. A dash of skim milk is sometimes added. 

[Sidenote: _DRINK_]

From such a list of our fare, it would seem as if we over-ate ourselvesas consistently as the _en pension_ visitors at the hotels. (MrsWidger, who has done a good deal of waiting, frequently tells us howmanfully the visitors endeavour to eat their money's worth at the_tables d'h�te_). Tony's appetite--his habit of pecking at the foodafter a meal is over and the way he, and the children too if they havethe chance, mop up pickles and Worcester sauce--is a continual joy tome. We do not drink much alcohol. On the other hand, the children arecuriously discouraged from drinking cold water. Skim milk, tea, stout, ale, or even very dilute spirit is considered better for them--aprejudice which dates probably from the days before a pure watersupply. Since, however, I who am known to possess a contemptibledigestion, have been seen to drink down several glasses of cold waterdaily, and to take no hurt, the ban on it has been more or lessremoved. 

The above-mentioned goodies are distributed, it is true, over a goodmany days in the year, and I fancy that my being here drives up thescale of living somewhat. At all events, we do not go short. Waste onthe one side, mainly arising from small eyes being bigger than smallstomachs, is more than counterbalanced by a wonderful ability toswallow down gristle, rinds and hard bits without apparent harm. Granfer, indeed, says that he 'wouldn't gie a penny a pound for tendermeat that don't give 'ee summut to bite at. ' The children clamouralways for 'jam zide plaate. ' Without that or the promise of it, theyoften refuse to eat anything. They do not believe me when I tell themthat they have more food than ever I did at their age; that I had toeat a piece of bread and a potato for each slice of meat; that jam andbutter together was not thought good for me except on birthdays andSundays. "G'out!" they say. "Ye lie!" Sometimes their mother isirritated into calling them 'cawdy li'l devils. ' It does seem almost apity that they have not had any of the discipline of starvation. TheYarty children who go half the day, and only too often whole days, onempty stomachs, are certainly as happy as ours: they never cry becausedinner is not so good as they expect, and if we give them half a pietheir earth is straightway heavenly. Tony thinks now and then how hardit will go with his children if the money runs short, as it has doneand may easily do again. "I mind the time, " he says, "when I used tocome in hungry and kneel down beside me mother wi' me head across herlap, crying! Her crying too; mother 'cause her hadn't got nort to eatin house, and me 'cause her didn't get nort, and 'cause her cuden't getnort, not even half an ounce o' tay, not havin' no money in house toget it with. An' then I used to go out an' try an' earn something, twopence maybe, just to stay us on. "

And that it is which has helped to make Tony the man he is. 

22

[Sidenote: _A SUDDEN STORM_]

Seldom does one catch the exact moment of an abrupt change in nature. Yesterday, however, I watched a wonderful thing--the oncoming of asudden storm. 

Uncle Jake had been holding forth on the beach. "Us ain't had noequinoctial gales thees year, not proper like us used to. This season'sgoing to break up sudden and wi' thunder, an' when it du, look out! I'drather be here now than out in the offing, for all the sea's so calm. Ah!" pointing to a dinghy that was shoving off the beach, "they bwoys'ould laugh in me faace if I was to go an' say, 'Don' go. 'Tisn't fit. 'But _I_ knows. "

I left him gazing seaward over the stern of his drifter, and walked upto the Western Cliffs. The air, scarcely a breath from the north-east, was oppressive in the extreme; very warm, too, for autumn. The sea wasalmost unruffled; the sky to westward magnificently heaped up with whatUncle Jake calls wool-packs. A fog crept over all the southern horizon, dimming with its misty approach the eastern headlands and making thesea like a dulled mirror. I felt, rather than heard, distant thunder. 

The fog lifted. It hung low in the sky, a sulky blue cloud. Beneath it, the sea, still unruffled, was of a dense blue that, so it seemed, wouldhave been black altogether but for its transparency and the refractedlight within it. 

Going on, I walked for some distance beneath a semi-arch of thewind-bowed lichenous thorns that grow upon the cliff-edge. 

Without any warning--maybe there was a little hum in the air--aleafless bough, like a withered arm with its sinews ragged out, bentover across my path. The sea gulls screamed and screeched; they flockedout from the cliff-ledges, and with still wings they towered up intothe sky. Every twig and leaf began to play a diabolic symphony. Wherethe hedge ended I was blown back upon my heels. --It was more than halfa gale of wind from the south-east. 

The horizon was become clear; jagged like a saw. Divergent strings, marvellously interlaced on the water, streamed in with the wind, broadened into ribands fluttering over green-grey patches. The wholesea trembled, as if life were being breathed into it. White spots, curling wavelets, dotted it; then broke abroad as white-horses in fullmad landward career. The whistle in the grass rose louder and shriller;the boughs bent further and let fly their autumn foliage horizontallyinto the wind; the gulls screeched wildly and more wildly; the chafingof the surf below took possession of the air. .. . 

[Sidenote: _UNCLE JAKE ON FOOLS_]

I saw the dinghy put about and run for shore. 

When I got back, Uncle Jake was still watching. 

"Ah!" he said. "Ah! Ah! I don't like they centre-keel boats wi' bumes[booms]. They'm all right for fine weather, but. .. . Ah! They'm goin' togybe if they ain't careful. There! Did 'ee see? Why don't they easetheir sheet off more? If the wind catches thic sail the wrong side. .. . Did 'ee see that? Thic bume was all but coming over. Gybe, gybe, yufules! Yu'm capsized if yu du, wi' thic heavy bume. Look'se! Have 'emgot their drop-keel up, I wonder? Not they! They thinks that's the sameas extra ballast. 'Twon't make no difference if a sea takes charge of'em. Ah! did 'ee see the leach o' the sail flutter? Nearly over! Let'em gybe, if they'm set on it. 'Twill upset they. --O-ho! They'm goin'to haul down an' row for it. Best thing the likes o' they can du. Theycalls me an ol' fule for joggin' along in my ol' craft while they hasdrop-keels and bumes, all the latest. I've a-know'd thees yer sea forfifty year an' more, an' I say, I tell thee, that two oars be betterthan two reefs any day. Le'but the seas take charge o' one o' theyboats running afore the wind. .. . All up! They spins like a top, an'gybes. .. . 'Tis all up! Howsbe-ever, they'm saafe now, if they don'tsheer broadside coming ashore. But _they_ won't learn their lesson; notthey. They maakes fun o' us as knows. 

"There! the wind be softening now. I've a-know'd they thunder-puffscome down on 'ee like a hurricane. If they lasted long. .. . 'Tis blowin'out in the Channel still. The horizon's black--see? 'Twill back, an'blow from the nor'east to-night, in here, but 'twill be east tosouth-east in the Channel, an' wi' thees flood tide runnin' up againstit, yu'll see the say make!"

23

It did blow during the night; it must have been rough out in theChannel; then the wind dropped to a light breeze. But before ever Tonyand myself were out of doors we heard the heave and thump of the longeasterly swell. 

We hauled the _Cock Robin_ down to the water's edge, put in five bagsof ballast ("Doesn't look 's if it's blow'd itself out, " said Tony) anda spare oar--and stood and looked. 

"Be it wuth it?" he questioned. 

"Not much wind now, is there?"

"Can the two o'us shove off in thees yer swell? Can ee see any o' theother boats shoving down?"

"No. .. . "

"There won't be much frighting to-day, for sure. Must make the day gudeif us can. Yer's a calm. Jump in quick. Shove! Shove, casn'! Row. Lemmetake an oar. Keep her head on. _Pull_--thic west'ard oar!"

[Sidenote: _PLUCK--_]

We were fairly afloat outside the surf-line, both of us very red in theface. We upsailed--and away. After a few minutes' worry, decidingwhether the mainsail and mizzen without the foresail would be enough, on a sea so much bigger than the wind, and looking for the _CockRobin's_ chronic leak, the bouncing, tumbling and splashing, theheave up and the mighty rushes down, put us both in high spirits. Wedecided to hoist the foresail after all. "Let her bury her head if herwants to!"

Accordingly, I went for'ard to hook the foresail's tack to the bumkin[short iron bowsprit]. The thimble was too small. As I sat on the bowand leaned out over, my hand all but dipped into the waves. A stream ofwater did once run up my sleeve. Looking round and seeing Tony smile, Iyelled back aft: "What be smiling 'bout, Tony?" He replied: "I wasa-gloryin' in yer pluck. "

Which was very pleasant to hear--for a moment. 

My position on the bow of the boat was absolutely safe, and I knew it. There was no risk at all, except of a bruise or a wetting. My toe wasfirmly hooked under the for'ard thwart, and short of my leg breaking, Icould not have lost my hold. Besides, even had I fallen overboard, Icould easily have swum round while Tony 'bouted the boat. Tony wasdeceived. There was no pluck. 

His words set me thinking, and I had to recognise, rather bitterly, that what I call pluck did not form a great part of my birthright. Ifind myself too apprehensive by nature; imagine horrid possibilitiestoo keenly; and indeed would far rather hurt myself than think aboutdoing so. I suppose I have a certain amount of courage, for I amusually successful in making myself do what I funk; but I like doing itnone the better for that. And up to the present, I have not failedbadly in tight corners. On the contrary, I find (like most nervypeople) that actual danger, once arrived, is curiously exhilarating;that it makes one cooler and sharper, even happy. One has faced theworst in imagination, and the reality is play beside it. 

[Sidenote: _AND COURAGE_]

In the dictionary, _courage_ is defined as 'The quality which enablesmen to meet danger without fear. ' _Pluck_ is merely defined as courage. There is, or ought to be, an essential difference between the meaningof the two words. Courage is a premeditated matter, into which thewill enters, whilst pluck is an unpremeditated expression of thepersonality, an innate quality which, so to speak, does not need to beset in operation by the will. Courage rises to the occasion; pluck isfound ready for it. Would it not, therefore, be more correct to saythat _pluck_ is the quality which enables men to meet danger withoutfear: and that _courage_ is the quality which enables men to meetdanger with fear overcome? The greatest courage might go farther thanthe greatest pluck, but for occasions on which either can be used, pluck, the more spontaneous, is also the superior. Most of us areirregularly, erratically plucky; one man with horses, who funks thesea; another man at sea who is afraid of horses. One man who fears livefists may think nothing of watching by the dead. Another who stands uppluckily in a fight, refuses to go near a corpse. One of the pluckiestmen I know 'don't like dogs. ' Pluck runs in streaks, but courage, towhatever degree a man possesses it, runs through him from top tobottom. 

All the churches in the world may talk about sin and virtue, and makemost admirable and subtle distinctions. We know very well in our heartsthat pluck and courage are the great twin virtues, and that cowardiceis the fundamental sin. The perfectly plucky and courageous man wouldnever sin meanly; he would have no need to do so. He, and not the beefybrute or the intellectual paragon, would be Superman. The Christ, itoften seems to me, keeps his hold on the world, and will keep it, notbecause he was God-man or man-God, not because he was born normally orabnormally, not because he redeemed mankind or didn't, not because heprovided a refuge for souls on their beam-ends, but because, of all thegreat historic and legendary figures, he is the one who convinces usthat he was never afraid. In him, as we picture him, courage and pluckwere the same thing, and perfect. 

But the present point is, or points are: How many men whose pluck andcourage I have admired so much, have deceived me as I deceived Tony?And what combination of pluck and courage is it which enables thesefishermen to follow their constantly dangerous occupation with equablemind; which, indeed, enables so many working men to follow theirdangerous trades? For it is one thing to approach danger by way ofsport, and another to work for a livelihood _in_ danger. 

One's analytics fail. It is, however, stupid merely to say, "Ah, theyare inured to it. Familiarity has bred contempt. " Seafaring men realisethe dangers of the sea a good deal better than anyone else. Familiaritywith the sea does not breed contempt; the older the seaman the morecareful he is. I have met old seamen, heroes in their day, whom onewould almost call nervous on the water. And in any case, what a stateof mind it is--to be _inured_ to danger! to be on familiar terms withthe possibility of death! to be able to flout, to play with, to liveon, that which all men fear!

24

[Sidenote: _LUSCOMBE_]

I have been up the coast to have dinner and a chat with my oldcoastguard friend, Ned Luscombe, the man who taught me knots andsplices during the night watches when I was a visitor here years ago. To go to his house now is very pleasant. For a long time after theirfirst baby died on the day they entered a new house, before even thebeds were up, it seemed as if Mrs Luscombe, a gentle, delicate woman, 'with the deuce of a will of her own, ' Luscombe says, was going todecline and die too. The new baby, which was to have killed her, hasput new life into her instead. They are touchingly proud of it, andvery happy altogether. I do like to see married couples happy. 

Luscombe himself is rather an extraordinary man; short, vivacious andsolid; full of generous impulses, yet very well able to look after hisown interests. It was he who dared the neighbourhood, and caused hiswife to invite often to their house a crippled girl that had been rapedby a scoundrel and then given the cold-shoulder by everyone else. Something of a sea-lawyer, he is one of the sharpest-brained--I don'tsay deepest-thinking--men I have ever come across. Hardly educated atall as a boy, he races through books (he read my Cary's _Dante_ in aweek), extracts the main gist of them, and is always learning some newthing, from shorthand to cooking, though he has no need to do much butbehave himself for a pension. Almost harshly honest, he yet brings outwith pride a large edition of Pope that he 'nicked' from thesecond-hand bookstall of a heathen Chinee at Singapore. That littleepisode will not make a very big blot, I imagine, on the Book ofJudgment. If I remember aright, the British Navy was then occupied inprotecting land or concessions that the nation itself had 'nicked' fromthe heathen. 

Luscombe's opinion on books, men and things, unless it has beenborrowed from a newspaper, is always well worth hearing. His light ofnature, by which he judges, is exceptionally powerful. 

While we were smoking in his front room--furnished with a curiousmixture of cheap English things and beautiful Eastern curios--a stewardfrom one of the great liners came in. He began talking about thebehaviour in a gale of a rich snobbish Jew and the behaviour of Jewsgenerally on shipboard, and was inclined to take up the high, superior, patriotic attitude that Jews, not being Englishmen, were necessarily anuisance in a storm. "Well, " said Luscombe, "all I know is, when a mantells me he's never been afraid of anything anywhere, I tells him tohis face, 'You'm a damn'd liar!' One day, in a pub at Plymouth, therewas a man--a bluejacket too--boasting he'd never known what fear was, and I up and asked him, 'Eh, chum? Did you say _Never_?'

"'Never!' he says. 'Never in me life!'

"'You'm a liar then, ' says I. 

"'We'll see, ' says he--goodish-sized chap. 

"'You'm a bloody liar, ' says I, 'and what's more, you ain't truthful. '

"So we squared up there and then, and the bung and his men hyked us outinto the street and we was having our scrap out when the police cameup. He ran! 'Eh, Mr Liar!' I yelled after him. 'Did you say you wasnever afraid?'

"If I hadn't wasted time doing that, I shouldn't have got caughteither. Very nearly landed me in chokey, that did. We was shipmatesafterwards, me and that man, and very good friends. He's a warrantofficer now. "

[Sidenote: _LOWER DECK TO QUARTER-DECK_]

Thence the conversation passed naturally to promotion from the ranks. "I don't believe in it, not as a general rule, " said Luscombe. "Officers ought to be officers, and men ought to be men, and a ship'salways more comfortable when both keep their places. Rankers asofficers are apt to be bullies: that we all know jolly well. Andbesides that, the likes of us can't keep our kecker up the same asgen'lemen, and therefore I says we ain't fit for the quarter-deck, notyet awhile. Tisn't that the lower deck ain't so brave as thequarter-deck, because it is; only it can't keep it up so long; it getsdiscouraged like, when 'tis a long job, specially when 'tis one ofthose waiting-an-doing-nothing jobs. We ain't bred up to it, and ourfathers wasn't, and there's no good to be got out of trying to pretend'tisn't so. "

We argued on. Luscombe would not yield an inch of his position. I can'tsay offhand how far history bears him out, but I fancy that he is rightto this extent: the lower deck has less flexibility of mind. It cannotview a depressing situation from so many sides at once. It is not, forinstance, so quick to see the underlying humour of an emergency; not soready to appreciate the so-called irony of fate. It cannot so easilyturn round and laugh at itself and its predicament. So, though thelower deck's courage may be fully as great as, or greater than, thatof the upper deck, it is applied more constantly, with less mentaldiversion, and therefore it tires sooner. Hence, it _may_ not beso effective. 

The argument undoubtedly has a true bearing on that sort of promotionwhich, in the prevailing educational cant, is called giving every poorboy (by free education, scholarships and other lures) his chance ofclimbing to the top of the ladder--as if success in life were one greattall ladder instead of many ladders of varying builds and heights. Inattempting to justify modern educational policy, its victims are eggedon too fast into a field of commercial, intellectual, or emotionalstress for which they lack the fundamental grit, or rather for whichthe fundamental grit they do possess is not adapted, nor can be adaptedin a generation. Their spirit, fine and valuable for the old purposeperhaps, is not suited to the new. Therefore, of good workmen _inposse_ we make bad clerks and shopmen _in esse_; of good clerksdetestable little bureaucrats or mean-minded commercial men, and so on. Possible wives and mothers we turn into female creatures. And MerrieEngland swarms with makeshift folk and breakdowns. 

Happily nature, heredity, sometimes intervenes, and at adolescence thesharp boy, the pride of the examination room, develops into quite anice commonplace young man, like the missionaries' nigger boy, and issaved, if he be not already committed to an unsuitable career. Otherwise, what mental deformity and slaughter! It was well said thateducation--what is called education--was the cruellest thing everforced upon the poor. Mam Widger agrees. She knows her two boys areabove the average in brains, but she says: "I'd far rather for them tofend for themselves an' make gude fishermen like their father or gudesailors like their uncles, than for 'em to be forced on by somebodyelse to what they ain't fitted for. 'Tis God helps them as helpsthemselves, they du reckon, but I can't see as he helps them as ispushed. "

25

Uncle Jake allows us fine weather for the Regatta. "But when it dubreak up, after this yer logie [dull, hazy, calm] spell, look out!" hesays. "Iss; look out!"

[Sidenote: _WINKLING_]

The day before yesterday, we were having a yarn together on the Front. "Must go t'morrow an' pick Jemima Cayley some wrinkles [periwinkles], "he said. "I got a lot o' work to do wi' my taties up to my plat[allotment], but I promised Jemima her should hae 'em for Regatta, an'her shall, if I lives to get 'em. Her says my wrinkles be twice soheavy as anybody else's what her has--an' so they be, proper gertgobbets! They t'other fellows don' know where to go for 'em, but Idu--master wrinkles, waiting there for Jake to pick 'em. On'y I ain'tgoin' to tell they beer-barrels where 'em be. Not I!--Wude yu like tocome? Nobody goes where I goes. "

"Where's that?"

"Ah! Down to Longo. Yu'll see, if yu comes. "

"Haven't yu got a mate for it then?"

[Sidenote: _UNCLE JAKE_]

"_Mate!_ I'd rather go be myself than wi' some o' they bladder-headedfriends o' brewers. _They_ don' like wrinklin' wi' Jake; makes 'em blowtoo much when they has to carry a bushel o' wrinkles, like I've a-doneoften, over the rocks an' up the cliff, two or dree miles home. TheyDouble-X Barrels can't du that. Lord! can't expect 'em to. --_We'll_ goin the _Moondaisy_ t'morrow, an' then if we can't sail home, we canrow, an' if it comes on a fresh wind, we'll haul her up to Refuge Covean' go'n look how my orchards be getting on. "

It is good to hear Uncle Jake talk about the work that nobody else willdo. (The exposure alone would be too much for many of them. ) His facewrinkles up within its grey picture-frame beard, his keen yet wistfuleyes open wide, and he draws up that youthful body of his--clad infaded blue jumper and torn trousers--on which the head of a venerableold man seems so incongruously set. He is the owner of a big drifterwhich hardly pays her expenses; he feels that taking out pleasureparties is no work for a fisherman--'never wasn't used to be at thebeck an' call o' they sort o' people when I wer young';--and thereforehe picks up a living, laborious but very independent, between high andlow tide mark for many miles east and west of Seacombe. Nobody learnsexactly when or where he goes, nor what little valuables are in the oldsack that he carries. He seldom sleeps for more than two hours on end;has breakfast at midnight, dinner in the early morning, and tea-supperonly if it happens to be handy; and he feeds mainly on bread, cheese, sugar and much butter, with an occasional feast of half a dozenmackerel at once, or a skate or a small conger. Singularlystraightforward in all his dealings, a little of the old West-countrywrecking spirit yet survives in him, and he enjoys nothing better thansmuggling jetsam past the coastguards. Social position saves no onefrom hearing what Uncle Jake thinks. His tongue is loaded with scornand sarcasm, but his heart holds nothing but kindness. He will jeer andtaunt a man off the Front, and give him money round the corner or foodin house. His nicknames are terrible--they stick. Few would care toturn and fight such an old man, and if they did he would almostcertainly knock them into the dust or throw them into the sea. He ischildless; and, since her illness several years ago, his wife, anuntidy woman with beautiful eyes, has been scatterbrained and moretrouble than use, a spender of his savings. He nursed her himself formany months. He does most of the housework now. He may remark on hiswife, if he knows you very well, but about the childlessness he nevertalks. 

At eight in the morning we made sail with the wind just north of east. The little _Moondaisy_ was full of sacks, old boots and gear. PastRefuge Cove we sailed, past Dog Tooth Ledge, and across the out-groundof Landlock Bay, which holds the last long stretch of pebble beach forsome miles down. Uncle Jake pointed to the western end of it. "If everyu'm catched down here by a sou'wester, yu can al'ays run ashore, justthere--calm as a mill-pond no matter how 'tis blowing. Yu can beachthere when yu can't beach to Seacombe for the roughness o' the sea. Aye, I've a-done it! But yu can't get out o' Landlock Bay, though Imind when you could climb up the cliff jest to the east'ard o' thicroozing [landslip]. Howsbe-ever, 'tis a heavy gale from the south-easton a long spring tide as'll drive 'ee out o' thic cave there where thebeach urns up. Now yu knows that: 'tisn't all o'em does. "

Similar bits of lore or reminiscence did he give me about every fewyards of the coastline. Most merrily had the easterly wind and afollowing sea brought us down. Now we drew near the rocks, where athigh tide the land drops sheer to the water. In the dry sunshine, sucha sparkle was on the waves, such a shimmer on the high red cliffs, thatit was hard to follow Uncle Jake when he said, as if he revered theplace, "_'Tis_ an ironbound show! _'Tis_ a shop! Poor devils, what getsthrowed up here! But I know where ther's some fine copper bolts waitingfor me. I'll hae 'em! I've had some on 'em, an' I'll hae the rest whenthey rots out o' the timbers. Year '63 that wreck was--lovely vessel, loaded wi' corn. I mind it well. _'Twas_ a night!"

[Sidenote: _AN IRONBOUND SHOW_]

We ran the _Moondaisy_ ashore at Brandey-Keg Cove--a little beachrunning up into a deep gloomy cave where the smugglers used to storetheir cargoes and haul them up over the cliff. "Us can walk down toLobster Ledge an' west from there to Tatie Rock. I knows where theymaster gobbets be, if nobody an't had 'em--an' nobody an't. They don'like this iron-bound shop. They leaves it to Jake. But they wuden't, ifthey know'd what was here. "

I ate some of my breakfast while Uncle Jake was changing his boots andshifting his outer clothing. He would accept only one of my smallcheese sandwiches. "I got some bread and butter here, " he said, but I'took partic'lar notice, ' as Tony puts it, that he ate none of thebread and butter. And he refused to take a second sip of my tea becausehis sensitive nose detected that there had been whiskey in the bottle. 

As we walked along the rocks, he placed above high-tide mark what bitsof wreckage he could find, and kept a sharp look-out for any rabbitswhich might have fallen over the cliff. The only two we found, however, had been partially eaten by sea-gulls and rats. "Let 'em hae 'em an'welcome, " said Uncle Jake. "The winter's coming. I can't think how theypoor gulls lives when all the sea round about is a hustle o' froth. Ial'ays feeds 'em when I can. Don't yu think that _they_ gets hungrytu?"

At Lobster Ledge--a jumble of peaked rocks with pools between--he lefthis sack conspicuously on the top of a high stone, and hopped--seemedto hop--down to a pool. "They'm here!" he cried. I heard themclatter-clatter into his old cake tin, and then a tin-full rattle intohis sack. On those rocks, where few can step at all without great care, he raced about, bent down double, and jumped and glided as actively asan acrobat--a veritable rock-man. "Come here!" he called. "Jest yu turnover thic stone. Ther's some there. My senses, what gobbets they be! Ifthey ther fuddle-heads what goes nosing about Broken Rocks, on'yknow'd. .. . "

Underneath the stone, clinging to it and lying on the bed of the pool, were so many large winkles that instead of picking them out, I found itquicker to sweep up handfuls of loose stuff and then to pick out therefuse from the winkles. When Uncle Jake came across an unusually goodpocket he would call me to it and hop on somewhere else. There was anelement of sport in catching the dull-looking gobbets so many together. I soon got to know the likely stones--heavy ones that wanted coaxingover, --and discovered also that the winkles hide themselves in a green, rather gelatinous weed, fuzzy like kale tops, from which they can becombed with the fingers. They love, too, a shadowed pool which istainted a little, but not too much, by decaying vegetable matter. UncleJake likes the stones turned back and then replaced 'as you finds 'em. '

[Sidenote: _WHAT GOBBETS THEY BE!_]

I emptied my baler, holding perhaps a quart, into the ballast-bag. Howone's back ached! How old and rheumaticy had one's knees suddenlybecome! Uncle Jake feels nothing of that, for all his sixty-five years. He still skipped from pool to pool. He flung me a lobster. "There! putthat in your bag for tay. Tide's dead low. The wind's dying away: sun'sburnt it up. Shuden' wonder if it don't come in sou'west, an' if it duwe'll hae a fair wind home along. --Well, how du 'ee like it? Eh?"

"All right. "

"Ah! yu ought to be down here in the winter, like I been, when you gotto put your hands wet into your pockets to get 'em warm enough to feelthe gobbets--aye, to hold 'em! Then carry 'em five mile home on yourback to make 'ee warm again. "

So we went on: grab, grab, grab! clatter-clatter! rattle! We talkedless and worked harder, because we were tired. The tide crept up. Thewind veered to south-east and strengthened. "'Tis time to be off out ofthees yer, " said Uncle Jake. "The lop'll rise when the flid tide makes. Yu may know everything there is to know about fishing, but, " he addedgrimly, "if yu don' know when to be off, 'twill all o'it be no gude to'ee some day. Blast thees wind! We'll hae to row home now, or ratch outa couple o' miles to fetch in. "

We shouldered our sacks for the half-mile walk to the _Moondaisy_. Walk. .. . Scramble! Uncle Jake seemed to glide from rock to rock, butwith two or three stone weight awkwardly perched on my shoulder, thewet running down my neck and an arm going numb, I slithered down theweed-covered slopes in a very breakneck fashion. I rather felt for thebladderheads who refuse to go wrinkling far from home. 

[Sidenote: _CAUGHT BY THE TIDE_]

Afloat again, we used the winkles for ballast in place of shingle. Thelop _had_ made, and was against us. We rowed up Landlock Bay to thewestern side of Dog Tooth Ledge. Uncle Jake made an exclamation andstood up. "What's that? Whoever's that? There! down there to LobsterLedge! A gen'leman an' lady, looks so. How did us come to miss they?Look! They'm sittin' down, the fules!--Hi, yu! Hi! Hi!--They'm catched. When yu see the water washing over the Dog's Tooth, yu can't get roundthe ledge wi'out swimming. --Hi, yu! Hi!--They'm in for a night o'itsure, till the tide falls, if we don' take 'em round to Refuge Cove. Ther's nowhere there where they be, to get upon land. --Hi! Hi!Yu!--They'm mazed. An' her an't got no stockings on nuther. --Hi! hi!Hurry up!--Can't bide here all day. The flid and the sea's makingfast. "

They came on at a leisurely pace. The Dog's Tooth was continuouslyawash. Spray broke on it. "D'yu know, " said Uncle Jake when they werenear enough, "that yu'm catched by the tide? Yu'm in for a night o'iton this yer beach, wi'out yu swims round the ledge or lets we row yu tothe lane in Refuge Cove. Yu can't get up on land herefrom. "

"Oh. .. . " said the man. "We'd better come on board your boat then. "

It took Uncle Jake nearly half-an-hour to row the three-quarters of amile across the tide-rip on the ledge and into Refuge Cove. I carefullyrefrained from doing anything to lead them to suppose that they wereaboard other than a fishing boat. It was Uncle Jake's expedition: histhe prospective reward. When I helped the man ashore, he put somecoppers into my hand. "There's threepence for the old man's tobacco, "he said with an air of great benevolence. I was too surprised to speak:I pushed off and then burst into a laugh. 

"What did 'er give 'ee?"

"Threepence. _Threepence!_ For your tobacco!"

"Thank yu. I don't use tobacco. Yu'd better keep thic donation. They'dha' catched their death o' cold there all night, an' there ain't noother boats down here along, nor won't be. That's what they reckonstheir bloody lives be worth, an' that's what the lives of the likes o'they _be_ worth, tu! Dreepence! My senses. .. . "

We roared with laughter. It put heart into us for our stiff row homeagainst wind, wave and tide. When I went for'ard to place the cut-ropeready, Uncle Jake had to call me aft again: spite of his strength theboat was being beaten to leeward. 

It was nearly four o'clock when we had hauled up and were carrying thewinkles on our backs down one of the untidy little roadways into UnderTown. No dinner or high-tea was waiting for Uncle Jake. The house wasunswept. How draggled the little bits of fern in the old china potslooked! The fire was out; the hearth piled up with ashes; and on thetable stood a basin of potatoes in water, most of them unpeeled. 

Uncle Jake came to a standstill, acutely alive in the midst of adomestic deadness. He raised himself upright beneath his load ofwinkles. "That's what I got to put up wi', " he said. "An't had a bitesince breakfast at four by the clock this morning, 'cept thic sandwicho' yours. Tis a wonder how I du put up wi' it. I don' know for sure. "

[Sidenote: _MEASURING UP_]

"Thees is what I got to put up wi'!" he repeated when Mrs Jake came infrom a neighbour's. 

"I forgot, " she said with a gay high-pitched little laugh which had init a tang of acquiescent despair--the echo of a mind that has ceasedfighting anything, even itself. 

"Forgot! Yu forgets!" Then in a softer tone: "Gie us the quart cup. "

He emptied my winkles out upon the stone floor, knelt down, andmeasured them back into the ballast-bag: "one--two--three--four, that'sone--five--six--seven--eight, that's two pecks--nine--ten--half a peckover; good for you, skipper!" He had four pecks himself, together withseveral small lobsters which he threw out to me. 

"But you'll eat those. .. . "

"No, I shan't. Don't want 'em. Take 'em in home for yer tay. "

Then he hunted out of an inside breast-pocket a screw of newspaper, andfrom it took a half-crown piece:

"That's your share. "

"But. .. . "

"Go on! If you hadn' a-come I should ha' been the poorer by more'nthat, an' that's what one o' they beery bladderheads would ha' had ifthey'd a-come--on'y I won't hae 'em 'long wi' me. Better yu to hae itthan one o' they, to gie to the brewer. I wishes 'ee to take it. Yu'veearned it, an' thank yu for your help. _I_ done all right outo'it. "

26

The Regatta has gone off well. The day was fine, the wind nor'west andnot too squally. There was a brave show of bunting; very many peopleand several bands came down to the short Front; and there were races onthe water, in the water, and, in the evening, on land. The seasparkled. The place was all of a flutter. Uncle Jake, irritated by theinvasion of his beach, became most scornful over the abundance of highstarched collars, and the kid gloves of the shop-assistants. Some ofthe young Seacombe braves collected round to tease him and, ifpossible, to work him into one of his famous passions. But they darednot so much as nudge him; he is too earnest, too vigorous. He lashedthem off with his tongue. And when a dinghy capsized through trying tosail off the wind in a squall, it was the old man who was quickest atthe water's edge with a punt, and first on the spot, although afour-oared boat raced out to the rescue. 

[Sidenote: _REGATTA_]

Some of the Widgers won races, I believe. One takes no great note ofprizes: they are too small. The Regatta is not primarily an affair ofthe fisherfolk; to take any great part in it would be to neglect theirown work; and when they do race, they have a neat method of defeatingthe patronage of the townsfolk who provide prize-money in order thatthey and the visitors may enjoy the spectacle of fishermen (in fisherphrase) pulling their insides out for nort. The prize-money is pooledand divided among all the competitors. In consequence, the races arerowed and sailed with great dignity, and many of the visitors excitethemselves halfway to delirium over the extreme--the make-believecloseness of the finishes. It is not very sporting perhaps, butindulgence in the sporting spirit is for those who can afford it. TheSeacombe fisherfolk can't. 

A confounding number of the Widger family and its connexions arrived byboat, road and rail. Two or three grand teas were provided one afterthe other. Mrs Widger--looking really very young, alert, andpretty--packed the children off to the beach with gentry-cakes in theirhands. Well she did so, for every chair in the kitchen was occupied bysome relative, and the display of best clothes was most alarming. Worstof all, one party had brought the family idiot--a simpering, lollopycreature, stiff in the wrong places, who could not feed himselfproperly. With a vigorous tapping of the forehead, he was pointed outto me. "He's a little deeficient, you know, sir--something lacking. "The idiot, finding himself the centre of attraction, fairly crowed withdelight. "Ou-ah!" he went. "Ou-ah! ou-ah!"

On the pretext that a boat wanted hauling up, I escaped, with a pieceof bread and jam in my hand, like the children. 

A man of slightly unsober dignity accosted me in the Gut, and asked ifJim somebody-or-other was within. "Him and me don't speak, nor eetmeet, " he explained. "I won't hae nort to do wi' he, nor enter thehouse where he is, for all we be related. --Come an' have a drink 'longwi' me, sir; now du; I asks 'ee. --'Tis safer, yu know, for us not tomeet. "

For the second time I lied, and escaped. 

[Sidenote: _THE VETERANS' RACE_]

Uncle Jake ran up from the beach. "Yer!" he said, "there's a race toSaltmeadow, a veteran's race, for men over fifty. Yu come wi' me, an'I'll go in for it--an' beat the lot, I will. I knows I can. " Off wewent, Uncle Jake in a high excitement. At the centre of the big oblongring, two clean-built jumpers, men in the heyday of their strength, were making a local record for the high jump. Uncle Jake shouted outpraise and sympathy to them. We found our way to where the veteranswere grouped together, encouraging each other to enter with much foullanguage--which made them feel young again, no doubt. What a lot theywere! some aged to thinness, others become fat and piggish. Only UncleJake appeared quite sound in wind and limb. He took off his boots andstockings, walked into the ring with a fine imitation of the athlete'sswagger combined with a curious touch of shyness. "Go it Uncle Jake!"they shouted. At the end of the first lap, he found himself so farahead that he threw his old round sailor's cap high into the air andcaught it, and he skipped along to the winning-post like a young lamb. A great cheer was echoed from cliff to cliff. Uncle Jake has not spokenhis mind all his life for nothing. Seacombe does not unanimously likehim, but it has the sense to be rather proud of him. A veterans' raceis usually a sad spectacle, a grotesque _memento mori_: for UncleJake 'twas a triumph. 

The next great sight of the evening was to watch the fishermen fromother villages put off to their boats. Most of them were 'half seasover, ' some nearly helpless. They were thrown aboard from the punts andhad their sails hoisted for them; or, if they did it themselves, it waswith most comic jerks. The gods, who undoubtedly have a tenderness fordrunkards--why not?--must have looked after them, for no news has comeof any accident. 

On returning in house, I met Tony with several of his men relatives. Hedrew me aside. "Maybe I'll come home drunk to-night, but I promise 'eeI won't disturb 'ee, an' if yu hears ort--well, yu'll know, won' 'ee?"

For some reason not easily to be fathomed his kindly warning made mefeel ashamed of my own sobriety, ashamed that I dared not 'go on thebust' with him. I firmly believe that it does a man good to 'go on thebust' occasionally. It develops fellow-feeling. And besides, who hasthe right to cast a stone at a man for snatching a little jollity whenhe may, be it alcoholic or not? The truth is, that Tony, who has nocraving for drink, was prepared to plunge into the fastest current ofthe life around him, and to take his chance, whilst I, for niggardly, self-preservative, prudential reasons, was not. 

However, he came home quite sober. 

27

[Sidenote: _THE SQUARE'S AWAKENING_]

Up-country, next week, I shall greatly miss my window overlookingAlexandra Square. I have lived (rebelliously) in suburban streets whereonly clattering feet, tradesmen's carts and pitiful street singersbroke the monotony; in a Paris _chambre � gar�on, au sixi�me_, wherethe view was roofs and the noise of the city was attenuated to amurmur; in country houses which looked out on sweeps of hill, down, vale and sea, so changeable and lovely that they were dreamlike and asa dream abide in the memory. .. . Here I have quick human life just belowmy window, and--up the Gut--a view of the sea unbroken hence to thehorizon; a patch of water framed on three sides by straight walls andon the fourth by the sky-line; a miniature ocean across which thedrifters sail to the western offing, and the little boats curvet to andfro, and

 The stately ships go on To their haven under the hill. 

There is always, here, a sound of the sea. When, at night, the Squareis still, it seems to advance, to come nearer, to be claiming one forits own. 

But the Square, though still at night compared with daytime, is neverdead, never absolutely asleep. Fishermen returning from sea crunch onthe gravel. Lights in the windows (most of the people seem to burnnight lamps) give it a cosy appearance; the cats make one think thatfiends are pouring out of hell, through a hole in the roadway. Peep o'day is the stillest time of all. The cats seat themselves on walls. Sparrows chirp sleepily. Some rooks and a hoary-headed jackdaw comedown from the trees nearby, quarter the roadway for garbage, and flyaway croaking. Busy starlings follow. If the weather is hard and fishoffal scarce on the beach, the gulls will pay us a supercilious visit. About six o'clock the children begin singing in bed, and soonafterwards one hears the familiar conversation of families getting up. "Edie! what for the Lord's sake be yu doing? Yu'll catch your death o'cold. Johnnie, if yu don't make haste, I'll knock your head off, Iwill!" A child or two may cry, but on the whole their merriment doesnot seem greatly damped by their mothers' blood-curdling threats. Ihear also, but not very often, the shrill wailing monotone, the weepdissolved in a shout, of a woman upbraiding her man for the previousnight. 

The children being dressed, but not washed (it is useless to wash theaverage child very long before sending it off to school), they run outto the beach to see what there is to be seen and to inspect theash-buckets for treasure. An ash-bucket is Eldorado to them. If nothingis happening, are they at a loss for something to do? By no means. Theycome in house, fetch out tin cans, and beat them in a procession roundthe Square. 

The milkmen arrive, then several greengrocers. One would think thatUnder Town lived on vegetables. The explanation is that thegreengrocers can come here, and, in tidying up their carts, can throwtheir refuse upon the roadway, as they would not be allowed to do in'higher class' streets. They swear genially at the housewives, and areforgiven. 

So the work and gossip of the day goes on, with a slight quieting downin the afternoon and an incredible amount of conversation after work, in the evening. 

[Sidenote: _THE ALEXANDRA BACK-DOOR_]

On Sundays, the great fact of best clothes lends a different and, to mymind, a less pleasant--a harder--tone to the children's voices. Buttheir merriment cannot wholly be suppressed. Did those who dislike theSalvation Army wish to illustrate its shortcomings, they could find abiting satire ready-made by the children of Under Town. A fat small boycomes round here, who has attentively studied the meetings; who cancopy the canting, up-and-down, gentle-explosive, the _Behold I amsaved, ye sinners_! tone to a nicety. He marches at the head of aband of serious infants who bear rags, tied to sticks and parasols, asbanners. Every now and then he circles them to a standstill for anharangue about blood, fire and Jesus. (It is the gory part whichdelights him. ) Then the procession re-forms, imitating brassinstruments as unbroken voices can, and singing a Salvation hymn. Theyare earnest, the children; except Tommy Widger, whose irrepressiblespirit causes him to march in the rear with a mocking dance and aninfinitely grotesque squint. He is a pagan. He can turn the children'sserious imitation into roaring Aristophanic farce. He represents thehealthful laughing element of an age wherein rest from sorrow is toomuch sought in fever. He infects us all with jollity. 

 * * * * *

The back-door of the Alexandra, which opens on the Gut, is my homecomedy. It is strangely fascinating; sad in a way, but very human; fornothing on earth, except one or two of the very great things of life, is so democratic as the back-door of a public house. Soon afterbreakfast, or even before, the tradesmen sneak round for theirpick-me-ups. Then the housewives go for their jugs of ale and stout. Some people never enter the Alexandra except by the back way. Theymarch down the Gut as if on important business; then, in the twinklingof an eye, they are gone within. One worn little woman, who wears aloose cape and a squalid sailor hat, walks up and down the Gut till itis completely clear, then jumps into the door, and closes it veryquietly. When she comes out again it is as a rabbit comes from abolt-hole when a ferret is just behind. She runs five yards, standsstill, looks up and down, and tries very hard to walk homeunconcernedly. Sunday evenings, she hangs about outside until the baris opened. With the turn of the key, in she goes. Once a servant, gossiping with her sailorman, kept the little woman outside for fullyten minutes after the lock was shot back. Poor little woman, how greather craving must be!

Last week, I saw a policeman standing at the top of the Gut. Up helooked; down he looked; Seacombe was orderly. Stepping as if to arresta malefactor, he marched down the Gut. .. . Where was the policeman? Abattered billycock and a rakish pipe looked round the corner, thenwithdrew. The battered billycock knew where the policeman was. Theprice of a glass, and billycock would have been there too. 

I was glad; for a few days before that the same policeman had arresteda man by flinging him halfway across the street into the mud. It wasonly a tramp. His witnesses, being poor people, dared not volunteer togive evidence on his behalf, and would not have been believed had theydone so. He was sentenced to fourteen days: drunk and incapable, abusive moreover. A drunkard cannot legally be arrested unless he isalso incapable or disorderly. It used to be a trick of the police toshadow a harmless _Weary Willie_ until he happened to stumble, or evento butt him down themselves. He then becomes drunk and incapable withinthe meaning of the act, for, if the magistrate should doubt, is therenot dirt on his clothes? Obviously, circumstantially, he was incapable. _He_, of course, must be a poor man. The trick is not safe withtradesmen. These things are commonplaces amongst the poor. 

But billycock hat will not forget!

28

[Sidenote: _MACKEREL DRIFTING_]

Yesterday morning early there was a great excitement along the beach. Drift-boats could be seen in the offing. "I tell thee what 'tis, " theysaid, "the whiting be in an' us chaps an't been out to look for 'em. Usdon't du nort nowadays like us used tu. " Later on, however, we heardthat the Plymouth drifters had been out after an autumn shoal ofmackerel, had caught some thousands and had made good prices. Theseason for mackerel drifting here usually ends with July or August, butgood October mackerel, mixed with herring, have occasionally beencaught. Tony, John and myself decided to put to sea. When the otherboats saw our fleet of nets being hauled aboard (in a furious hurry), they fitted out too. 

We shoved off just before dark. The wind was strongish WSW. --off land, that is--so that inshore the sea was almost calm, except for the swellrunning in from outside. What it was like outside the white horses andthe wind-streaks showed. Hardly had we gone half a mile before we heardthe queer clutching noise which meant that a strong puff of wind hadcompelled Tony to let the sheet fly. The squall past, he hauled it inagain, put his legs across the stern and hung on. We sailed eight milesfrom land in ten minutes under the hour--speed, that, for atwenty-two-foot open boat with its mainsail reefed! Where we downhauledto shoot the nets, the sea, unsheltered by cliffs and headlands, was--as Tony beautifully put it--'rising all up in heaps. ' Whilst I wastrying to keep the boat before the wind, for net-shooting, a greatcomber plopped over the stern right upon my back. The sky was weird. Great wind-drifts of rain-cloud constantly spread out from the west, and wolves, higher up in the sky, were driving across the moon. Weheated tea, but did not try to sleep. Tony and John kept up a curiousdialogue. "What do 'ee think o' it, then?"

"'Tisn't vitty. I said so all along. "

[Sidenote: _HAULING INBOARD_]

"If a skat o' rain comes--and 'tis raining on land, seems so--thewind'll back out to sou'west, an' us'll hae to rin for it. A pertylop'll get up tu, an' we'm more'n a mile from land. "

"Us'll haul in be 'leven. No gude hanging on out here. If the wind_du_ back. .. . "

I have never heard them talk so much about the weather. And all thewhile, the sky drove into splendid cloud-forms, all windy, nearly allrainy. We lost the Eddystone light, then lost the Seacombe light andrecovered the former, as a storm drifted along shore. From time to timewe thought the wind was backing a bit. 

Supper, for me, had to be crammed down on a rather queasy stomach. "We'm all ways to once!" Tony remarked. The wind did definitely back apoint or two. "Only let it once die away, " said Tony in the tone of _Itold you so_; "then yu'll see how it can spring from the sou'west when'tis a-minded. "

One minute I wished myself home, safe in bed, and thought withgrotesque grief of some unfinished work. Next minute, I knew that Iwould not have missed the night out there for any consideration. Thegrey, slightly sheeny boil of the sea around us; the sweeping savageryof the sky; the intimacy of the waters. .. . 

But we were all relieved when eleven o'clock came. The watchfulness wasa strain. 

When one is steering instead of hauling, the getting-in of nineforty-fathom nets seems interminable. One net, two nets, three nets--athird of nine, --four, five--more than half the fleet, --six--two-thirdsof nine, --seven, eight--nine all but one;--and so on, with anoccasional wave coming inboard, until the very last square buoy comesbobbing towards the boat; hand over hand, buoy by buoy, net by net, holding fast when the pull of the tide is too strong, and pausingirritably to pick out the fish. We stepped the great mast, shifted allthe ballast to wind'ard. John came aft to steer, and seated himself onthe counter, a strangely powerful, statuesque figure in his wetoilskins. "Have 'ee got the sheet in yer hand?" Tony called out fromthe bows. 

John did not trouble to reply. 

"Have 'ee got the sheet in yer hand, John?"

"No, I an't! What the hell do 'ee want the sheet for? Wind's abeam. "

"Might want it bad, " said Tony. 

[Sidenote: _A REMBRANDTESQUE PICTURE_]

We left it fast however; and with the same, an elemental passion tookpossession of my mind; ousted all else. I had been anxious about thesheet, had thought John foolhardy. Now I didn't care. I could havecried out aloud for joy as the brave old craft rose to the seas with amarvellous easy motion and the waves came skatting in over the bows. Before long, I was on my knees with the baler; John was getting everyinch out of the wind, and Tony was standing abaft the nets with thesheet dangling through his hand. By the light of the riding-lamp on themizzen mast (its glass patched with an old jam cover), they in theirangular wet oil-skins--the rain was pelting--and the rich wet brown ofthe boat's varnish, made a wonderful Rembrandtesque picture. I hardlyknow how long we were sailing home; it slipped my mind to take thetime. About two o'clock I was halfway down the beach with Tony cursingabove me and John doing the same below. Someone had 'messed up' ourcapstan wire. While Tony was putting that right in the dark--andpinching his fingers severely--the boat washed broadside on and beganto fill. We had only five dozen fish. They sold badly. 

In time, and with practice, I could, I believe, do most that thesefishermen do except one thing: I doubt I could stand the racket of myown thoughts. Tony and John would go out to-night, to-morrow, everynight. But I have slept so dead (not from bodily tiredness) that, thedoor being bolted against the children, they were unable to waken mefor dinner, and in the end Tony told them to 'let the poor beast bide. 'Of what nature was that passion, so exultant and so tiring? Are thesefishermen so used to it that they 'don't take much note o'it'? For theyfeel it. I have seen it in their faces. One can always tell. The eyeswiden and brighten; hasty movements become so desperately cool. If whatwas an episode in my life, is part and parcel of theirs, how much thebetter for _them_!

29

To-day the sea passion, or whatever it is, came again. 

While I was asleep, the wind backed and freshened. Balks of wood from anaval target kept washing in. Balks make winter firing when coal isdear and money scarce. Boats had been bringing them in all the morning, till the sea became too rough. Tony had none however. In the afternoonhe complained bitterly:

"They all got some wude but me, an' us an't got enough in house for thewinter nuther. " Just then we saw a large piece washing along on theflood tide over the outside of Broken Rocks. "Get a rope--grass rope, mind. Down with her. The _Cock Robin_! Quick. Jump aboard. Take oars. Hurry up casn'? Get hold thic oar. Look out!"

[Sidenote: _OUT AFTER FLOTSAM_]

No time to wait for a smooth. Tony shoved the _Cock Robin_ into a surfwe should not otherwise have thought of facing. As it turned out, wegot off better than we usually do in only a moderate sea, though weshould have capsized to a certainty had the boat sheered. 'Twas, "Lookout! Damme, look out! Here's a swell coming! Get her head to it or we'mover. Gude for us!" Some of the waves, rising and topping in theshallow water over the rocks, seemed to make the _Cock Robin_ situpright on her stern, like a dog begging, and the higher the seas rosethe more we gloried in them. Sufficient for the moment was the wavethereof. We swore at each other in a sort of chant. I had to repress animpulse to jump overboard and swim to the balk, instead of trying towork up to it with a boat that had, every other moment, to be turnedbows on to the sea. The slightest error of judgment on Tony's part, andwe should indeed have swum for it. I had such a curious feeling ofbeing _in_ the sea--as much a part of it as the waves themselves--thatthe affair ceased to be a struggle. It became a glorious great biggame. Yet for work we were so cool that, though we towed our balkashore and shoved off after another, we hardly got wet above the knees. 

We were beside ourselves, and all ourselves. Where does that exultantfeeling, that devil-beyond-oneself, come from? From what depth of humanpersonality does it uprise, whirling, like those primitivepassions--sex, hunger, rage, fear--which may be boxed up awhile by thewill, but which, once unloosed, sweep the will aside and carry one offlike froth in a gale, until physical exhaustion sets in and allows thewill to re-assert itself? One understands the evolution of theprimitive self-preservative and race-preservative passions. How hasthis latent daredevilry become so implanted in us that it rises fromthe bottom depths of one's nature; and how has it become ordinarily sohidden?

Above all what is the effect of this passion on seafaring men? To saythat familiarity breeds contempt is--even if it be correct--to beg thequestion. What is the effect of that familiarity? It might be said thatthey are the subjects of a sub-acute, persistent form of thedaredevilry which uprose in me unexpectedly and acutely. But again, thesub-acute lifelong form of it is likely to have the greater influenceon a man's self, on his morale and his character. Hence, I believe, thewidth of these men, their largeness. It was good to hear Tony talk inthe most matter-of-fact manner (yet with a touch of reverence, astowards an ever-possible contingency) of a Salcombe fisherman who wasdrowned. "Her was drownded all through his own carelessness, and didn'trise in the water for a month. ('Tis nine days down and nine days up, wi' the crab bites out of 'ee, as a rule. ) An' he wer carried up by thetide an' collected, like, out o' the water just at the back o' his ownhouse. Nice quiet chap he was. " That coolness of speech one sawplainly, is the outcome not of contempt, still less of non-feeling, butof familiarity, of a breadth of mind in looking at the catastrophe. Ihave not noticed such breadth of mind elsewhere except among those wholive precariously and the few of very great religious faith. 

An hour after bringing in the balks, we were hauling the boats over thewall, and at high tide the seas swept across the road. 

30

[Sidenote: _A SING-SONG_]

Many an evening we have had small sing-songs in the kitchen. To-night, on account of my going and the need to give me a cheery send-off, wehad quite a concert. Tony was star. 

Supper being pushed back on the table and a piece of wreckage flung onthe fire, he made himself ready by taking off his soaked boots andstockings, and plumping his feet on Mam Widger's lap; then broughthimself into the vocal mood with a long rigmarole that he used torecite with the Mummers at Christmas time. Soon we were humming, whistling and singing "Sweet Evelina, " whose sole musical merit is thather chorus goes with a swing. The fire crackled and burnt blue. Thefragrant steam of the grog rose to the ceiling and settled on thewindow. We leaned right back in our chairs. 

"Missis, " said Tony, "I feels like zingin' to-night. "

"Wait a minute while I shuts the door, else they kids'll be down formore supper. "

"Us got it, an't us?"

"Yes, but _they_'ve had enough. "

When Tony sings, he throws his head back and closes his eyes, so that, but for the motions of his mouth, he looks asleep, even deathlike, andis, in fact, withdrawn into himself. 

I think he sees his songs, as well as sings them. I often wonder whatpictures are flitting through his mind beneath (as I imagine) the placewhere the thick grizzled hair thins to the red forehead. His voice is ahigh tenor. I make accompaniment an octave below, whilst Mrs Widger--alittle nasal in tone and not infrequently adrift in tune--supports himfrom above. 

We sang "The Poor Smuggler's Boy"--

 Your pity I crave, Won't you give me employ? Or forlorn I must wander, Said the poor smuggler's boy. 

Then the "Skipper and his Boy"--

 Over the mounting waves so 'igh, We'll sail together, my boy and I-I, We'll sail together, my bo-oy and I!

"Have 'ee wrote to George?" Tony asked. 

"'Tis your place to du that. "

"I an't got time. .. . "

"Thee asn't got time for nort!"

 The fisher's is a merry life! Blow, winds, blow! The fisher and his vitty wife! Row, boys, row! He drives no plough on stubborn land, His fruits are ready to his hand. No nipping frosts his orchards fear, He has his autumn all the year, Blow, winds, blow!

 The farmer has his rent to pay, Blow, winds, blow! And seeds to purchase every day, Row, boys, row! But he who farms the rolling deep, He never sows, can always reap, The ocean's fields are fair and free, There ain't no rent days on the sea; The fisher's is a merry life! Blow, winds, blow! Blow, damn ye, blow!

"Aye!" said Tony with conviction, "thic's one side o'it. "

[Sidenote: "_ROLLING HOME_"]

He tried a note or two at different pitches, then struck with energyinto the fine song, "Rolling Home. " (Who that has steered for Englandin a ship--and by ship I do not mean a bustling steam-packet or afloating hotel, but a ship to whose crew England stands for fresh food, women, wine, home. .. . Who that has so steered the course for England, does not feel a catch at his vitals on hearing the melody, at onceplaintive and triumphant, of "Rolling Home?")

 Pipe all hands to man the capstan, see your cables run down clear; Soon our ship will weigh her anchor, for old England's shores we steer; If we heave round with a will boys, soon our anchor it will trip, And across the briny ocean we will steer our gallant ship: Rolling home, rolling home! Rolling home across the sea! Rolling home to Merrie England! Rolling home, true love, to thee!

 Man the bars then with a will, boys, clap all hands that can clap on; As we heave around the capstan, we will sing this well-known song; It will bring back scenes and changes of this parting gift so rare; We shall hear sweet songs of music softly whispering through the air. Rolling home, rolling home! Rolling home across the sea! Rolling home to Merrie England! Rolling home, true love, to thee!

 Up aloft amid the rigging, as we sail the waters blue, Whilst we cross the briny ocean, we will always think of you; We will leave you our best wishes as we leave this rocky shore; We are bound for Merrie England, to return to you no more! Rolling home, rolling home! Rolling home, across the sea! Rolling home to Merrie England! Rolling home, my love to thee!

To Mrs Widger's great disgust, Tony has been learning _in bed_ thecorrect words (he knew the tune) of "Gay Spanish Ladies. " That he gaveus as a finale. 

 Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish Ladies. Farewell and adieu to you, Ladies of Spain! For we've received orders for to sail for old England. But we hope in a short time to see you again. 

 We'll rant and we'll roar like true British heroes, We'll rant and we'll roar across the salt seas, Until we strike soundings in the Channel of old England. From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues. .. . 

How we did rant and roar the wonderful up-Channel verse, with itsclever use of the high-sounding promontories of the south!

 The first land we made, it was called the Deadman, Next Ram Head off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight, We passed up by Beachy, by Parley and Dungeness, And hove our ship to off the South Foreland light. .. . 

Our glasses were empty. We drove out the cat, gutted some fish, extinguished the lamp, and came upstairs to the tune, repeated, of"Rolling Home. " All the tunes are ringing in my head. 

[Sidenote: _ART THAT IS LIVED_]

There is something about this singing of sea-songs by a seafarer whichmakes them grip one extraordinarily. They are far from perfect inexecution, they are not always quite in tune, especially on Tony's highnotes, yet, I am certain, they are as artistic in the best sense as anyof the fine music I have heard. Tony sings with imagination: he sees, _lives_ what he is singing. Between this sort of song and most, thereis much the same difference as between going abroad, and reading a bookof travels; or between singing folk-songs with the folk and twitteringbowdlerised versions in a drawing-room. However imperfect technically, Tony's songs are an expression of the life he lives, rather than anexcursion into the realms of art--into the expression of other kinds oflife--with temporarily stimulated and projected imagination. His art isperpetual creation, not repetition of a thing created once and for all. The art that is _lived_, howsoever imperfect, has an advantage overthe most finished art that is merely repeated. Next after the music of, as one might say, superhuman creative force--like Bach's andBeethoven's--comes this kind, of Tony's. 

Cultured people talk about the artistic tastes of the poor, would havethem read--well, they don't quite know what--something 'good, 'something namely that appeals to the cultured. It has always been myexperience in much lending of books, that the poor will read theliterature of life's fundamental daily realities quickly enough, oncethey know of its existence. What they will not read, what in thestruggle for existence they cannot waste time over, is the literatureof the _etceteras_ of life, the decorations, the vapourings. Saneminds, like healthy bodies, crave strong meats, and the strong meats ofliterature are usually the worst cooked. I am inclined to think thatthe taste of the poor, the uneducated, is on the right lines, thoughundeveloped, whilst the taste of the educated consists of beautifullydeveloped wrongness, an exquisite secession from reality. As Nietzschepointed out, degenerates love narcotics; something to make them forgetlife, not face it. Their meats must be strange and peptonized. Therefore they hate, they are afraid of, the greatest things inlife--the commonplace. Much culture has debilitated them. Rank lifewould kill them--or save them. 

VI

 SALISBURY, _October_. 

1

It is just at dawn that the coming day declares itself most plainly;not earlier, not later. This morning at peep o' day the wind was NNW. , the air delicate and peaceful. A band of dirty red water washed infantastic outline along the cliffs. The sea, with its calm greatrollers, bore upon it only the rags of last night's fury; as if it hadbeen less a part of the storm than a thing buffeted by the storm, andnow glad to sink into tranquillity. The air was scented with landsmells. Shafts of the dawn's sunlight beamed across it. Three punts putoff to find out if the lobster-pots had been washed away; the sea hadits little boats upon it again. But the sky, to the SW. , was lookingvery wild. The wind was SW. In the offing. 

While we were at breakfast a southerly squall burst open the kitchendoor. Mrs Widger got up to see what child it was. A screaming sea-gullmocked her. 

The storm came. The trees by the railway bowed and tossed. Rainspattered against the carriage windows. Dead leaves scurried by. Iwanted to get out, to go back. I wanted to know whether Tony was atsea. Here, at Salisbury they are already talking about the 'greatstorm'; some of the beautiful elms are down. What must the storm havebeen at Seacombe!

Curiously, I felt, the first time for years, as if I were leaving homefor boarding school--the warmth behind, the chill in front. I smeltagain the rank soft-soap in the great bare schoolrooms. 

2

A postcard from Tony--

 "quite please to get your letter this morning it as been rough ever since you left Seacombe it was a gale the night you went Back the sea was all in over and knocking the boats about the road. I haven been out sea sinsce it is still rough hear now it is blowing a gale of wind I expect we shall get some witing and herring in the bay when the weather get fine the sea hear is like the cliff now red. Us aven catched nort nobody cant go to sea. 

 "TONY. 

 "I will write a letter soon. 

 "P. S. Tony just waked up. George is coming home, Tony mazed with excitement and wishes you was here. 

 "MAM W. "

So do I!

3

[Sidenote: _TONY OFF TO SEA_]

The evening before I left Seacombe, Tony was telling us how upset andmiserable he was, how he cried, when his two elder brothers left hometo join the Navy. Also he told us what I knew nothing of before--hisown one attempt to go to sea aboard a merchantman. When he was atCloade's he looked on fishing as a refuge from groceries, and when hehad given up groceries for fishing, he looked on a ship's fo'c'stle asa refuge from that. Fishing was very bad one summer. He and Dick Yeoagreed to run away together:

"Us was doin' nort noway wi' the fishing--nort 't all. Father, Granferthat is, wer away to his drill wi' the Royal Naval Reserves. So DickYeo an' me agreed to go off together. Where he went, I was to go tu, an' where I went, he was to come. He had two pounds put away, in gold. I only had half a crown, an' cuden't see me way to get no more nuther. 'Casn' thee ask thy maid for some?' Dick said. I was ashamed, like, butI did. 

"'What's thee want it for?" her asked. 

"'Tisn' nothing doing down here, ' I says, 'an' I wants to go to sea. '

"'I an't got no money, ' the maid says. 

"'Casn' thee get nort?' I asks, having begun, you see. I'd been goin'with her for nigh on two years. 

"Her cried bitter at the thought o' me going, but her did get sevenshillin's from a fellow servant. I told me mother--her cried tu'--an'off us started, going by train to Bristol and stopping the night at theSailor's Rest. 'Twasn't bad, you know. They Restis be gude things. Dick, he woke in the morning wi' a swelled faace, but I didn' feelnort. 

"Dick Yeo paid both our boat fares from Bristol to Cardiff. Thesteward--what us urned against aboard ship--recommended us to a lodginghouse in Adelaide Street, an' he giv'd me a note for a man at the Boardo' Trade, sayin' we was Demshire fishin' chaps an' gude seamen. 

"Well, us went to the lodging house an' gave in our bags an' took aroom wi' fude [food] for two an' six a day--each, mind yu. Then uslooked into a big underground room wer there was a lot o' foreignersgathered round a fire an' us didn' much like the looks o' that. So uswent straight down to the docks an' tried to ship together on severalsailing ships an' steamers. Some on 'em would on'y take me, an' somewere down to sail at a future date, like, what our money wouldn't lastout tu. _I_ cude ha' got a ship, 'cause I had me Naval Reserve ticket, but nobody cuden't du wi' both on us--an' where one went t'other was togo tu, by agreement. 

[Sidenote: _AT THE BOARD O' TRADE_]

"Us went back to the lodging house, into a sort o' kitchen in a cellar, where there was a 'Merican wi' a long white beard cooking, an' mendrunk spewing, an' men lying about asleep like logs. The 'Merican, hisbeard looking so red as hell in the firelight, wer stirring some kindo' stew. Yu shade ha' see'd the faaces what the glow o' they coalsshined on! An' the fude. .. . An' the tables an' plates. .. . I've a-goneshort many a time in my day, but I'd never ha' touched muck like theyoffered to gie us there. Dick an' me crept up the staircase to bed wi'empty bellies thic night. 

"Soon a'ter we was to bed, Dick says to me: 'Can 'ee feel ort yerTony?'

"'No, ' I says, an' whatever 'twas, I didn' feel ort o'it. But I see'd'em crawling so thick as sea-lice on the wall in a southerly gale, an'I tell 'ee, 'twas they things what took the heart out o' me more'n ortelse, aye! more'n the food an' being away from home. Us cuden turn out, 'cause the landlord had our bags an' us hadn' got no money to get 'emback wi', nor nowhere else at all to go tu. 

"Next morning, us went straight down to the docks again. Cuden' eat nobreakfast what they give'd us. Didn' know what to du. I only hadtuppence left, which wuden' ha' taken me home again, not if I'd beenwilling to give up and go. Come to the last, us was forced to break ouragreement. I signed on as able seaman--_able_ seaman 'cause I was afishing chap an' had me Royal Naval Reserve ticket--aboard the_Brooklands_, bound for Bombay. Penny o' me tuppence, I spent writinghome to tell mother. I cuden' stay aboard the ship (an' get summut toeat) 'cause I had my gear to get an' a ship to find for Dick--an' westill had hopes, like, o' getting a ship together. Howsbe-ever, uscuden't, nohow. The writer aboard the _Brooklands_ wuden't advanceme no wages to get any gear. He told me the landlord to the lodginghouse wude, him what had our bags a'ready. 

"Then I thought o' the steward's note to the Board o' Trade officer, an' us inquired our way to the Board o' Trade, where ther was a gertcrowd outside. 'Twas by that us know'd the place. A man told us as theofficer what the note was directed tu, wude appear outside the door an'call. Sure 'nuff, he did--wi' gold buttons on his coat--an' called out:'Six A. B. 's for the _Asia_'!

"'Who be that?' I asked. 

"'That's he, ' the man said. 'He'll come out again by'm-bye. '

"Us worked our way to the front--getting cussed horrible for ourpains--an' when Mr Gold-Buttons 'peared again, I give'd him thesteward's note. He luked at it--an' us. He cude offer me something an'said as he'd du his best for me, but he cuden' hold out no promise forDick because, see, he hadn' got no Naval Reserve ticket. 

[Sidenote: "_WER DICK GOES, I GOES_"]

"'Wher Dick goes, I goes, ' I says, like that. With which the Board o'Trade officer leaves us waiting there. 

"After an hour or so, he com'd out an' called, as if he hadn' ha'know'd us: 'Anthony Widger an' Richard Yeo! Richard Yeo an' AnthonyWidger o' Seacombe!'

"'Yer we be, sir, ' shouts I, thinking we was fixed up. 

"'Be yu Anthony Widger an' Richard Yeo? Come in. '

"Dick, he went in behind the officer, an' me behind Dick. 'Twer adarkish passage, but as the door closed I luked, an' there, hiddenbehind the door, sort o' flattened against the wall, who did I see butDick's mother; her'd come all that way by herself. I called to Dick. 

"'What the bloody hell be doin' here?' said Dick swearing awful. 

"'Don't thee swear at thy mother, Dick, ' I says. 

"'Dick!' her says, 'Dick, come home again. Your father's breakin' hisheart. '

"'Go to b----ry!' says Dick, swearing worse'n ever, 'cause _he_ waswanting in his heart to be home again, yu see. 

"I burst out crying, then and there, wi' seeing Dick's mother cry, an'all o'it what we'd been drough. The Board o' Trade officer repeated ashe'd help me an' no doubt find me a ship, but Dick--his mother wascome'd for he. 

"'Wer Dick goes, I goes, ' says I. 

"Then Dick's mother, her says: 'Will 'ee come home then, Tony?'

"'Wer Dick goes, I goes, ' I says again. 'Twas fixed in me head, like. 

"'Well, ' her says, 'if Dick comes home, will yu come too?'

"I told her: 'I've a-signed on aboard the _Brooklands_, an' I'll hae totramp it 'cause I an't got no money. '

"'Well, if I pays _your_ fare too?'

"'Wer Dick goes, I'll go!' I says. 

"So her got over Dick a bit, an' the Board o' Trade man told us to comeagain, saying as he'd do anything for me, but Dick's mother was come'dfor he. An' Mrs Yeo asked us to go wi' her to a restaurant. .. . Thatturned me more'n ort else 'cause us hadn' eaten the stuff to thelodging house an' us _was_ hungry. An' her telegraphed home to Dick'sfather for a trap to meet us to Totnes, for 'twas a Saturday an' therewern't no trains no nearer home. 

"Us went to the station, Dick swearing awful, an' in the end us come'dto Totnes to find the trap. 

"The trap was there at the inn, sure 'nuff, an' the ostler was waitingup, but the man what come'd wi' the trap was disappeared. We on'y found'en at two in the morning, sleeping dead drunk in the manger, an' thenhe an' the ostler began fighting on account o' the ostler casting out aslur 'cause Dick's mother didn' gie him no more than a shilling. Apoliceman come an' cleared us out o' it!

[Sidenote: _CARRIAGE PEOPLE_]

"Two or dree mile out o' Totnes the horse stops dead an' begins to goback'ards. Us coaxed 'en, like, an' still he kept on stopping an'walking back'ards. Dick an' me got out to walk to the halfway inn. There the landlord wuden' come down for us. But he did when the trapcome'd up--us was carriage people than, yu see. We had drinks round, an' us give'd flour an' water to the horse to make 'en go. But us hadn'gone far when he stopped an' began to go back'ards again. Dick, hestarted swearing. 'Let's walk on, ' I says, to get 'en out o'it; an' sous did for a mile or so. 'Twas dark, wi' a mizzling rain--an'quiet--an' the trees like shadows. A proper logie night 'twas. Wude 'eebelieve me when I says I cude smell the flowers I cuden' see? Us wasglad when a tramp caught up wi' us. 

"'Have 'ee see'd ort o' a horse an' trap wi' two persons in 'en?' Iaskis. 

"'Two mile back, ' he says. 

"'Us lef 'en only a mile back, ' Dick says. 

"'He've a-gone a mile back'ards then!' says I. 

"And with the same, Dick laughs out loud, an' I laughs, an' the tramp, he laughs. .. . 'Twas the first laugh us had since us left Seacombe, an'I reckon it did us gude. Us went on better a'ter that. I covered thetramp up wi' hay in a hay loft, advising of him not to smoke. I couldha' slept tu; I wer heavy for a gude bed; but I saw lights in thefarmhouse winder, an' us wer so near home again. 

"Well, we crept into Seacombe by the back (people was jest astir, Sunday morning) going each our way from the churchyard, an' I listenedoutside mother's door. Father was home again, an' they was tobreakfast. Her'd had my letter telling them as I'd a-shipped forBombay. 

"'They'll Bumbay the beggar!' father was saying, only 'twasn't 'beggar'as he did say. 

"Then my sister Mary, cried out: 'Here's Tony!'

"'I know'd _he'd_ never go to Bumbay!' outs father so quick as ever. 

"But they was so pleased as Punch to see Tony back, cas I ude see, ifthey'd ha' cared to say so. I don' know 'xactly why I went off tosea--summut inside driving of me--'twasn't only 'cause there wern'tnothing doin'--but I an't never been no more. An' thic Mam Widgerthere'd hae summut to say about it now. Eh, Annie?"

4

[Sidenote: _THE SEA'S STAMP_]

It is an Englishman's privilege to grumble, and a sailorman's duty; yetone thing always strikes me in talking to seafaring men, namely howindelible the sea's stamp is; how indissolubly they are bound to thesea--with sunken bonds like those which unite an old marriedcouple, --and also what outbursts of savage hatred they have against it. Tony says that if he could earn fifteen shillings a week regularly onland, he would give up the sea altogether. I very much doubt it. Thesea has him fast. He says further that nobody would go to sea unless hewere caught young and foolish, and that few would stay there if theycould get away. There are, among the older fishermen of Seacombe, somewho have worked well, and could still work, but prefer to stay ashoreand starve. Tony holds them excused. "Aye!" he says, "they've a-workedhard in their day, an' they knows they ain't no for'arder. An' nowthey'm weary o' it all, an' don't care; an' that's how I'll be someday, if I lives--weary o'it, an' just where I was!"

But the sea has her followers, and will continue to have them, becauseseafaring is the occupation in which health, strength and courage havetheir greatest value; in which being a man most nearly suffices a man. It is remarkable that Baudelaire, decadent Frenchman, apostle of theartificial, who was violently home-sick when he went on a voyage, should have expressed the relation of man and the sea--their enmity andlove--more subtly than any English poet. 

 Homme libre, toujours tu ch�riras la mer; La mer et ton miroir; tu contemples ton �me Dans le d�roulement infini de sa lame, Et ton esprit n'est pas un gouffre moins amer. 

 Tu te plais � plonger au sein de ton image; Tu l'embrasses des yeux et des bras, et ton coeur Se distrait quelquefois de sa propre rumeur Au bruit de cette plainte indomptable et sauvage. 

 Vous �tes tous les deux t�n�breux et discrets: Homme, nul n'a sond� le fond de tes ab�mes, O mer, nul ne conna�t tes richesses intimes, Tant vous �tes jaloux de garder vos secrets!

 Et cependant voil� des si�cles innombrables Que vous vous combattez sans piti� ni remord, Tellement vous aimez le carnage et la mort, O lutteurs �ternels, � fr�res implacables!

[Sidenote: _SEA-LARGENESS_]

The sea is never mean. Strife and brotherhood with it give a largenessto men which, like all deep qualities of the spirit, can be neitherspecified nor defined; only felt, and seen in the outcome. TheSeacombe fishermen are more or less amphibious; ocean-going seamenlook down on them. They are petty in some small things, notably injealousy lest one man do more work, or make more money, than another:to say a man is doing well is to throw out a slur against him. Nevertheless in the larger, the essential things of life, theirsea-largeness nearly always shows itself. They are wonderfullycharitable, not merely with money. They carp at one another, but let aman make a mess of things, and he is gently treated. I have neverheard Tony admit that any man--even one who had robbed him--had nothis very good points. Is a man a ne'er-do-well, a drunkard, an idler?"Ah, " they say, "his father rose he up like a gen'leman, an' that'swhat comes o'it. " In their dealings, they curiously combine generosityand close-fistedness--close-fistedness in earning, and generosity inspending and lending. A beachcomber, for simply laying a hand to arope, receives a pint of beer, or the price of it, and next moment thefisherman who paid the money may be seen getting wet through andspoiling his clothes in order to drag a farthing's worth of jetsamfrom the surf. Tony fails to understand how a gen'leman can possiblyhaggle over the hire of a boat. When he goes away himself, he payswhat is asked; regrets it afterwards, if at all; and comes home whenhis money is done. "If a gen'leman, " he says, "can't afford to pay therate, what du 'ee come on the beach to hire a boat for--an' try tobeat a fellow down? I reckon 'tis only a _sort o' gen'leman_ as doesthat!"

Like most seafarers, the fishermen are fatalistic. "What's goin' to be, will be, an' that's the way o'it. " But they are not thoroughgoingfatalists, inasmuch as disappointment quickly turns to resentmentagainst something handy to blame. If, for example, we catch no fish, Tony will blame the tide, the hour, the weather, the boat, the sail, the leads, the line, the hooks, the bait, the fish, his mate--anythingrather than accept the one fact that, for reasons unknown, the fish areoff the bite. A thoroughgoing fatalist would blame, if he did notacquiesce in, fate itself or his luck. 

Tony is a black pessimist as regards the present and to-morrow;convinced that things are not, and cannot be, what they were; but asregards the further future, the day after to-morrow, he is a resoluteoptimist. "Never mind how bad things du look, summut or other'll sureto turn up. It always du. I've a-proved it. I've a-see'd it scores o'times. " He can earn money by drifting for mackerel and herring, hookingmackerel, seining for mackerel, sprats, flat-fish, mullet and bass, bottom-line fishing for whiting, conger or pout, lobster and crabpotting, and prawning; by belonging to the Royal Naval Reserve; byboat-hiring; by carpet-beating and cleaning up. I have even seen himdragging a wheel chair. His boats and gear represent, I suppose, acapital of near a hundred pounds. It would be hard if he earnednothing. Yet he is certain that his earnings, year in and year out, scarcely average fifteen shillings a week. "Yu wears yourself out wi'it an' never gets much for'arder. " The money, moreover, comes inseasons and lump-sums; ten pounds for a catch perhaps, then nothing forweeks. Mrs Widger must be, and is, a good hand at household managementand at putting money by. I doubt if Tony ever knows how much, or howlittle, gold she has, stored away upstairs. Probably it is as well. Heis a generous man with money. He 'slats it about' when he has it. 

[Sidenote: _OPEN BOATS_]

It has to be realised that these fishermen exercise very great skilland alertness. To sail a small open boat in all weathers requires aquicker hand and judgment than to navigate a seagoing ship. Seacombepossesses no harbour, and therefore Seacombe men can use no reallyseaworthy craft. "'Tis all very well, " Tony says, "for people to buzzabout the North Sea men an' knit 'em all sorts o' woollen gear. TheyNorth Sea men an' the Cornishmen wi' their big, decked harbour boats, they _have_ got summut under their feet--somewhere they can get inunder, out the way o'it. They _can_ make themselves comfor'able, anride out a storm. But if it comes on to blow when we'm to sea in ourlittle open craft, we got to hard up an' get home along--if us can. For the likes o' us, 'tis touch an' go wi' the sea!"

Tony knows. At places like Seacombe every boat, returning from sea, must run ashore and be hauled up the beach and even, in rough weather, over the sea-wall. The herring and mackerel drifters, which may venturetwenty miles into the open sea, cannot be more than twenty-five feet inlength else they would prove unwieldy ashore. To avoid their heelingover and filling in the surf, they must be built shallow, with next tono keel. They have therefore but small hold on the water; they do notsail close to the wind, and beating home against it is a long wearisomejob. Again, because the gear for night work in small craft must be assimple as possible, such boats usually carry only a mizzen and adipping lug--the latter a large, very picturesque, but unhandy, sailwhich has to be lowered or 'dipped' every time the boat tacks. Neithercomfort nor safety is provided by the three feet or so of decking, the'cuddy' or 'cutty, ' in the bows. To sleep there with one's headunderneath, is to have one's feet outside, and _vice versa_. Inrough broken seas the open beach drifter must be handled skilfullyindeed, if she is not to fill and sink. 

I have watched one of them running home in a storm. The wind wasblowing a gale; the sea running high and broken. One error in steering, one grip of the great white sea-horses, meant inevitable wreck. Everymoment or two the coastguard, who was near me with a telescope to hiseye, exclaimed, "She's down!" But no. She dodged the combers like ahare before greyhounds, now steering east, now west, on the wholetowards home. It was with half her rudder gone that she ran ashoreafter a splendid exhibition of skill and nerve, many times moreexciting than the manoeuvres of a yacht race. Were there not manysuch feats of seamanship among fishermen, there would be more widowsand orphans. 

[Sidenote: _BOATS SHEERING_]

Those are the craft, those the sort of men--two usually to a boat--thatput to sea an hour or two before sunset, ride at the nets through thenight, and return towards or after dawn. Anything but a moderate breezerenders drifting impossible. In a calm, the two men are bound to row, for hours perhaps, with heavy 16-20 ft. Sweeps. Moreover, if the seamakes, or a ground swell rises, the least mistake in beaching a boatwill cause it to sheer round, capsize, and wash about in the breakerswith the crew most probably beneath it. Yarns are told of arms and legsappearing, of a horrible tortured face appearing, while the upturnedboat washed about in the undertow, and those ashore were powerless tohelp. There is nothing the fishermen dread so much. One of them owns toleaving the beach when he has seen a boat running in on a very roughsea, so that he might not endure witnessing what he could notprevent. --He peeped however. 

These risks need considering, not in order to exaggerate the dangers ofdrifting in open beach boats--in point of fact, accidents seldom dohappen, --but to show what skill is habitually exercised, what a touchand go with the sea it is. 

Sundown is the time for shooting nets. Eight to fourteen are carriedfor mackerel, six to ten for herrings--the scantier the fish, thegreater the number of nets. At Seacombe they are commonly forty fathomsin length along the headrope which connects them all, and five fathomsdeep. Stretching far away from the boat, as it drifts up and downChannel with the tides, is a line, perhaps a thousand yards long, ofcork buoys. From these hang the lanyards[16] which support the headrope, from the headrope hang perpendicularly the nets themselves. Judgment isneeded in shooting a fleet of nets. They may get foul of the bottom orof another boat's fleet. When, on account of careless shooting ortricks of the tide, the nets of several boats become entangled, thereis great confusion, and the cursing is loud. 

 [16] For herrings the lanyards may be of such a length that the foot of the net almost touches the sea-bottom. For mackerel, which is a surface and midwater fish, they are much shorter, so that the headrope lies just below the top of the water. 

Nets shot, the fishermen make fast the road for'ard; sup, smoke, sing, creep under the cutty, and sleep with one eye open. 

Sometimes they are too wet to sleep; often in the winter it is toocold. 

Afterwards, the laborious hauling in--one man at the headrope and theother at the foot. Contrary to a very general impression, the fish arenot enclosed within the net, as in seining or in pictures of themiraculous draught of fishes. They prod their snouts into the meshes, and are caught by the gills. There may not be a score in a whole fleetof nets, or they may come up like a glittering mat, beyond the strengthof two men to lift over the gunwale. Twenty-five thousand herring isabout the burthen of an open beach drifter. Are there more, nets mustbe given away at sea, or buoyed up and left--or cut, broken, lost. Small catches are picked out of the nets as they are hauled in, largecatches ashore. 

[Sidenote: _FISHERMEN FLEECED_]

It is ashore that the fisherman comes off worst of all. Neithereducated nor commercialized, he is fleeced by the buyers. And if hehimself dispatches his haul to London. .. . Dick Yeo once went up toBillingsgate and saw his own fish sold for about ten pounds. On hisreturn to Seacombe, he received three pounds odd, and a letter from thesalesman to say that there had been a sudden glut in the market. Fishermen boat-owners have an independence of character which makes itdifficult for them to combine together effectively, as wage-servers do. They act too faithfully on the adage that a bird in the hand is worthtwo in the bush, and ten shillings on the beach a sovereign atBillingsgate. So 'tis, when

 There's little to earn and many to keep, and no floating capital at a man's disposal. 

In recent years, owing to bad prices and seasons and general lack ofencouragement, or even of fair opportunity, the number of sea-goingdrifters at Seacombe has decreased by two-thirds. Much the same hashappened at other small fishing places along the coast. Thisdecline--so complacently acquiesced in by the powers that be--is ofnational importance; for the little fisheries are the breeding groundof the Navy. Nowadays fishermen put their sons to work on land. "'Tain't wuth it, " they say, "haulin' yer guts out night an' day, an'gettin' no forrarder at the end o'it. " Luckily for England the sea'sgrip is a firm one, and many of the sons return to it. 

When one hears Luscombe talk about the maddening trouble he has had inteaching plough-tail or urban recruits to knot and splice a rope, orwatches, as I have, a couple of blue-jackets drive ashore in a smallboat because they couldn't hoist sail, then one comprehends better theimportance of the fisher-families whose work is made up of endurance, exposure, nerve and skill; who play touch and go with the sea; and whoin the slack seasons have--unlike the ordinary workman--only too muchtime to think for themselves. They are the backbone of the Navy. 

VII

 SEACOMBE, _November_. 

1

Whilst the train was drawing up at the platform, I noticed the peoplemoving and looking downwards as if dogs were running wild amongst them. Then I saw two whitish heads bobbing about in the crowd. It was Jimmyand another boy come to meet me. 

We gave the luggage to the busman, and walked on down. 

"Tommy's gone tu Plymouth. "

"What for?"

"They'm going to cut his eyes out an' gie 'en spectacles. "

"When did he go?"

A rather sulky silence. .. . 

Then: "Us thought 'ee was going to ride down. Dad said as yu'd be suretu. "

"'Tisn't far to walk, Jimmy. .. . "

"Us be tired. "

Alack! I had done the wrong thing. Their little festivity, that was tohave made them the envy of 'all they boys tu beach, ' had fallen flat. They had expected to ride down 'like li'l gentry-boys. ' However, webought oranges, and then I was taken to see yesterday's fire, and wastold how Tony had rushed into the blazing house to rescue a carpet 'an'didn' get nort for it. '

Tony himself came downstairs from putting away an hour in bed. "I'd ha'come up to meet 'ee, " he said sleepily, "if anybody'd a reminded meo'it. Us an't done nort to the fishing since you went away. "

"An' yu an't chopped up to-morrow morning's wude nuther!" added MrsWidger. 

Grannie Pinn came in at tea-time. We invited her to sit down and have acup. "Do 'ee think I an't got nothing to eat at home?" she asked. "Well, I have, then!--Ay, " she continued, bobbing her headsententiously, "yu got a mark in Seacombe, else yu wuden't be down yeragain so sune. That's what 'tis--a mark! I knows, sure nuff. Come on!who be it now? What's her like, eh?"

She cannot understand how any young unmarried man can be without hissweetheart. Everybody according to her, must have a mark, or be insearch of one. I told her with the brutality which delights her factualold mind, that if she herself had been a little less antique andpoverty-stricken. .. . 

"There! if I don't come round and box yer yers. Yu'm al'ays ready wi'yer chake. "

[Sidenote: _A MARK_]

Then I offered her five _per cent. _ of the lady's fortune, if shewould find me a mark with unsettled money. Though she laughed it off, she was not a little scandalized by my levity. The Tough Old Stick hasnot outlived her memory of romance. Indeed, I think she holds to it allthe tighter for her hardheadedness in every-day affairs. 

Midway through tea, Straighty crept into the kitchen. "What do _yu_want?" shouted Grannie Pinn. "Bain't there enough kids yer now?"Straighty stood in the centre of the kitchen, sucking three fingersand looking shyly at me from beneath her tousled tow-coloured hair. 

"You've not forgotten me, Straighty?" I asked. "You're not frightenedof me, are you?"

"Go an' speak to 'en proper, " commanded Grannie Pinn. "Wer's yermanners, Dora?"

"_Yu_ didn' speak to me proper, Grannie Pinn! Wer's yours?"

"Aw, my dear soul! Now du 'ee shut up wi' yer chake!"

Straighty remained sucking her fingers in the middle of the kitchen. She seemed about to cry. Quite suddenly, her eyes brightened. Sheglided over to me, put her wet fingers round my neck ("Dora!" from MrsWidger), and gave me a big kiss on the chin. Then she told me all abouteverything, sitting with her head on my shoulder in the old courtingchair. 

A tiny little episode, I grant; but very sweet. 

"That's your mark?" Grannie Pinn shouted. "You'll hae tu wait for she!"

Straighty is established as my mark, and takes her duties, as she haslearnt to conceive them, with amusing seriousness. She will not let mego out through the Square without being told where I am off to, nor letme return in house until I tell her where I have been. At the beginningof every meal we hear her creeping up the passage; see her yellow hairagainst the door-post. By the end of the meal she has summoned upcourage to claim a kiss. "Now be off tu your mother!" says Mrs Widger. 

2

Mrs Widger has let the back bedroom to a young married couple possessedof a saucer-eyed baby that cries lustily whenever its mother is out ofits sight. How they succeed in living, sleeping, baby-tending and doingtheir minor cookery in the one pokey little room, already half filledby the bedstead, is difficult to understand. They do it. We see littleof them, except just when we had rather see nothing at all. 

For dinner and the subsequent cup o' tay, Mam Widger allows one hour. But usually, before even the pudding is out of the oven, first one ofus, then another, glances round to make sure that the kettle is well onthe fire. 

[Sidenote: _MRS PERKINS_]

Nowadays, however, when the kettle is beginning to sing, Mrs Perkins, the baby in her arms, comes downstairs and proceeds to cook for herhusband a couple of small chops or a mess of meat-shreds and bubble andsqueak. She stirs and chatters; she holds forth on the baby's beautyand goodness, its health, its father's love of it--and, in short, shetalks to us as if we were delighted to see her and her baby. Tony'sgood manners triumph comically over his desire to get his cup o' tayand put away an hour up over. (He likes to take every chance of makingup for wakeful nights at sea. ) We all wish she would go quickly. Meanwhile, we feign an interest in what blousy, skirt-gaping, slop-slippered, enthusiastic maternity has to say. 

And when she does go, it is with a most joyful haste that we move thekettle to the very hottest part of the fire. 

3

The family hubbub over Tommy's stay in the Plymouth Eye Infirmary hashardly died down yet. Recognizing with uncommon good sense that hisdouble squint would bar him from the Navy or Army (he shows aninclination towards the latter), Mrs Widger took him to Plymouth; andon hearing that an operation would cure him, she did not hesitate, didnot bring him home to think about it; she left him there. Then. .. . Whata buzz! The child is to return very thin. Mrs Widger's cousin declaresloudly that she would rather lead her boy about blind (he squintsexcessively) than let him go to one o' they places. Tony says, "Aye!they may feed 'en on food of a better quality like, after the rate, buthe won't get done like he is at home. " Several times daily he wants toknow how long they will keep Tommy there, and when Mrs Widger replies, six weeks, he asks in a woe-begone voice: "Do 'ee think 'er'll know hisdad when 'er comes home again?"

All of which is easy to laugh at. 

No doubt hospitals are a godsend to the poor, immediately if notultimately. At the same time, it cannot be said that the prejudiceagainst them is wholly unreasonable. Poor people declare that they arestarved in hospital, and it is, in fact, now recognized in dieteticsthat comparatively innutritious food, eaten with gusto, is betterassimilated than the most scientifically chosen but unpalatablenutriment. A man, a poor man especially, can be half starved or at allevents much thinned, on good food, who would do well on the habitualcoarse fare that he enjoys. His life is a long adventure in a landwhere every other turning leads to starvation, but his adventurousnessseldom extends to new sorts of food. 

[Sidenote: _HOSPITALS_]

No one is so depressed by strange surroundings as the average poor manor woman. (Children get on much better. ) Very likely he has never beenalone, has never slept away from some relative or friend, the whole ofhis life. The unfamiliarity and precise routine of hospitals, the facesand ways all strange, are capable not only of greatly intensifying aman's sufferings, but even of retarding his recovery. 

Hospitals must necessarily be governed by two main conditions:--(1) Theneed of doing the greatest good to the greatest number; (2) Theadvancement of medical science and experience. Under (1) theoverpressure on medical skill and time is bound to diminish tact andsympathy. Under (2) the serious or interesting cases are apt--aseveryone who has mixed with hospital staffs knows very well--to receiveattention not disproportionate to the nature of the malady, butdisproportionate to the bodily, and particularly to the mental, suffering. The poor man can appreciate sympathy better than skill. Hemay not know how ill he is, but he knows how much he suffers. He isquick to detect and to resent preferential treatment. From the point ofview of the independent poor, hospitals are far from what they mightbe. They are last straws for drowning men, useful sometimes, but bestavoided. [17]

 [17] I trust I make it plain that these statements imply no general disparagement of hospitals. Whether or no they do the best possible under the circumstances is not to be discussed shortly or by the present writer. Since penning the above, it has fallen to me to take a patient to the out-department of one of the great London hospitals. We had some time to wait, with very many others, on long wooden benches. I cannot express the almost unbearable depression, the sense of ebbing vitality, the feeling of being jammed in a machine, which took possession of me, who was quite well. And I wish I could adequately express my admiration of the visiting surgeon's manipulation of his delicate instruments and his management of the patient. 

[Sidenote: _JACKS THE RIPPER_]

Jacks is a very energetic young country surgeon. He is keen on his workand will procure admission to the hospital for any operative case. Buthe finds it by no means easy to get his patients there; for he is sokeen on his work that he treats their feelings carelessly; hustles themthrough an operation; pooh-poohs their fear of anaesthetics and theknife. Jacks is well disliked by the poor. He has to live, andtherefore he has to cultivate a professional manner and to danceattendance on wealthy hypochrondriacal patients whom otherwise he wouldprobably send to the devil. The poor people have told him to his facethat he runs after the rich and cuts about the poor; and they havenicknamed him _Jacks the Ripper_. 

Tony would have to be very far gone before he would willingly go into ahospital. Just now, between the mackerel and herring seasons, he is fatand sleepy, very sleek for him. Rheumatic fever in boyhood andneglected colds have left him rather deaf, and subject to noises in thehead and miscellaneous bodily pains. He is 'a worriter' by nature. "When I gets bothered, " he says, "I often feels as if summut be bustedin me head. " As the herring season comes round, so will Tony 'hae thecomplaints again, ' and few will pity a man who always looks so well. Afew years back, Mrs Widger procured for his deafness some quacktreatment--which did do him good;--but he himself had little faith init, and did not persevere. Like the mothers who rejoice in delicatechildren rather than feed them properly and send them early to bed, Tony prefers to think his ailments constitutional, a possession of his, a curse of fate, which flatters him, so to speak, by singling him outfor its attentions. In a couple of years' time, when he comes out ofthe Royal Naval Reserve, he will have the option of accepting �50 downat once, or of waiting till he is sixty for a pension of four shillingsa week. Mrs Widger understands perfectly that unless he wants to buyboats and gear--unless, in other words, he can make the �50productive--he had much better wait for the pension and be sure of aroof over his head when he is past work. Tony, however, will probablytake the lump sum. He fears he may die and get nothing at all. He doesnot _feel_ that he will never see sixty, but he is of opinion thathe will not, and sixty to a man of his temperament is such a long wayhence. He thinks as little as possible of old age. "Aye!" hesays--almost chants, so moved is he, --"the likes o' us slaves an'slaves all our life, an' us never gets no for'arder. Like as us be whenwe'm young, so us'll be at the end o'it all. Come the time when yu'mpast work, an' yu be done an' wearied out, then all yer slavin's gonefor nort. Tis true what I says. I dunno what to think--but 'tis the wayo'it. 'Tain't right like. 'Tain't right!"

4

"Go shrimping wi' the setting-nets t'night, I reckon, " said Uncle Jake. "Tide be low 'tween twelve and one o'clock. Jest vitty, that. "

It was one of those evenings, wind WSW. , when the sea and sky lookstormier than they are, or will be. Uncle Jake stood on the very edgeof the sea wall, his hands in his pockets, his torn jumper askew, andhis old cap cocked over one ear. From time to time he turned half roundto deride a dressy visitor, or for warmth's sake twisted his body aboutwithin his clothing, or shrugged his shoulders humorously with a, "'Tisa turn-out o'it!" The seine net had just been shot from the beach forless than a sovereign's worth of fish--to be divided, one third for theowner of the net and the remainder among the seven men who had lent ahand. 

[Sidenote: _PRAWNING_]

"Coo'h!" Uncle Jake exclaimed. "_'Tis_ a crib here! Nort 't all doing. Not like 't used tu be. I mind when yu cude haul in a seine so fullas. .. . Might pick up a shilling or tu t'night shrimping, if they damnvisitors an' bloody tradesmen an't been an' turned the whole o' BrokenRocks up an' down. _I_ tells 'em o'it!"

"Shrimps or prawns, d'you mean?"

"Why, prawns! Us calls it shrimping hereabout. You knows that. There'sprawns there if yu knows where to look, but not like 't used to be. On'y they fules don' know where to look. An' they don' see Jake at it, an' I never tells 'em what I gets nor what I sells at; an' so they saysI don' never du nort. I'd like to see they hae tu work waist-deep inwater every night for a week when they'm sixty-five. An' in the wintertu!--If yu'm minded to come t'night, yu be up my house 'bout 'leveno'clock, an' I'll fetch me nets from under cliff if they b----y b----rso' boys an't been there disturbin' of 'em. "

Uncle Jake's cottage looks outside like a small cellar that has somehowrisen above the ground and then has been thatched with old straw andwhitewashed. Inside, it is a shadowy place, stacked up high withsailing and fishing gear, flotsam, jetsam, balks of wood and all theodds and ends that he picks up on his prowlings along the coast. Withtattered paper screens, he has partitioned off, near the fire andwindow, a small and very crowded cosy-corner. There he was sitting whenI arrived; bread, butter, onions, sugar and tea--his staple foods--onthe round table beside him, and his prawn-nets on the flagstones at hisfeet. Three cats glided about among the legs of the table and chairs, on the lookout to steal. Using the gentle violence that cats love fromthose they trust, Uncle Jake flung them one by one to the other side ofthe room. They returned, purring, to snatch at the none too fresh berry[eggs] of spider-crab with which the nets were being baited. 

The shallow small-meshed setting-nets are about two feet in diameter atthe top. Stretched taut from side to side of the rim are two doubledstrings or _thirts_--which cross at right angles directly above thecentre of the net, and into which, near the middle, the four pieces ofbait are ingeniously and simply fixed by little sliders on the thirtsthemselves. The whole apparatus hangs level from a yard or more ofstout line, at the upper end of which is a small stick, a stumpyfishing rod, so to speak, often painted white so that it may be easilyfound as it lies on the dark rocks. Uncle Jake's net-sticks, however, are anything but white. Capable almost of finding them with his eyesshut, he would sooner lose his nets altogether than let whitened stickspoint out to other people the pools which he alone knows. 

We put the nets into a couple of sacks and shouldered them. A longlight pole was placed into my hand. "Don't yu never leave your polebehind. Yu'll want it, sure 'nuff, afore this night's over. "

So we set out. One by one the cats who were following, left us to goback home. We did not walk towards the sea. On the contrary we wentinland, through some roads with demure sleeping villas on either side. "If they bloody poachers, " Uncle Jake explained, "see'd us goingstraight towards the sea, they'd follow. _I_ knows 'em! They takes awaythe livelihood o' the likes o' us an' sells it. Sells it--an' says 'tissport! I leads 'em a dance sometimes. I goes along a narrow ledgethat's jest under water, wi' ten or twelve feet depth on either side. On they comes a'ter me. 'Uncle Jake knows where to go, ' they says. Andin _they_ goes--not knowing the place like I du--head over heels an' aswim for it! O Lor'! they don' like it when I tells 'em they better gohome an' tumble into dry clothes. Yu shude hear the language they spitsout o' their mouths 'long wi' the salt water. Horrible, tu be sure!"

[Sidenote: _SETTING-NETS_]

Broken Rocks, a playground for children by day, look wild and strangeon a night when clouds are driving across the moon, when the cliffsfade into darkness high above the beach, and everything not black isgrey, except where the white surf beats upon the outermost ledge. ThenBroken Rocks have personality. A sinister spirit rises out of them withthe heave of the sea. It is as if some black mood, some great monotonyof strife, were closing in around one. On the sea wall, in thesunshine, I used to wonder why Uncle Jake calls Broken Rocks a terr'bleplace. Now I do not. He works there by night. 

We peered out from the beach underneath the cliffs. Nobody hadforestalled us. Uncle Jake was pleased. He laughed hoarsely, and theecho of it was not unlike the natural noises of the place. "Us'll makea start there, " he said, pointing to a ledge between which andourselves was a wide sheet of water. "Yu follow me an' feel for afoothold wi' your pole. _Don't_ yu step afore yu've felt. "

Into the water he went; seemed, indeed, to run across it. "Be 'ee wet?"he asked when I stepped out the other side. 

"Half way up my thighs!"

"Yu hadn't no need to get wet so far up as your knees. I didn't. An' yumight ha' gone in there over your head. Yu use your pole, skipper. Feelafore yu steps. I'll set 'ee your two nets for a beginning. "

With his pole he felt the depth of the water around the ledge. Then hedropped the nets down, edging them carefully under the overhangingweed, and placed the sticks on the rock above. "Don't yu forget whereyu sets your nets. Yu won't _see_'em. An' when yu hauls up, go gently, like so, else off goes all they master prawns, d'rec'ly they feels ajerk. .. . Leave 'em down a couple o' minutes. .. . But there, yu knows, don' 'ee? Us won't catch much till the tide turns. They prawns knowswhen 'tis beginning to flow so well as yu an' me. Yu work this yer, an'along easterly. I be going farther out. "

[Sidenote: _PRAWNS_]

When I hauled up my first net I heard the faint clicketty noise--likepaper scratching metal--of three or four prawns jumping about inside. My hand had to chase them many times round the net. One jumped over;one fell through. Nothing is more difficult to withdraw from a net thanprawns, except it be a lobster, flipping itself about, hardly visible, and striking continually with its nippers. There was a lobster in thesecond net. It had to go into the same pocket as the prawns. It wassomething of an adventure afterwards to put a hand into the pocketfulof lobster claws and prawn spines. 

Working eastward and outward, plunging in to the water or sliding withbumps and bruises off a rock, I must have passed Deadman's Rock, DangerGutter, Broken Rock and the Wreckstone. (Things of the sea nearlyalways take name from their evil aspects. ) Uncle Jake could have toldme at any moment exactly where I was. 

At last, near the surf, I saw in front of me a flat table-rock, standing up alone, and as I descended towards the foot of it, a highblack rocky archway became plain. Broad-leaved oarweed covered it likegiant hair, and hung drooping into the deep black pool beneath. Themoonlight glinted on the oarweed. The pool, though darkly calm, ebbedand flowed silently with the waves outside. I recognized the place. Itwas Hospital Rock--the rock the little boats strike on because it issmooth on top and the waves do not break over it very much. I halfexpected the ugly head of a great conger to look out at me from thepool. As I lay flat on the rock to drop my nets, the rattle and roar ofthe sea beyond, vibrating through the solid stone, the whistle of thewind through the downhanging oarweed, sounded like an orchestra of themad damn'd. 

I caught nothing there, and was not sorry. The place was too eerie tostay in long. "Ah!" said Uncle Jake when we met again on the innerreef, "I've knowed they amateurs run straight off home when they'vea-found theirselves under Hospital. A terr'ble place! Yu knows now. Did'ee set your nets there? Eh?"

He took some fresh bait from his prawn bag and fixed it in the thirtsof my nets. "'Tis nearly over, " he said, "but jest yu try that, an' ifthey'm there that'll hae 'em. There's no bait like that there when yucan get it, on'y nobody knows o'it. "

The nature of that bait I shall not divulge, any more than I shall namethe place where Uncle Jake goes to play with the young ravens in thespring. Somebody might catch his prawns; somebody would shoot hisravens. We had caught about two hundred prawns between us, a fewlobsters and some wild-crabs. As we walked homewards, the three catscame down the lane, one by one, to welcome Uncle Jake. 

[Sidenote: _EAST WITH A SKIM-NET_]

Next day we sailed east in the _Moondaisy_. Uncle Jake straddled thepools and lifted the heavy stones. Then in a skim-net, [18] withmarvellous dexterity, he caught the almost invisible prawns as theydarted away. He dragged lobsters out of holes, and cursed theneighbouring villagers who had been down to the shore after crabs andhad disturbed his favourite stones. He knows how each one ought to lie;he even keeps the seaweed on some of them trimmed to its proper length. "But 'tain't like 't used to be, " he says. 

 [18] Like a landing net, but shallower and with a shorter handle. 

He has almost given up going to sea for fish; some say because he willnot take the trouble; but I think it is because he loves his rocks andcliffs so well. No one knows how much by night and day he haunts thewilder stretches of shore, nor how many miles he trudges in a week. Butthe gulls know him well, and will scream back to him when he calls. Hislaugh has something of the gulls' cry in it. I have heard it remarkedthat when his time comes (no sign of it yet) he will be found onemorning dead among his familiar rocks. He is acquainted with deaththere. He has borne home on his shoulder by night the body of a womanwho had fallen from the cliffs above; and again a negro that had washedashore. With a little self-control one might have carried the woman allright, but the drowned nigger. .. . Imagine his face in the darkness--hiseyes! Only a man with greatness in him, or a very callous man, couldhave brought such a corpse home, all along under the crumbling cliffs;and Uncle Jake is certainly not callous. 

5

"Let 'em try any o' their tricks on me! They can turn out the likes o'us all right, I s'pose. But I can tell 'em what I thinks on 'em, here'sluck. Thank God I don't live in no tradesman's house, an' can dealwhere I likes. Not that I shouldn't anyway. .. . "

Grannie Pinn's shrill angry voice pierced the kitchen door. Theoccasion was a mothers' gossiping; the subject, a kind of boycott thatis practised in Seacombe. On the table there was a jug of ale and stoutand an hospitably torn-open bag of biscuits. Around it sat GranniePinn--bolt upright in the courting chair, with her hands folded--MrsMeer and Mam Widger. The feathers in Grannie Pinn's hat shook like abush on the cliff-edge. All of them looked as if they felt a vagueresponsibility for the right conduct of the world. In short, theylooked political. 

[Sidenote: _POOR MAN v. TRADESMAN_]

The poor people here live in small colonies scattered behind the mainstreet and among the villas, in little blocks of old neglectedproperty, some of which has been bought up by tradesmen. So much of theformer village spirit still survives, and so many of the tradesmen havebut recently risen from poorer circumstances, that between some of theoldest and the youngest of them, and the workmen, there is even yet arather mistrustful fellowship. They call each other, Jim, Dick, Harryand so on--over glasses, at all events. The growth of the class spirit, as opposed to the old village spirit, can be seen plainly when Bessiereturns from school, saying: "Peuh! Dad's only a fisherman. Why can't'er catch more fish an' get a little shop an' be a gen'leman?" Seacombetradesmen have been withdrawing into a class of their own--the class of'not real gen'lemen'--and have been showing a tendency to act togetheragainst the rest of the people, and to form rings for the purpose ofkeeping shops empty or prices up. Nobody minds their bleeding visitors. That is what God sends visitors for; and besides, the season is soshort. But when they began to overcharge their fellow townsmen, insummer because it was the season and in winter because it wasn't theseason, the poor people revolted, and amid tremendous hubbub, thundersof talk and lightnings of threat, a co-operative store was opened. Thendid the tradesmen remind the poor of old family debts, legacies fromhard times. Then did the poor say: "Very well, us'll hae our own storeand bakery, and pay cash down to ourselves. " Unable to obtain thetenancy of a shop, they bought one. They refused to raise the price ofbread. They laughed at advertisements which professed to point out thefallacies of all co-operation. They succeeded, but the class differencewas widened and clinched--poor man _versus_ tradesman. 

Grannie Pinn, Mrs Meer and Mam Widger were reckoning up the number ofpeople who have been turned out of their cottages, or are under noticeto quit, for neglecting to deal with their tradesmen landlords. 

Their indignation having found vent, they went on to talk of VirginOffwill, who has acquired celebrity by living alone in a cottage on noone knows what, by sleeping in an armchair before the fire (when shecan afford one), and by never washing. Sometime last month, Virgin sentfor Dr Jacks because, so she said, she was wished [bewitched]; and shewould not let him go until he threatened to report the state of herhouse to the medical officer of health. 

[Sidenote: _GOD SAVE--THE DINNER_]

The tale of Virgin Offwill was capped by another--that of old MrsWidworthy. Several years ago (these gossips have long memories) shereceived a postal order from her son together with an invitation tovisit him in London. The post arrived after her man had gone to work. She did not wait; she sent out a neighbour's child to change the order, packed her few things in a basket, and went off to her son by themidday train. On the table she left a note:

 "Widworthy, I am gone to London. Your dinner is in the saucepan. I shall be back directly. "

There was loud laughter in the kitchen; another round of stout and ale;then silence. The mothers fidgeted, each after her own manner, meditatively. In all the world, and Seacombe, there seemed nothing totalk about--or too much. 

"Have 'ee heard ort lately of Ned Corry?" asked Grannie Pinn with adelightful mixture of gusto and propriety. "Have 'er still got Dina wi''en?"

"Yes, I think. "

"An' his wife tu?"

Bessie burst into the room. Neither Tony nor Mrs Widger approve ofdiscussing the intimate humanities before children, so Bessie wasallowed to fling her news to us unchecked. "Mother, Miss Mase says Ican leave school so soon as yu've found me a place. Then I'll hae somemoney o' my own earnings, won't I?"

"Yu'll bring it to me, same as I had to what I earned, an' yu'll stayon to school till I thinks vitty. You'm not fit for a gen'leman'shouse. "

"Yes, I be. I can work. That's what yu'm paid for, ain't it?"

"How many cups an' saucers have yu smashed this week?"

"Have they learned 'ee all yu wants to know up to school?" inquiredGrannie Pinn quietly, but with a twinkle at the company. 

"They an't learned me to play the pi-anno. That's what I wants now. IfDad 'd get one, _I_'d play. "

"Have they learned 'ee to cook a dinner?"

"Anybody can du thic. I've learned to play _God Save the King_ on theschool pi-anno. "

"How do 'ee start then?"

"Why, you puts your fingers. .. . "

"Naw! I means how du 'ee start to cook dinner?"

"Peuh!"

"Her an't learned tidiness, " said Mam Widger. "Lookse! Her scarf on onechair, gloves flinged on another, coat slatted on the ground an' herhat on the dresser--now, since her's come in! Pick 'em up to once, elsethee't hae my hand 'longside o'ee!"

Bessie scrabbled up her clothes and, making sounds of disgust, wentout. 

"Her'll steady down, I hope, " remarked Mrs Widger. "Her's wild, but agude maid to try an' help a body, though her makes so much work as herdoes. "

"Ay!" said Grannie Pinn grimly. "If work don't steady her, there'snothing will. "

[Sidenote: _NED CORRY_]

When Bessie was gone the conversation reverted to Ned Corry and theages of his children. I met him last summer--have never ceased hearingabout him, for his sayings are often repeated and his adventures at searecounted. He came down here on holiday with his wife, who appeared tobe very happy and was obviously very proud of her Ned. The morning hewent back, he collected all of his old mates he could find, beforebreakfast, into a public-house, treated them to whisky until hispockets were empty, and then borrowed money to return to London. Hispersonality seems to have left a deeper impression than any other onSeacombe. He is a man very alive; big, generous and uncontrollable inall things; so broad that he seems short; great in voice, great instrength, greatest in laughter. Very dark, and prominent in featurewhere his fierce black beard allows any of his face to be seen, he is akind of Hebraic Berserker in general appearance, in the uncompromisingforce of him and the squat sloppiness of his clothes. Yet his eyes, almost bedded in hair, have often the bright peeping humorousness of ashaggy dog's. 

He had the most boats on the beach, and mighty strokes of luck with thefish; employed more men than anyone before or since; paid them wellwhen he had the money, and with an irregularity which would have beentolerated from no other boat-owner. Dina went to lodge at his house. Hemade of her, so gossip says, a second wife. He succeeded in running ahousehold of three; then bought two lodging houses and set a wife tomanage each. "Ned was all right, " Tony says, "on'y he didn't know howto look after hisself--didn't care--nor after his money when he madeit. " One evening, Tony found him in his bath in the middle of thekitchen whilst his womenfolk were cooking him a good hot supper. It wasnot his being in his bath which made Tony blush, but the freedom withwhich he called, "Come in!"

When the prudent-minded of Seacombe clamoured to Ned for their money, he sold up his boats and furniture, went to London, took withoutapprenticeship a well-paid job at the docks, and now, as he walks homealong the dockside streets, he is given _Good Night_ from LondonBridge to Tilbury. The exerting of strength seems to have been hisleading impulse; pride in Ned Corry his only check. He was too big forSeacombe. In London he remains entirely himself--'West-country Ned!'

Before Ned Corry's affairs were finished with, Tony came into thekitchen, saying: "I just been talking out there to Skinny Chubb. Nicequiet chap, he is. His wife _is_ gone. "

"Well, didn't 'ee know that?"

[Sidenote: _SELF-RESTRAINT_]

Then I heard a wonderful tale of self-restraint. Chubb is a goodworkman, a man of about fifty with grown up boys and girls. His wifehas been no good to him. She used to have men in the house when he wasaway. She provided them with grog and food, but there was neveranything for Chubb to eat, except abuse. She won the daughters over toher side. Sometimes she would go away to London, taking perhaps one ofthe girls with her. Only the eldest son, who was not at home, sidedwith his father. Neighbours used to hear the couple quarrelling halfthe night, but during the whole of their married life he never oncestruck or beat her. All he used to tell other people was:--"'Tis awonder how a man can stand all her du say to me, day an' night, earlyan' late. "

Just before Michaelmas, she decided to leave her husband: to go toLondon with a German flunkey. They broke up the home. Chubb packed upfor her the best of the furniture. He wrote out her labels, said_Good-bye_, paid her cab fare to the station. Now he is living inlodgings. Rumour has it that the German has left her. In answer toinquiries, Chubb merely says: "Well, I tell 'ee, _I_ be glad to be outo'it all at last. _I_'ll never hae her back. "

It is a sound old piece of psychology which distinguishes a man's barkfrom his bite. The poor man's bark is appalling; I often used to thinkthere was murder in the air when I heard some quite ordinarydiscussion; there would have been murder in the air had I myself beenworked up to speak so furiously. But, comparatively speaking, he seldombites; hardly ever without warning; and he can as a rule stay himselfin the very act. The educated man, on the other hand, does not barkmuch; one of the most important parts of his education has been theteaching him not to do so; but when he does bite, it is blindly, and hemakes his teeth meet if he can. We hear, of course, much more of thepoor man in the police courts, and we imagine (spite of HerbertSpencer's warning) that education is to diminish his crimes. How verysimple and fallacious! In the first place, the poor, the uneducated orbut slightly educated, greatly out-number the educated. Suppose bymeans of complete and trustworthy criminal statistics, we could workout the _percentage criminality_ of the different classes. I fancythat the poor man would not then show--even judged by our whimsicallegal and moral standards--a greater percentage criminality than theeducated. And if in our statistics we could include degrees ofprovocation to the various crimes, such as hunger, poverty, want of themoney to leave exasperating surroundings--it would probably be foundthat the poor are, if anything, less criminally disposed than othersections of the community; that, though they lack something of thesecondary self-restraint which prevents bark and noise, they are, otherthings being equal, actually stronger in that primary self-restraint, the lack of which leads directly to crime. On _a priori_, historical, grounds one would anticipate such a conclusion. 

It is certain that they forgive offence more readily. 

I have often wondered how many nice quiet respectable vindictivemurders are yearly done by educated men too clever to be found out. Thepoor man is a fool at 'Murder as a Fine Art. ' He hacks and bashes. 

6. 

Sighting, as we thought, some balks of timber, floating away on the ebbtide over the outside of Broken Rocks, two of us shoved a small boatdown the beach. Our flotsam was a trick of the fading light on the sea, just where Broken Rocks raised the swell a little; but in theexquisite, the almost menacing, calm of the evening, we leaned on ouroars and watched for a while. To seaward, the horizon was a peculiarlowering purple, as if a semi-opaque sheet of glass were placed there. On land, over the Windgap, the sunset was like many ranks of yellow andshining black banners--hard, brassy. The sea was a misty blue. One byone, according to their prominence, the bushes on the face of thecliffs faded into the general contour. As we landed, a slight lop cameover the water from the dark south-east. "Ah!" said Uncle Jake. "We'mgoing to hae it. South-easter's coming!"

[Sidenote: _CALLED OUT BETIMES_]

There was some discussion as to whether or not we should haul the boatsup over the sea-wall. In the end we hauled the smaller ones, leavingthe _Cock Robin_ and the drifter upon the beach. 

In the very early morning--it was so dark I could not see the outlineof the window--I half awoke to an indistinct sensation that the housewas rocking and hell unloosed outside. Something solid seemed to bebeating the wall. Than I heard Grandfer's voice roaring at the foot ofthe stairs:--"What is it? Why, tell thic Tony he'd better hurry up elseall the boats 'll be washed away. Blowing a hurricane 'tis! Sea'smaking. Oughtn't to ha' left they boats. .. . "

"Be quiet! yu'll wake all the kids up. "

"Blowing a hurricane 'tis! Nort to me if the boats du wash off. Tony'dnever wake. "

"All right, I'll wake him. "

In five minutes we were downstairs, with the fire lighted and thekettle on. 

Outside, it was pitch dark. There was nothing there, it seemed, excepta savage wind and stinging splotches of rain and the cry of the lowtide on the sand. I felt my way up the Gut and out, sliding one footbefore the other so as not to fall over the sea-wall. John Widgerbumped into me, and together we crept along to the capstan. A whiteshadow of surf was just visible. We dropped gingerly off the wall tothe beach, trusting there was no iron gear there to smash our ankles. Then for an hour we fumbled our way about; pushed, hauled, disentangled, slid and swore; grasping sometimes the right rope andsometimes the wrong one with hands almost too cold and stiff, toopainful, to grasp anything at all. 

Out of the blackness came another hurricane squall with rain thatlashed. The rushing air itself shook. We crouched, all humped up, inthe lew of a drifter's bows, whilst the rain water washed around ourboots and coat-tails. "This 'll tell 'ee what 'tis like for us chaps, "said Tony. "I be only sorry, " Uncle Jake added, "for them what's out tosea now in ships wi' rotten gear. "

[Sidenote: _A DISCOLOURED FURY_]

As the dawn broke thick, the sea rose still further, until it was adiscoloured fury battering the shore. With Uncle Jake I watched somelong planks, four inches in thickness and ten broad, swept off the topof the beach. We saw them hurtled over Broken Rocks, now dashed againstthe cliff, now careering, so to speak, on their hind legs. Such weretheir mad capers that we laughed aloud. We were far from wishing tosave them. We rejoiced with them. 

As the day blew on, the wind moderated inshore and the lop gathereditself together into a heavy swell. And after dark, at half tide, UncleJake and myself worked hard. We dragged the heavy planks from a surfthat seemed ever advancing on us to drive us towards the cliffs, yetnever did, and we propped up the planks against cliffs whose crumblingdrove us constantly down to the sea. There's a winter's firing there. 

We talked--out-howling the noise jerkily--of wrecks and wreckages. Hadwe had the chance, we might then conceivably have wrecked a ship. Forthere, on the narrow strip of shingle between the wash of the waves andthe unstable cliff, we were primitive men, ready without ruth to wreckfor ourselves the contrivances of civilization. 

7. 

Tony has received one or two presents this autumn, and now the galeshave put an end to all kinds of fishing, he is beginning to write hisletters of thanks. Or rather, he bothers Mam Widger to write them forhim, and when she has said sufficiently often, "G'out yu mump-head! Duit yourself!" he sets to work. After long hesitation, pen in hand, anda laborious commencement, he dashes off a letter, protests that itought to be burnt, and sends it to post. He acts, indeed, a comicversion of the groans and travail about which literary men talk somuch. 

[Sidenote: _PRESENTS AND TIPS_]

Whether he prefers a present or a tip is doubtful, and depends largelyon the amount of money in the house. Presents are more valued; tipsmore useful. He feels that 'there didn't ought to be no need of tips';knows obscurely that they are one of the effects, and the causes, ofclass difference; that they are either a tacit admission that hislabour is underpaid, or else such an expression of good-will as a manwould not presume to give to 'the likes o' himself, ' or else anindirect bribe for some or other undue attention. Usually, however, notwishing to go into the matter so thoroughly--having come in contactwith outsiders chiefly when they have been on holiday and leasteconomical--he considers a tip merely as the outflowing of agen'leman's abundance. "They can afford it, can't 'em? They lives inbig houses, an' it helps keeps thees yer little lot fed an' booted. "

If, however, he has reason to believe that 'a nice quiet gen'leman' isreally hard-up, then he is very sorry, and will reduce the rate of hireby so much as half. In such cases, it is well that the gen'leman shouldadd a small tip, for his niceness' sake. Then is Tony more than paid. 

The gentleman, as such, seems to be losing prestige. Gentility is beingmade to share its glory with education, 'Ignorant' is becoming a worseinsult than 'no class. ' Grandfer, in argument will think to prove hiscase by saying: "Why, a gen'leman told us so t'other day on the Front. A gen'leman told me, I tell thee!" Grandfer's sons would like thegen'leman's reasons. In fact the stuff and nonsense that the chattinggen'leman, feeling himself safe from contradiction, will try to teach aso-called ignorant fisherman, is most amazing. If he but knew howshrewdly he is criticised, afterwards. .. . 

Education even is esteemed not so much for the knowledge it provides, still less for its wisdom, as for the advantage it gives a man inpractical affairs; the additional money it earns him. "No doubt theyeducated people knows a lot what I don't, " says Tony, "an' can du a lotwhat I can't; but there's lots o' things what I puzzles me old headover, an' them not the smallest, what they ain't no surer of than I be. Ay! an' not so sure, for there's many on 'em half mazed wi' too mucho'it. "

8. 

[Sidenote: _BESSIE_]

Bessie has finally left school. The excitement, the chatter, the suddenair of superiority over the other children, the critical glance roundthe room when she returns home. .. . She has learnt next to nothing ofschool-work--which matters little, since she is strong, hopeful, andhas a genuine wish to do her best. What does matter is, that she iscareless, inclined to be slatternly, and has no idea of precisioneither in speech or work. (Few girls have. ) This is in part, no doubt, mere whelpishness to be grown out of presently. She picks up some pieceof gossip. "Mother! Mrs Long's been taken to hospital. Her's going todie, I 'spect. "

"No her an't gone to hospital nuther. Dr Bayliss says as her's got togo if she ain't better to-morrow. Isn't that what you've a-heard now?"

"Yes--but I thought her'd most likely be gone 'fore this, " says Bessiewithout, apparently, the least sense of shame, or even of inexactitude. 

The other day she reached down a cup to get herself a drink of water. Then she took some pains to see if the cup still _looked_ clean, andfinding it did, she replaced it among the other clean ones on thedresser. 

Her mother sent her out to the larder for some more bread. Bessiebrought in a new loaf. 

"That ain't it, " said Mrs Widger. "There's a stale one there. "

"No, there ain't. "

"Yes, there is. "

"I've looked, an't I?"

"Yu go an' look again, my lady. "

"Well, 'tis dark, an' I an't got no light to see with. "

Protesting vehemently, Bessie found the stale loaf. Were I hermistress, she would irritate me into a very bad temper, and then, byher muddle-headed willingness, would make me sorry. She is untrained. School has in no way disciplined her mind. From early childhood, ofcourse, she has had to do many odd jobs for her mother, but a womanwith the whole burden of a house on her shoulders, who has never foundthe two ends more than just meet, cannot spare time or thought to trainher girls systematically. It is so much easier to do the whole of thework herself. Bessie's usefulness, such as it is, speaks a deal for herdisposition. After all, how many women in any station of life, haveprecision and forethought enough to lay a fire so that it will burn upat once? Bessie is only thirteen. It is, indeed, her ability for herage that tempts one to judge her by a standard which elsewhere--exceptamong women discussing their servants--would only be applied to a girlof twenty. 

Suppose fathers judged their daughters as mothers judge theirservants. .. . 

[Sidenote: _GOING INTO SERVICE_]

For the present, Bessie is in daily service at a lodging-house. For a'gen'leman's residence, ' which would be better for her, she isover-young and would, besides, need an outfit of dresses, caps andaprons which she is not yet old enough to take care of, nor will beuntil she is ready to fall in love. She can go to Mrs Butler's in atorn dress and dirty pinafore. She is not expected to appear before thevisitors; only to do the dirty, rough, and heavy work behind thescenes. It was a condition of her leaving school so young, that sheshould go into service and sleep there. Very naturally, Mrs Widger andMrs Butler soon arranged that the 'education lady, ' when she came toinspect, should be shown Bessie's bedroom at the lodging-house--andthat Bessie should sleep at home. It was better for all three; for MrsButler who is short of room, for Mrs Widger who wants Bessie's help, and for Bessie who still requires her mother's authority and oversight. Educationalists don't seem to understand. 

In return for two shillings a week and her food, Bessie is supposed towork twelve hours a day, from eight till eight. All she does mightpossibly be crammed into three hours a day; that is all she is paidfor. She brings home her supper in a piece of newspaper. One eveningshe brought some chicken bones which had been in turn the foundation ofroast chicken, cold chicken, stewed chicken, and soup. Bessie ratherenjoyed them. Another evening, she unwrapped a whole cake. It fell onthe floor, whack! neither bouncing, nor breaking. It was full of dough. A basin of soup-dregs which she brought home two days ago was found tocontain a length of stewed string. Stewed to rags, it was, like badlyboiled meat. Bessie says that Mrs Butler did miss a bell-rope. 

9

There was a rush and a banging up the passage. The kitchen door burstviolently open. A girl (though she wore long skirts her figure wasunformed and her waist had a stiff youthful curve) ran quickly into theroom. 

Her eager bright-coloured young face--that also not yet fullyformed--was overshadowed by a flapping decorated hat obviouslyconstructed less for a woman's head--less still for a maiden's--thanfor a cash draper's window. Her chest was plastered with a motleycollection of cheap jewellery and lace. Her boots had not been cleaned. 

She dropped her cardboard boxes on the floor. Regardless of her womanlyattire, like nothing so much as a hasty child, she flung her arms roundTony's neck. 

"Hallo, Dad! How be 'ee? Eh? How's everybody? Lord, I'm hungry. Lookwhat I got for 'ee. An't forgot nobody this time, though 'tisn'teverybody as remembers me. Look, Dad!"

"What is it?" asked Tony, looking blankly, as if he could hardlyrealise so much clatter. 

"Lookse, Dad! What do 'ee think o'it?"

A box was torn open. From it came a couple of glass ornaments, andvarious sorts of 'coloured rock' and sticky toffee for the children. 

[Sidenote: _BACK FROM SERVICE_]

It was Tony's eldest daughter, Jenny, come home from service. Shewalked round the room picking up things to examine, things to eat, things that she claimed were hers, and things that she desired givenher. She talked without, so far as I could see, any connection betweenthe sentences. Mouthfuls of food reduced her babbling shriek to aburr-burr. 

"Be 'ee glad to see your daughter, Dad?"

"Iss. .. . " said Tony, looking at her very fondly, but still puzzled. 

"Don't believe yu be. Why didn't 'ee write then if yu loves me so?"

"Thic's Mam 'Idger's job. "

"G'out!" said Mrs Widger, --"Jenny, you an't see'd our addition, have'ee. "

I held out my hand. Jenny blushed; then she said: "Good evening, sir";then she giggled; and finally she turned her back on me. It took aminute or two for her happy carelessness to return. 

Domestic servants on holiday, more than any other class of people, strain one's tact and rouse one's ingrained snobbery. They tend to beover-respectful--the sort of respectfulness that presupposesreward, --and to brandish _sirs_, or to be shy and silly, or elseto treat one with a more airy familiarity than the acquaintanceshipwarrants. In the matter of manners, they sit between two chairs, theclass they serve has one code; the class they spring from has another, equally good perhaps, certainly in some respects more delicate, butdifferent. In imitating the one code, unsuccessfully, they lose theirhold on the other. Their very speech--a mixture of dialect and standardEnglish with false intonations--betrays them. They are like a manliving abroad, who has lost grip on his native customs, and hasacquired ill the customs of his adopted country. It is not their fault. Circumstances sin against them. 

Mrs Widger tells me that, when she left her mother's for service, shefelt nothing so keenly as the loneliness, the isolation, of being in ahouse where no one could be in any full sense of the word herconfidant, where she was at the beck and call of strangers from thetime she got up till the time she went to bed, where her irregularhours of leisure were passed quite alone in a kitchen. It seems, asmight be anticipated, that _mental_ comfort or discomfort is at thebottom of the servant question, and that class differences, classmisunderstandings, are ultimately the cause of it. Often enough themistress wishes to be kind, but she fails to understand that what shevalues most differs from what is most valued by her servants. Oftenenough the servants wish to do their best, but little irritations, unsalved by sympathy and not to be discussed on terms of equality, leadto sulky, don't-care moods which exasperate the mistress into positive, instead of negative, unkindness. So a vicious circle is formed. Thecovert enmity between one woman and another simply calls for give andtake where both are of the same class, but when one of them is, forpayment and all day, at the disposal of the other. .. . How many homesthere are where the menfolk can get anything done willingly, and themistress nothing whatever! The girls go out so early. They miss therough and tumble of their homes. They have their own little ambitions, hardly comprehensible to anyone else. Whether or no they desire to besatisfactory, they do want their own little flutters. 

10

[Sidenote: _LITTLE SERVANT GIRLS_]

Poor brave small servant girls, earning your living while you are yetbut children! I see your faces at the doors, rosy from the country oryellowish-white from an�mia and strong tea; see how your young breastshardly fill out your clinging bodices, all askew, and how your hips arenot yet grown to support your skirts properly--draggle-tails! I see youtaking the morning's milk from the hearty milkman, or going an errandin your apron and a coat too small for you, or in your mistress's ormother's cast-off jacket, out at the seams, puffy-sleeved, years behindthe fashion and awry at the shoulders because it is too big. I see yourfloppety hat which you cannot pin down tightly to your hair, becausethere isn't enough of it;--your courageous attempts to be prettier thanyou are, or else your carelessness from overmuch drudgery; yourcoquettish and ugly gestures mixed. 

I picture your life. Are you thinking of your work, or are you dreamingof the finery you will buy with your month's wages; the ribbons, thelace, or the lovely grown-up hat? Are you thinking of what he said, andshe said, and you said, you answered, you did? Are you dreaming of_your_ young man? Are you building queer castles in the air? Areyou lonely in your dingy kitchen? Have you time and leisure to belonely?

I follow you into your kitchen, with its faint odour of burnt grease(your carelessness) and of cockroaches, and its whiffs from thescullery sink, and a love-story that scents your life, hidden away in adrawer. I hear your mistress's bell jingle under the stairs. You mustgo to bed, and sleep, and be up early, before it is either light orwarm, to work for her; you must be kept in good condition like a carthorse or a donkey; you must earn, earn well, your so many silver poundsa year. 

In mind, I follow you also into your little bedroom under the roof, with its cracked water-jug that matches neither the basin or thesoap-dish, and its boards with a ragged scrap of carpet on them, andyour tin box in the corner; and the light of the moon or street lampcoming in at the window and casting shadows on the sloping whitewashedceiling; and your guttered candle. What will you try on to-night? Ahat, or a dress, or the two-and-eleven-three-farthing blouse? Shift thecandle. Show yourself to the looking-glass. A poke here and a pullthere--and now put everything away carefully in the box under the bed, and go to sleep. 

Though I say that I follow you up to your attic, and watch you and seeyou go to sleep, you need not blush or giggle or snap. I would not doyou any harm; your eyes would plague me. And besides, I do not entirelyfancy you. You are not fresh. You are boxed up too much. But I trustthat some lusty careless fellow, regardless of consequences, lookingnot too far ahead, and following the will of his race--I trust that hewill get hold of you and whirl you heavenwards, and will fill yourbeing full to the brim; and will kiss you and surround you withhimself, and will make you forget yourself and your mistress and allthe world, the leaves and birds of the Lover's Lane, the shadowy cattlemunching in the field and the footsteps approaching. 

I wish you luck--that your young man may stick to you. It is after alla glimpse of God I wish you, perhaps your only one. 

You've got a longish time before you. 

11

[Sidenote: _MRS YARTY_]

Mrs Yarty, up Back Lane, is reduced to that last extremity of poorwomen: she is cleaning her cottage and preparing as well as she can 'togo up over' on credit, without either doctor or midwife--unless shebecomes so ill that someone sends for the parish doctor. She will notwish that done, and probably when her time comes, some neighbour willlook in to see if she is going on as well as can be expected. WereYarty and his wife sufficiently servile to attend church or chapel, prayer-meetings or revivals, all sorts of amateur parsons, male andfemale, would flock round; but in any case, Mrs Yarty has no time forsuch goings-on, and if Yarty found anyone sniffing about his house, hewould certainly tell them that it _was_ his house. 

A while ago one of the 'district ladies' came here, to Tony's. We werea little short with her, and as a last resource, she remarkedsuperciliously, in a tone of pleasant surprise: "You are really _very_clean here. " 'Twas an untruth. We are not _very_ clean: we are ascleanly as is practicable. I should have liked to show her the door. "'Tis only the way of 'em!" said Mrs Widger. "They'm stupid, but theymeans all right. "

[Sidenote: _THE YARTY CHILDREN_]

Mrs Yarty is not low-spirited at all, and though her voice soundsrather hysterical, it is merely her manner of speaking, slightlyaccentuated perhaps by more trouble than usual. She is fairly well usedto such events by now. Yarty himself is angry. His ordinary habits arebound to be upset for a few days; for ever, if Mrs Yarty dies. He iswhat successful and conceited people call a waster. "There ain't noharm in him, " Tony says. "He wuden't hurt a fly. The only thing is, 'erdon't du much. " I have never seen him actually drunk. He keeps verynearly all his irregular earnings for his own use in a strong lockedbox upstairs. His house is a sort of hotel to him, where he expects tofind a bed and food, and it is apparently not his business to inquirehow the food is obtained. If there is none, he makes a fuss, and willnot take for an answer that he has failed to bring the money. BobbyYarty, thin, pale, big-eyed, the eldest son but one--a nice intelligentboy though he swears badly at his mother--is ill of a disease whichonly plenty of good food can cure. If, however, food is scarce, it isfirst Mrs Yarty who goes short, then the children. Whether they do, ordon't, have as much as a couple of chunks each of bread and dripping, Yarty must have his stew or fry. The wage-earner has first claim on thefood, and even when the wage-earner does not earn, the custom is stillkept up. It is possible also that Mrs Yarty has still an underlyingaffection for her man, a real desire, become instinctive, to feed him. 

She does not say so. Far from it. She says that she is sorry she everleft a good place to marry Yarty. She would, she declares, go back intoservice but for her children. Washing-day, she swears, is her jolliesttime, and she boasts, with what pride is left her, of there beingplaces at twelve or fourteen shillings a week still open to her. Shedid take a place once--was allowed to take her baby with her--but atthe end of a fortnight she arrived home to find that her husband, impatient for his tea, had thrown all the crockery on the floor. Shesaw then that she must be content with things as they are. 

Her present worry is, what will become of the children while she is upover, and who will feed them? Mam Widger will do her share, I don'tdoubt. Very often now she puts aside something for them. There is asort of pleasantness in watching them take it: they run off with thedish or baking tin like very polite and very hungry dogs, and bring itback faithfully with exceeding great respectfulness towards a householdwhere there is food to spare. 

Mrs Yarty is one of those people who work better for others than forthemselves. She is no manager. "They says, " she remarked the other day, "as He do take care of the sparrows. " She is a sparrow herself; shegrubs up sustenance, rubs along without getting any forwarder, whereothers would go under altogether. Years ago she must have beengood-looking. Her patchily grey hair is crisp; she still has a fewpretty gestures. But trouble and too much child-bearing have done nextto their worst with her. Sensible when she grasps a thing, she is oftena bit mazed. She has the figure of an old woman--bent, screwed--and thetoughness of a young one. Her words, spoken pell-mell in a highstrained voice which oscillates between laughter and tears, seem to betumbling down a hill one after another. Spite of all her householddifficulties, she retains the usual table of ornaments just inside thefront door. Last summer she reclaimed from the roadway a tinytriangular garden, about five inches long in the sides, by wedging apiece of slate between the doorstep and the wall. There she kept threestunted little wall-flowers--no room for more--which she attended toevery morning after breakfast. Cats destroyed them in the end. Shelaughed, as it were gleefully. Her laugh is her own; derisive, open-mouthed, shapeless, hardly sane--but she has a smile--a smile atnothing in particular, at her own thoughts--which is singularly sweetand pathetic. I cannot but think that the spirit which enables her tolive on without despair, to love her little garden and to smile sosweetly, is better worth than much material comfort. Hers, after all, is a life that has its fragrance. 

12

[Sidenote: _TONY AS NURSEMAID_]

Mrs Widger went off after tea to look at Rosie's grave. She likes to goalone, without the children, and she also likes to stop and have a chatwith someone she knows up on land. In consequence, Tony, taking hisSunday evening promenade, found the children on the Front just in thatstate when they want, and do not wish, to go to bed. They followed himin. 

"Wer's thic Mam 'Idger?"

"Don' know!"

"Her's gone to cementry. "

"Didn' ought to leave 'ee like thees yer. "

"Her's gone to see Rosie. "

Tony felt himself rather helpless. "Now then, " he cried with a vainnourish, "off to bed wi' 'ee!"

"No!--No!--Shan't!--Us an't had no supper. "

"Wer is yer supper? What be going to hae?"

"Don' know. --Mam! Mam 'Idger!"

One started crying, then the other. 

"Casn' thee put 'em to bed thyself?" I asked. 

"I don' know! Better wait. .. . Her's biding away a long time. I'll haeto talk to she. "

Tony sat down in the courting chair. The two boys climbed one on eachof his knees. They wriggled themselves comfortable, and fell asleep. Hewoke them. "Won' 'ee go to bed now? I wants to go out. "

"No! No!" they cried peevishly. "Wer's thiccy Mam?"

Their white heads, turned downwards in sleep on either side of Tony'sred weathered face, looked very patient and bud-like. Tony's eyestwinkled over them with a humorous helplessness, crossed occasionallyby a shade of impatience. So the three of them waited for thehousehold's source of energy to return. Tony had been wanting a glassof beer. He nearly slept too. 

Mam Widger said, when she did come, that they were 'all so big a fuleas one another. ' "Casn' thee even get thy children off to bed?" sheasked. 

"I can't help o'it, " was Tony's reply. 

[Sidenote: _LOSS OF TEMPER_]

She has taken the household affairs so completely on her shoulders thathe is almost helpless without her. In many ways, and in the better, thebiblical, sense of the word, he is still so childlike that he oftengets done for him what it would be useless for other people who havelittle of the child in them, to expect. For the same reason, bullieschoose him out for attack. If I should happen to lose my temper withhim, it is a fault on my part, quickly repented of and quickerforgiven, but a fault nevertheless. If he, on the other hand, loses histemper with me, he merely says afterwards: "Ah! I be al'ays likethat--irritable like; I al'ays was an' I al'ays shall be to the end o'the chapter. " He assumes that there was no fault on his part, that hisloss of temper was simply the outcome of the nature of things and ofhimself, and consequently that there was nothing to call forforgiveness. The curious thing is that one feels his view to be right. One does not _forgive_ children; nor the childlike spirit either. 

Returning from sea one evening, more lazy than tired, he said: "Youwash me face, Mam, an' I'll wash me hands myself. " His face was washedamid shouts of laughter, and I tugged off his boots. We were all quitepleased. Happy is the man for whom one can do that sort of thing!

Mrs Widger explained the other day at dinner that for a time after theywere married, Tony used to help a great deal with the housework, untilonce, when he was doing something clumsily, she said: "Git 'long outwi' 'ee, I can du that!"

"Iss, " added Tony, "I used to scrub, and help her wi' the washing (an'kiss her tu), but I ain't done nort to it since her spoke to me rough, like that, an' now I be got out the way o'it, an' that's the reasono'it--thic Mam 'Idger there!"

"G'out! 'tis thy. .. . "

"Oh well, I du cuddle 'ee sometimes, when yu'm willing!"

13

Against the beach the listless sea made a sound like a rattle, verygently and continuously shaken by a very tired baby. Nothing was doing. The air was a little too chilly for pleasure boating. Tony had gone to'put away up over' the after-dinner hour. I lay down to read, and fellasleep to the meg-meg of Mam Widger's voice chatting in a neighbour'sdoorway. 

Two or three small pebbles jumped through the open window. Uncle Jakewas below. When he says, on the Front, that he is going somewhere, hemay set off this week, next week, or never; but when he wakes oneup. .. . I hastened down. 

[Sidenote: _PRAWNING WITH BOAT-NETS_]

"Going shrimpin' wi' the boat-nets, " he said, flavouring, as it were, atit-bit in his mouth. "Must try and earn summut if I bean't going tofeel the pinch o' _thees_ winter. " Then he added as if it were anafterthought: "Be 'ee coming?"

"When?"

"Now--so sune as I can get enough bait. I've a-got a beautiful cod'shead towards it. Back about midnight, I daresay. "

"All right. "

"Put some clothes on your back. I'll bring a bottle o'tay--better thanbrewers' tack--an' go'n get the boat ready. Take the _Moondaisy_. .. . Eh?"

Tony, just downstairs and still rubbing his eyes (when he snoozes hegoes right to bed), asked what was up. "Shrimping wi' Uncle Jake, " Ireplied. "That'll gie thee a doing!" he said. "Yu ask George. Georgeused to be Uncle Jake's mate. 'Tis, 'Back oar-for'ard--back wi'inside--steady--steady--damn yer eyes!' George couldn't put up wi' it. Jake don' never sleep hisself, and wuden' let he sleep. "

The poor little _Moondaisy_, lying on ways at the water's edge, lookedas if she had a small deckhouse aft. Sixteen boat-nets, [19] with theirlines and corks, were piled up on the stern seats. In the stern-sheetswere two baskets, one of them very smelly, and a newspaper parcel thatreeked. Piled up in the bows were bits of old rope, sacks and bags(very catty), chips of wood, empty tea-bottles, and all the litter thatcollects in a boat used by Uncle Jake. 

 [19] Boat-nets are the same in construction as setting-nets (see p. 192), but upwards of a yard in diameter. Instead of a cord and stick, they have attached to them four or five fathoms of grass line. A few small flat oval corks are spliced at short intervals into the end of the line remote from the net, and at the extremity is a cork buoy about half as large as a man's head. 

"Where are we going?" I asked. 

"_I_ knows; but if anybody asks yu where we'm going, or where we'vebeen, don't yu tell 'em. Don't want none o' they treble-X-ers on ourground. You say like ol' Pussey Pengelly used to: 'Down to Longo. ' Idon't hae nobody 'long wi' me what can't keep a quiet tongue. --I cansee some o' they hellers down there now, but they ain't so far west aswe'm going, not by a long way. An' yu wuden' see 'em where they be ifthey didn't think 'twas going to be a quiet night with not much pullingattached to it. But _I_ shuden' be surprised to see a breeze downeasterly 'fore morning. Don't du to get caught down to Longo be aneasterly breeze. Lord, the pulls I've a-had to get home 'fore now!"

[Sidenote: _THE HIGH-TIDE WAVES_]

A very old-fashioned figure Uncle Jake looked, standing up in thestern-sheets and bending rhythmically, sweep and jerk, sweep and jerk, to his long oar, as if there were wires inside him. His greypicture-frame beard seems to have the effect of concentrating theexpressiveness of his face, the satiric glint of his eyes, the drysmile, the straightness of his shaven upper lip, and the kindlylighting-up of the whole visage when he calls to the sea-gulls and theyanswer him back, and he says with the delight of a child, "There! Did'ee hear thic?" Keeping close along shore in order to avoid thestrength of the flood tide against us, we rode with a perfection ofmotion on the heave of the breaking swell. As we were passing over theinside of Broken Rocks, three waves ran far up the beach. "Did 'ee hearthic rattle?" Uncle Jake exclaimed. "That was the high-tide wave, then, whatever the tide-tables say. Yu'll hear the low tide t'night if yulistens. "

Once I backed the boat ashore for Uncle Jake to go and look at one ofthe numerous holes under the cliffs, in every one of which he haswreckage stored up for firewood against the winter. He can at leastdepend on having warmth. When he is nowhere to be found, he is a as arule down-shore carrying jetsam into caves. Much of it he gives awayfor no other payment than the privilege of talking sarcastically atthose who don't trouble to go and of blazing forth at them when theydo. 

The November sun went down while we rowed, an almost imperceptiblefading of daylight into delicate thin colours and finally into a shinygrey half-light. More and more the cliffs lowered above us. They losttheir redness except where a glint of the sun burned splendidly uponthem; coloured shadows, as it were, came to life in the high earthernflanks, lifted themselves off, and floated away into the sunset, untilthe land stood against and above the sea, black and naked, crowned withdistorted thorn bushes. Very serene was the sky, but a little hard. "Wind down east t'morrow, " Uncle Jake repeated. We passed Refuge Cove, over Dog Tooth Ledge, and along Landlock Bay. We tossed over the BrandyMull, a great round pit in a reef, where even in calm weather the tideboils always. No further were there any beaches. The sea washed to thesheer cliffs through tumbled heaps of rocks. "_'Tis_ an ironboundshop!" said Uncle Jake. "Poor fellows, that gets wrecked hereabout! Iknows for some copper bolts when they rots out o' the wreck where theybe. "

We had rowed down to Longo on the calm sea; we were on the sea, almostin it, in so small a boat; and shorewards were the tide-swirls, thejagged rocks, the high black cliffs. The relation of sea and land wasbecome reversed for us. The sea was no longer a thirsty menace, anunknown waste. It was the land, the rocks and the cliffs, whichthreatened hungrily. Night-fears, had there been any, would surely havesprung out from the land. 

[Sidenote: _A COD'S HEAD_]

We rowed into a bay whose wide-spreading arms were like an amphitheatreof shadows. 

"Take thees yer oar, " said Uncle Jake. "Wer's thic cod's head?"

Everywhere in the boat, to judge by one's nose. He found it, hacked it, then beat it with a pebble, and hacked again, and tore. From it cametwo awful separate smells--one like that of a dissecting room, theother like bad crab's inside, or like fearfully perverted cocoa, justwetted--a sort of granulated stink that stopped one's breath. Beautifulbait!

"Now then, while I fixes the bait between the thirts, " said Uncle Jake, "yu paddle westward. Keep 'en straight, else if a bit of a breezecomes, us'll never find the buoys. " While I rowed very slowly, he flungoverboard first a buoy and then its net, a buoy and its net, till hehad hove the whole sixteen with about four boat's lengths between each. The _plop_ was echoed from the cliff, and as the nets sank the sea-fireglittered green upon them. He drew on a ragged pair of oilskintrousers, stationed himself on the starboard side of the stern-sheets, and grasped the longer tiller. On account of the ebb tide andconsequent lay of the corks, we worked back, in reverse order, eastwards. It was for me to row the boat up until the bow was justinside the large buoy. Then Uncle Jake's directions, more or lessabbreviated, came fast one after another:

_Back outside oar_ (or _Pull inside oar_), to bring the bows roundtowards the buoy. 

_Pull both oars_, to bring the boat up to the buoy. 

_Pull outside oar_, to bring the stern of the boat a nice strikingdistance from the line between the buoy and the small corks. (UncleJake strikes under and up with the tiller. )

_Pull both oars_, while he hauls in the loose line. 

_Back both_, to stop the boat's way. 

_Back outside oar_, to keep the line just clear of the gunwale. 

_Stop_, while he hauls very slowly and stealthily at first, lest prawnsand lobsters jump out, then swiftly, raising his arms high above hishead, until the net is aboard. 

So, in single and even half strokes, with variations according tocurrent and wind, for all the sixteen buoys and nets. Whilst UncleJake, on his part, dropped the prawns into a bag which hung from hisneck, flung the wild-crabs amidships, and the lobsters under the sternseat, and hove out the net again a few yards from where it was atfirst--I, on my part, had to spy the next buoy, a mere rocking blot onthe water, to find out how the line lay from it, and then to hold theboat steady till he was ready with the tiller. After a time, one becamea little mazed, one's head ached with screwing it round to sight thebuoys, and his directions ceased so long as everything was going right. 

[Sidenote: _MAKING THE ROUNDS_]

Very wonderful, even exhilarating was the silence and loneliness, thefeeling that ourselves only, of all the world, were in that beautifulmysterious place. Had I had prayers to say, I should have said them, sure that some sort of a God was brooding on the waters and suspiciousperhaps, at the back of my mind, that where the black cliffs uprearedthemselves, there the devil was. 

After we had hauled and shot again the sixteenth net, Uncle Jakecounted one hundred and seventy odd prawns from his bag into thebasket. "Do 'ee see how whitish they be?" he asked. "They'm al'ays likethat in the dirty water after a gale. Lord, what a battering they poorthings must get when it blows on thees yer coast!" He picked over thelobsters to see if any were saleable, but found only smallones--cockroaches--that, as he said, "it don't do to let the bogie-man[fishery inspector] glimpse. --An' I've a-catched, " he added, "more thanfive shill'orth o' fine lobsters in one round of the prawn-nets 'forethey bloody men from the west'ard came up hereabout wi' their pots. Ah, shrimpin' ain't what 't used to be!"

We made three more rounds in that bay, then hauled all our nets intothe boat, rowed further west, and shot our nets round a submarineledge, the whereabouts of which Uncle Jake knew to a yard. A couple ofrounds there, and we brought up to the buoy of a lobster pot (for theebb tide, washing round the headland, kept on hurtling us out to sea), had our supper, and waited. Prawns take longer to go into the netsafter a second round in the same water. 

A haziness that had been in the sky, strengthened into a lurry oflittle cloudlets between us and the stars. "That's where 'tis going tobe, " said Uncle Jake. "Easterly! Do 'ee feel this bit of a swell? Uswon't be here to-morrow night. --There! Did 'ee hear that? Eh?"

Two waves gave forth a peculiar confidential chuckle, long drawn outand very gentle, very fatigued--as if the sea were making some signalto us; as if it wished to say that it was tired of ebbing and flowing. The cliff shadow listened, I thought, immovable and pitiless, but Ifancy that I heard the cry of a bird a quarter of a mile to theeastward. Sea life wakes up with the flow of the tide. I had forgottenthe gulls and the ravens; had forgotten the existence of all livingthings except prawns, lobsters and wild-crabs. No more waveschuckled. .. . "That's the low tide waves sure 'nuff--thic chuckle. There's mostly three on 'em. An' I can al'ays hear the rattle of thehigh tide waves tu--iss, even in a gale o' wind. What a rattle theymakes on the beach, to be sure! They fules o' visitors 'ould laugh at'ee if yu was to tell 'em that--they've a-laughed at me--but 'tis true. Yu've heard, an't 'ee?"

The end buoy was troublesome to find. And in the middle of the round, Irowed up to a shadow thinking to find a buoy, and there close besidethe boat, revealed as the swell sank, was a reef of rock, humped andcovered with seaweed which stood up on end as the water flowedshallowly over the ledge. It was like a grisly great head, ages old, immense, and of terrible aspect, heaving itself up through the sea atus. 

[Sidenote: _UNCLE JAKE'S MATES_]

With much careful working of the boat, we picked up the middle buoysfrom the ledge, and hove them further to sea. Uncle Jake swore at thereef, at the nets, at himself, at his luck. "_'Tis_ a bloody crib!Didn't think the tide was going to fall so far. This same happened thevery last time I was down yer wi' old Blimie--old Sublime, us calls'en. 'Let's get out o' this!' he said. 'Leave the blasted nets an'let's get out o' it quick!' But I 'ouldn't let 'en, not I--us had threethousand shrimps thic night; an' he very nearly cried, he did. '_Tis_some mates I've had for thees yer job. Most of 'em won't come when theycan pay the brewer any other way. _I'll_ never come out again wi' thelast three on 'em, not if I starves for it. One of 'em went to sleep;t'other cuden' see the buoys; an' old Blimie was blind and not willingneither. 'Wer be the cursed things?' he'd say. 'Back!' I'd say. 'Backoars! You'm on top o' it!' 'Well, I be backing, bain't I?' he'd say, an' go on pulling jest the same. Then 'er said 'er was ill and wantedto go home. _He_ won't come no more, not if he starves, an' me too. I won't hae 'en!"

A ripple came down from the east. The sound of its _lap-lap-lap_ underthe boat stole on one's ears sleepily, but it roused Uncle Jake toquick action. "Do 'ee see thees little cockle on the water?" he said. "Do 'ee feel the life o'it in the boat? Must get out of thees yer, elsewe shan't never find the buoys. "

We picked up the buoys--those we had shifted out of line were hard tofind, for the stars were now all hidden by cloud--and a little breezefollowed the ripple from the east. Rowing along under the cliffs, eveninside some of the rocks, through passages that only Uncle Jake is sureof, we caught the young flood tide. The north-easter, that blew outfreshly from the Seacombe valley, chilled us to the bone. 

Seacombe was asleep. No one was on the Front. We had to carry the netsup from the water's edge to the seawall before our utmost strainingcould drag the _Moondaisy_ up the bank of shingle. For more than anhour we hauled. 

When at last it was over, I brought Uncle Jake in house and made him acup of cocoa. We had been nine hours' rowing. Though he could have donethe same again, without food or rest, he looked a little haggard. Itseemed impossible to believe that the grey old man with disordered hairand beard, clothed in rags and patches, sipping cocoa in a windsorchair, was that same alert shadow who had been reckoning up life, sohumorously and wisely, in the darkness under the cliffs. He referredagain to the winter's pinch. It must mean that he has not enough moneyput by from summer for the days coming, when even he will not be ableto find some odd job. Yet, as I know very well, when the pinch doescome he will go short and say nothing whatever to anybody. He will bemerely a shade more sarcastic. One of the children may come home sayingthat 'thic Uncle Jake an't had half a pound of butter all this week, 'or that he has been in one of his passions with Aunt Jake for taking ina loaf of bread without paying cash for it. He will bring out aha'penny from a little screw of newspaper to buy milk for his cats, andhe will take some crumbs to leave on dry rocks under the cliffs for therobins that flutter after him there. "Poor things!" he'll say. And topeople he will still be saying what he thinks, fair or foul, gentle orhard. To understand his sternness and his kindness, it needs to go withhim wrinkling in the sunshine and prawning in the dark. He is becomevery like his beloved rocks and cliffs. He is, as one might say, avoice for them, and his words and deeds are what one would expect theirwords and deeds to be, did they not stand there, warm, sunny andgraciously coloured, or dark and stern, fronting the sea immovably, asUncle Jake fronts life. "Du _I_ want to die?" he says when asked hisage. "Why, I'd like to live a thousand years!"

14

[Sidenote: _NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS_]

Tony is singularly free from any craving either for narcotics orstimulants. Most people I know, especially those who do brain work orlive in cities, are satisfied if they can strike a working balancebetween the two. Granfer must have his glass of beer regularly, butneither smokes nor drinks much tea; Uncle Jake snuffs and loves histea, but drinks no alcohol whatever; John Widger smokes heavily; and Ihave never known Mrs Widger get up in the morning without her cup o'tay. Tony, on the other hand, smokes, for politeness' sake, anoccasional cigarette when it is offered him, does not hanker after histea, and scarcely ever drinks alone. He gets drunk now and then, notbecause he greatly wants to, but socially; because, when half-a-dozenof them are drinking in rounds, 'What can a fellow du?' Even then heoften leaves untouched a glassful that has been ordered for him, thoughall the while after his third or fourth glass, he may be asking othermen to 'drink up and hae another. ' Drinking with him is an expressionof jollity, not the means of it. 

The Perkinses went at the end of last week into a jerry-built villa upon land. To escape the brunt of moving in, probably, Perkins took Tonyto a football match at Plymouth. It was not so much that they drank agreat deal, as that they came home, singing, in a very overcrowded andsmoky railway carriage. "I s'pose I got exzited like, " Tony says. Hewas all right until they got out into the fresh air, and then . .. Perkins brought him in house and laid him along the passage. "Here'syour husband, Mrs Widger. " Being rather afraid of Mrs Widger, becauseshe always speaks her mind, Perkins disappeared quickly. 

[Sidenote: _TONY ON DRINK_]

_In vino veritas_, no doubt. When Tony is drunk he becomes mostaffectionate, and begins 'slatting things about'--not violently ormaliciously, but simply out of joyous devilment and a desire to feelthat he is doing something. Mrs Widger neither wept nor upbraided him. "Yu silly gert fule!" she said. "Yu silly gert fule! Shut up, or yu'llwake they chil'ern. "

"Be glad tu see yer Tony?"

"G'out! Git yer butes off. "

Tony made the chairs skip round the room and thought he'd like to seethe table (with the lamp) upside down. The window curtains annoyed him. Mrs Widger took steps. 

Luckily, she is not with child, or otherwise delicate, and cantherefore stand a deal of rough and tumble. She pushed him headlonginto a chair and took off his boots. (Those two, there alone, for UnderTown was asleep. ) Then she shouldered him upstairs, like a heavy pieceof luggage, and laid him on their bed. Poor Tony was more than leery. He swam. He moaned. He was sick. He could neither lie down nor get up. "Sarve thee damn well right!" said Mam Widger. 

"_I_ can't help o'it. .. . "

"_Yu can't help o'it!_"

Between three and four in the morning, she went downstairs, relightedthe fire and made him and herself a cup o' tay. After that, not so verylong before daylight, they slept. 

To-day Tony is ill and subdued, if not repentant. He reckons he will dothe same again ("What chap don't, 'cept they mump-headed long-facedbeggars?"), but at present he turns from liquor; he always does for aday and a half after 'going on the bust. ' "Didn' ought never to drinkmore'n one glass, " he says; "no, n'eet none at all!" Seeing what itwould mean for the family if Tony took to drink, Mrs Widger is, and wasat the time, wonderfully calm and cheerful--how far from reliance inherself, or from trust in Tony, is not plain. I asked her what shewould do if he became a drunkard and brought no money home. 

"Oh, " she said carelessly, "I s'pose I should turn tu and get some workto du and keep things going somehow. "

"Would you let him have any pocket-money?"

"Ay, I 'spect I should--enough for his pint. "

There's not a shadow of doubt but she would do both. 

15

Tony has always been a man for the girls; so much so, and so naively, that whatever he might do would seem quite innocent; as innocent as thelove-play of animals. Along the Front, of an evening, he calls out, "How be 'ee, my dear?" to any girl he chooses, and perhaps takes herarm for a few steps. Given half a chance, he snatches a playful kiss. They never seem to turn rusty with him. He has the primitive quality ofknocking their conventionality to bits at one blow. 

[Sidenote: _FLIRTATIONS_]

Just before the Perkinses left, he turned out at five in the morning tosee if the high long tide was flowing up to the boats. At six he madetea and went with it to bed again. When he came downstairs at eighto'clock (in his pants, darning the seat of his trousers), Mrs Widgerand Mrs Perkins both had breakfasts frying on the fire. Mrs Widger, very loud-voiced that morning, was packing the children off to school;Mrs Perkins was bent over the pan, browning sausages. Tony crept upbehind her, seized her by the waist, and kissed her. 

"Oh, you naughty man!" said Mrs Perkins, who was married out of adrapery establishment and has the drapery style of talking toperfection. "If my dear hubby knew. .. . "

"Tell him!" retorted Tony. "I be ready for 'en. I feels lively thismorning. I'll gie 'ee another if yu'll darn thees yer trousers for me. Thic Mam 'Idger there won't du nort. You wuden' think I'd had twonights o'it, wude 'ee? I went to bed last night, an' then I got up, five o'clock, and 'cause there weren't nort doing I went to bed againan' had an hour or an hour an' a half's more sleep. "

"Oh, you sleepy man!"

"I didn' want to sleep. I wanted the missis here to cuddle me, on'y her'ouldn't. Her turned away from me that cold. .. . I went off to sleep. An' when I woke up again, thinkin' her'd cuddle me then, her gave me akick an' got out bed. I never see'd ort like it. Her ain't what herused to be, for all her ain't a bad li'l thing, thee's know. "

"G'out!" said Mrs Widger. "I be older--and wiser. "

"Don' know about that. I shall go into Plymouth an' git a nice li'lgirl there. .. . Oh, I've know'd plenty on 'em. All the li'l girls likesol' Tony. "

"I know they do, " remarked Mrs Perkins sententiously, while Mrs Widgerlaughed rather proudly. 

"Iss; us was to Plymouth once, an' a nice li'l girl wi' a white bowroun' her neck came up an' spoke to me when I was a-looking into a shopwindow, an' her said, 'I lives jest here, ' an' I said, 'Do 'ee, mydear? I'll be 'long in a minute. .. . '"

"Where was Mrs Widger then?"

"Oh, her was 'bout ten yards in front. "

"Well?"

"Iss; if her won't be nice to me when I wants her tu, I shall go intoPlymouth an' find out my li'l girl there. .. . "

"Garn then, yu fule! I can du wi'out 'ee. I shall hae thic divorce. Thee's think, I s'pose, as I can't get 'long wi'out 'ee? Thee's muchmistaken!"

"Well. .. . "

"Git 'long out wi' 'ee!" repeated Mrs Widger, laughing and veryproudly. "Git 'long out an' let me clear these yer breakfast things. "

"What have yu got for dinner, me dear? Then I'll remain with 'ee an'not go out at all. "

"G'out!"

Amid loud laughter, Tony snatched a kiss from both ladies, and prancedout. 

16

[Sidenote: _MRS WIDGER_]

"'Tisn't no use to be jealous, " Mrs Widger says. "I used to be a bittaken that way once, but I ain't now, an' 'twuden' make no differenceif I was. " Doubtless she is quite right, and she certainly succeeds innever showing what jealousy she may feel when, for instance, shecatches sight of Tony strolling in through the Gut with his arm halfround another woman's waist, as his playful way is. If Tony speaks ofhis first wife she does not, like most second wives, stop talking. Ifshe hears of a woman unhappily married, she usually dismisses theaffair with a "Well, her shuden't ha' married 'en: her must put up wi''en now her's got 'en. " The goings-on of unmarried people do not easilyscandalise her. "I reckon, " she says, "yu can du as yu like afore yu'mmarried, but after that yu'm fixed. " She is so confident of thefastness of the marriage tie (it is, of course, much more indissolublefor poor people who cannot travel, have no servants, and cannot affordlawyers for divorce proceedings) that she can afford to give Tonyplenty of rope in small things. Her trust in his faithfulness isabsolute, and justified. She has him; he cannot get along without her;she knows that. Her attitude is founded on experience and common-sense;not on some abstract system of morality that never controlled men'slives, and never will. 

When I used to look upon fishermen as picturesque common objects of theseashore, I thought their womenfolk rather dreadful. Now, however, themore I see of this household the more I admire Mrs Widger's managementof it. I know of few other women who could direct it better and withless friction. Indeed, I am acquainted with no middle-class woman atall who could direct any of these poor men's households as their ownwives so noisily and so cleverly do. Mrs Widger does not attempt togain her own way by sheer force and hardness, not even with thechildren; she bends to every current; but she never breaks, and finallyprevails. Like most West-country people, she has more staying powerthan visible energy. By going not straight over the hills, like a Romanroad, but round by the valleys and level paths, she arrives at herjourney's end just as quickly and with much less disturbance andfatigue. She does nothing quite perfectly; neither cooking, mending, cleaning nor child-rearing; but she does everything as well as ispracticable, as well as is advisable. Tony would often like things alittle better done, but if he had to do them they would be done alittle worse. Some people here greatly pride themselves on keepingtheir homes spotlessly clean, and their front doors locked so that nodirty boot shall soil the oilcloth in the passage. Mrs Widger says thather house is for living in. Children run in and out of it, laughing andshouting. 

In some respects, she and Tony remind one of a French bourgeois couple. He has the sentiment, the expressed ideality, the sensitiveness. Heperceives a great deal, but perceives much of it vaguely. He seldommakes up his mind--then unalterably. He is like the little man inBlake's drawing, who stands at the foot of a long ladder reaching up tothe moon, and cries, "I want!" What he wants, he does not preciselyknow. Summut or other. Mrs Widger, on the other hand, knows what shewants very exactly; so exactly that she is content to bide heropportunity. When they were married, Tony had neither boats nor gear. He has them now. 

[Sidenote: _A STEADY HEAD_]

How she keeps a steady head passes my understanding; at breakfast-time, for example, when the boys are clamouring for their kettle-broth orloudly demanding fish, or trying to sneak lumps of sugar; and thegirls, nearly late for school, are asking what she wants from thebutcher's or stores; and one or two of them require clean things, orsomething darned, or have not washed their faces or combed out theirhair properly; and Tony's and my breakfasts are cooking; and the kettleis boiling out or over; and Tony is asking her where he has left hisother guernsey, and everybody is talking nineteen to the dozen--and shewants her own breakfast too. It is at such a moment that she displaysbest her most characteristic gesture. 

Most people who work with a will, possess some gesture or movementwhich is typical of, and sums up, the major part of theiractivities--the gesture that sculptors and painters try to catch. Tolay out on home and family the earnings of a workman who is regularlypaid, calls for skill and care enough on the part of a wife who has noreserve fund and must make the weekly accounts balance to within a fewha'pence. But successfully to lay out, and to lay by, the earnings of aman like Tony, whose family is large and whose money comes in withextreme irregularity, requires a combination of forethought andself-control which falls little short of genius. And it has to be doneon a cash basis, for debt would worry Tony out of his wits. The familypurse must necessarily be the centre, and the symbol, of Mrs Widger'shousehold activities; a matter to which she must give more thought thanto any other one thing. 

"Mabel, I want you to go out for me, " she says. "Get me my purse. "

[Sidenote: _CHARACTERISTIC GESTURE_]

Standing, as a rule, by the dresser, she receives the purse into herhand, opens it meditatively, looks in, pokes a ringer in, tips thepurse and peers between the coins as they fall apart; takes one or twoout and replaces them as if they fitted into slots. Then with awide-armed gesture, curiously commanding and graceful, she hands out tothe child perhaps a ha'penny. "Get me a ha'porth o' new milk, quick!"

The purse is put away. 

So striking is the little ceremony, so symbolic, so able to stop ourchatter while we look, that we have nicknamed Mam Widger _The PurseBearer_. 

That is the name for her--Purse Bearer. 

17

Downstairs in the front room there are two or three photographs ofGeorge, that he himself has sent home since that day he went off to theNavy. The earliest shows him still boyish, sitting small, as it were, and a little shy of his new uniform. In the latest, taken not long ago, nor very long in point of time after the first, he is sitting boltupright, chest inflated, arms akimbo with a straight, level, almostferocious look in his eyes. He has apparently taken a measure of theworld outside Under Town, and is all the surer of his feet for havingstood up against greater odds and for having walked the slippery plankof Navy regulations. "If you'm minded to run up against me, " he seemsto be saying, "come and try; here I am. " The two photographs suggestthe difference between a bird in winter and in the mating season. George's uniform, in the later photograph, has become his springplumage. 

[Sidenote: _GEORGE HOME_]

When he sent word that he was coming home on leave, I was prepared fora great change in him, but scarcely for the new George. He used to beso like a cat on a sunny wall; used to lie along the stern seat of the_Moondaisy_ so lazy and content that only his ever-watchful eyesheld any expression. He was deeply sunburnt: scraggy in the neck;strong and lissome, but not very smart. 

He is returned home no less strong and lissome, and exceedingly smart. The sunburn is gone; indeed there's many a maiden would envy hiscomplexion; and his long stout neck, with the broadening bands ofmuscle, would delight a sculptor. The alert expression, that used to bemore or less limited to his eyes, has spread, so to speak, over all hisface, over the whole of him and into all his movements. He isorganised; unified. In repose now, he would not be simply lazy; hewould be _being lazy_. His features, rather indeterminate of old, havebecome curiously refined, almost delicate, almost supercilious (in thepride of young strength), but not quite either. It is noticeablegenerally that an orderly mental existence has great power toregularise the features, and in so doing, to refine them. Hence perhapsthis refinement of feature in George; for if, in the effort to gainpromotion, he has been putting his heart into his work--the routinework of his ship and the Naval barracks--it follows that his mentalexistence must have been very orderly and regular. But how far thetotal change in him is due to Navy discipline, and how far to hisarrival at mating time, one cannot say, neither probably could he. Among working people nothing so smartens a young man and so quicklysets him on his own feet as a little traffic with the maidens;especially when he can't get his own way too easily. George, I gather, is paying attention to two or three. 

Whereas his toilet used to consist of dragging on trousers, guernseyand boots, and lacing up the last-named aboard his boat, if at all, itis now a function delightful to witness as he stumps backwards andforwards between the kitchen looking-glass and the scullery-sink. Whata washing and spluttering! what a boot-blacking and hair brushing! whatretouches and last glances into the glass! The cap comes off and isreplaced at a jauntier angle, a ribbon is tied again, the lanyard isput just right, and George goes forth to a war that began beforebattleships were thought of. One makes fun of his titivations, andadmires nevertheless. Pride o' life, I have heard it called. Hitchingone's wagon to a star is doubtless good; so is driving one's wagonalong mankind's track. Thank God we have still a deal of the monkey inus. 

I should like to see how Master George would carry on the land campaignif he had money to spare. That, however, he has not. The presents hebrought home for the whole family, as is customary, must have cost hima good deal. He has had, too, a spell in the Naval barracks--whichmeans spending money on shore amusements instead of putting it by. Andas he has bought some civilian clothes on the instalment system, andwill have that to pay off, he cannot borrow much of his father ormother. 

Being 'on his own' now, he does not, of course expect a supply of moneyfrom his father, nor on the other hand does Tony try to force hisauthority upon George. Whilst he was here, George met a few of his oldchums up in the Town, and about midnight he came home rather drunk. Wewere all abed; he had to knock several times; and in the end Tony wentdown to let him in. 'Twas a good opportunity for a quarrel that wouldhave wakened the whole Square. But Tony said nothing then. He sawGeorge safely to bed, and merely remarked next day in George's hearing, that "'Tisn't gude to drink tu much if you can help o'it, speciallywhen yu'm young; besides, it costis tu much. " George was very ashamed. 

[Sidenote: _MRS WIDGER'S DIPLOMACY_]

Mrs Widger it was who had the row over George's spree, but not withGeorge, and owing to her clever diplomacy it was hardly a row at all. 

Mabel rushed into the house at breakfast-time. 

"Mother, is George come home?"

"Course he is. What next?"

"Well, Lottie Rousdon says as he come'd home last night an' yu an' Dadwuden' let 'en in. Drunk's a handcart, falling about, her says he was. "

"Tis a lie!" began Mrs Widger loudly. Then she appeared to think ofsomething; her eyes widened, and she spoke quietly. 

"Who told yu thic tale?"

"Why, May Rousdon jest as I was coming in now. Her stopped me an' askedif what Lottie'd told her was true. "

"Yu go an' tell Lottie Rousdon that if she has a minute to spare whenshe comes home this afternoon to clean herself [Lottie Rousdon is a dayservant], as mother'd like to see her. Don't yu"--this with risingvoice--"don't yu tell anything more'n that or I'll break your neck foryu. "

Mabel rushed out full of importance. 

"The lying bitch!" remarked Mam Widger. 

Lottie Rousdon walked into the trap. She came in the early evening, feathers flying, very innocent. She was in a strange house, not in theSquare or among her relatives. Mrs Widger was on her own ground. Bothwent into the front room. 

"What for did yu--" we could not help hearing. 

"Oh, I didn't, Mrs Widger; I'm sure I didn't----"

"Yu did!"

"Mabel, " called Mrs Widger. "Go'n ask May Rousdon to kindly step thisway. "

May Rousdon came. 

"Who told yu what yu told Mabel about George, this morning? Did _yu_make it up?"

"'Twas Lottie told me, Mrs Widger. "

"There! if I didn't think. .. . Don't yu ever say such a wicked thingagain! Yu don' know what harm. .. . "

The parlour door was shut fast. A hubbub went on within. After a time, Lottie, weeping, was led out of the house by her sister. 

"The lying bitch, " Mrs Widger repeated. "I've a-give'd it to her. Making up that tale so pat as if 'twas all true! That's the sort o'thing they used to put about when Tony and me was first married, but Ifought 'em down, I did, an' I thought 'twas all stopped long ago. Theytried to make out as 'twas me drove George to sea. Nobody can't eversay I haven't luked after Tony's first wife's children so well as Ihave me own--but they _have_ said it, all the same, an' I've up an'give'd it to 'em 'fore now. Whenever I used to correct the children, they'd only to run out o' the house an' they cude always find someoneto listen to 'em and say as I was cruel to 'em and God knows what. Onetime, when I wasn't very well, I felt I cuden' put up wi' it anylonger. But I did. An' here I be, same's ever. Pretty times us used tohave, I can tell yu, when we was first married an' some of 'em put myblood up!"

I understand that she cursed several--literally kicked one or two--outof the house; but now when anybody is ill, or anything has to be done, she is the first person to be sent for; and when George said goodbye toher at the station, he wept. 

18

[Sidenote: _IN THE BAR_]

I was in the Alexandra bar this evening, drinking bitter ale. Apartfrom the new saloon counter, it is an old-fashioned place, full ofwooden partitions and corners and draughts. The incandescent light wasflickering dimly in the draught that the sea-wind drove through thewindow and the front door. Seated around the fireplace or against thepainted partitions, and standing about in groups, were fishermen inguernseys, ex-fishermen, some bluejackets, and some solid-looking menwho were pensioners or sailors in mufti. A couple of repulsivelodging-house keepers (they eat too much that falls from the lodgers'tables) were talking local politics with a foxy-faced young tradesmanof the semi-professional sort. The barman, who had had enough to drink, was thumb-fingered, loud-voiced, hastily slow. Sometimes the sound of aheavier wave than usual broke through the buzz of conversation, andsometimes, when the conversation dropped, wave after wave could beheard sweeping the shingle along the beach. 

A party of vagrant minstrels came to the front-door steps. They playeda comic song, and the voices within rose in defiance of the music, sothat when it stopped suddenly, they were surprised into silence. 

Up through that silence welled the opening notes of Schubert's_Serenade_. Nobody spoke. The barman took up a glass cheerily. "Mydoctor ordered me to take a little when I feel I need it, " he said; andwas _hushed_ down. Some edged towards the door, others sat back withfaces and pipes tilted up, and others gazed down at the floor. Amemory-struck, far-away look came into their eyes. Only the barman withhis glass, and the tradesman in his smart suit, seemed whollythemselves. 

The _Serenade_ ceased. None spoke. The light gave a great flicker. "What the bloody hell!" exclaimed John Widger. The day-dreamers awoke, as if from a light sleep. An everyday look came quickly into their eyesand each one shifted in his seat. Some even shook themselves like dogs. A joke was made about the woman who came in to collect pence, and theconversation rose till nothing of the sea's noise could be heard. 

I realised with a shock that in four days I shall not be here, and whenI left the bar, I forgot entirely to say _Good-night_. 

[Sidenote: _A GLIMPSE_]

It was as if, for the moment, we had all been very intimate; as if wehad all gone an adventure together and had peeped over the edge of theworld. 

VIII

 SALISBURY, _January_. 

1

[Sidenote: _CONTRASTS_]

Chilliness--a social and emotional chilliness that can with difficultybe defined or nailed down to any cause--is, above and below all, whatone feels on returning from a poor man's house into middle-classsurroundings. It is not unlike that chill with which certain forms ofmetropolitan hospitality strike a countryman. He meets a London friend, a former fellow-townsman, perhaps, who has migrated to London and whomhe has not seen for a year or two. "Glad to see you, " says theLondoner. "You must call on my wife before you go back. Her day isWednesday. " Or, "You must come to dinner one evening. When are youfree? Next Tuesday? or Friday?" If the hospitality had begun forthwith, and the countryman had been haled off, country fashion, to the verynext pot-luck meal, he would have had a pleasant adventure. It wouldhave been like old times. The former glow of friendship would have morethan revived. But the calculated invitation for a future date, the ideathat the countryman will like to call for a twenty minutes' chat ongeneralities and a couple of cups of bad afternoon tea. .. . Though hemay understand that a multiplicity of engagements in London rendersthis sort of thing convenient, he none the less feels a chill when itis applied to himself, and usually cares little whether he go or not. He becomes conscious of the desire to save trouble, which is at thebottom of such calculations. Had the Londoner revisited the country, hewould have found old friends ready to upset all their arrangements forthe sake of entertaining him. The London hospitality is the 'betterdone, ' but country hospitality is warmer. Middle-class life runssmoother than the poor man's, it is more arranged and in many ways'better done, ' and it is chillier precisely because, for smoothrunning, the warmer human impulses, both good and bad, must berepressed. 'Something with a little love and a little murder' in it, was what the illiterate old woman wanted to learn to read. It is whatwe all want in our hearts, much more than smooth running andimpenetrable uniform politeness. 

Down at Seacombe we warm our hands, so to speak, at the fire of life;hunger lurks outside, and the fire is dusty and needs looking after;but it glows, and we sit together round it. Here at Salisbury, throughout the social house, we have an installation of hot-waterpipes; they may be hygienic (which is doubtful), and they are littletrouble to keep going; but they don't glow. Give me the warmth thatglows, and let me get near the heart of it. 

Voices are often raised in Under Town and quarrels are not infrequent, but the underlying affections are seldom doubted, and when they do riseto the surface, there they are, visible, unashamed. 'Each for himself, and devil take the hindmost, ' is more admired in theory than followedin practice. 'Each for himself and the Almighty for us all, ' is Tony'sway of putting it. The difference lies there. 

My acquaintances here are well off for the necessities of life. No oneis likely to starve next week. Nevertheless, they are full of worry, and by restraining their expressions of worry so as not to becomeintolerable to the other worriers, they make themselves the more lonelyand increase their panic of mind. They are afraid of life. 

At Seacombe, though there were not a fortnight's money in the house, welived merrily on what we had. In Tony's "Summut 'll sure to turn up ifyu be ready an' tries to oblige" there is more than philosophy; thereis race tradition, the experience of generations. The Fates aretreacherous; therefore, of course, they like to be trusted, and thegifts they reserve for those that trust them are retrospective. 

[Sidenote: _INSTANCES_]

All of us at Tony's wanted many things--a pension, enough to live on, work, a piano, or only 'jam zide plaate'--God knows what we didn'twant! But the things that men haven't, and want, unite them more thanthose they have. _I want_ is life's steam-gauge; the measure of itsenergy. It is the ground-bass of love, however transcendentalised, andwhether it give birth to children or ideas. _I have_ is stagnant. And_I am afraid_ is the beginning of decay. 

It is still _I want_, rather than _I am afraid_, that spurs the poorman on. 

2

For his first marriage and towards setting up house, Tony succeeded insaving twenty shillings. He gave it to his mother in gold to keepsafely for him, and the day before the wedding, he asked for it. "Yuknows we an't got no bloody sovereigns, " said his father. It had allbeen spent in food and clothes for the younger children. So Tony wentto sea that night and earned five shillings. A shilling of that too hegave to his mother; then started off on foot for the village where hisgirl was living and awaiting him. She had a little saved up: he knewthat, though he feared it might have gone like his. They were married, however; they fed, rejoiced, and joked; and 'for to du the thing properlike, ' they hired a trap to drive them home. With what money was leftthey embarked on married life, and their children made no unreasonabledelay about coming. "Aye!" says Tony, "I'd du the same again--though'twas hard times often. "

Before I left Seacombe I asked a fisherman's wife, who was expectingher sixth or seventh child, whether she had enough money in hand to gothrough with it all; for I knew that her husband was unlikely to earnanything just then. "I have, " she said, "an' p'raps I an't. It alldepends. If everything goes all right, I've got enough to last out, butif I be so ill as I was wi' the last one, what us lost, then I an't. Howsbe-ever, I don't want nort now. Us'll see how it turns out. " Shewent on setting her house in order, preparing baby linen and makingready to 'go up over, ' with perfect courage and tranquillity. When onethinks of the average educated woman's fear of childbed, although shecan have doctors, nurses, an�sthetics and every other alleviation, thecontrast is very great, more especially as the fisherman's wife hadgood reason to anticipate much pain and danger, in addition to thepossibility of her money giving out. 

Those are not extraordinary instances, chosen to show how courageouspeople can be sometimes; on the contrary, they are quite ordinaryillustrations of a general attitude among the poor towards life. Toexpress it in terms of a theory which in one form or another isaccepted by nearly all thinkers--the poor have not only the _Will toLive_, they have the _Courage to Live_. 

[Sidenote: _THE COURAGE TO LIVE_]

On the whole, they possess the _Courage to Live_ much more than anyother class. And they need it much more. The industrious middle-classman, the commercial or professional man, works with a reasonableexpectation of ending his days in comfort. He would hardly workwithout. But the poor man's reasonable expectation is the workhouse, orsome almost equally galling kind of dependency. The former may counthimself very unlucky if after a life of work he comes to destitution;the latter is lucky if he escapes it. Yet the poor man works on, and isof at least as good cheer as the other one. If he can rub along, he iseven happy. He is, I think, the happier of the two. 

The more intimately one lives among the poor, the more one admirestheir amazing talent for happiness in spite of privation, and theirmagnificent courage in the face of uncertainty; and the more also onesees that these qualities have been called into being, or kept alive, by uncertainty and thriftlessness. Thrift, indeed, may easily be anevil rather than good. From a middle-class standpoint, it is anadmirable virtue to recommend to the poor. It helps to keep them offthe rates. But for its proper exercise, thrift requires a specialtraining and tradition. And from the standpoint of the essential, asopposed to the material, welfare of the poor, it can easily beover-valued. Extreme thrift, like extreme cleanliness, has often asingularly dehumanising effect. It hardens the nature of its votaries, just as gaining what they have not earned most frequently makes menflabby. Thrift, as highly recommended, leads the poor man into thespiritual squalor of the lower middle-class. It is all right as a meansof living, but lamentable as an end of life. If a penny saved is apenny earned, then a penny earned by work is worth twopence. 

_The Courage to Live_ is the blossom of the _Will to Live_--a flowerfar less readily grown than withered. It might be argued that sinceapprehensiveness implies foresight, the poor man's _Courage to Live_is simply his lack of forethought. In part, no doubt, it is that. Buthe does think, slowly and tenaciously, as a cuttlefish grips. Heforesees pretty plainly the workhouse; and he has the courage to faceits probability, and to go ahead nevertheless. His reading of life isin some ways very broad, his foothold very firm; for it is foundedclosely on actual experience of the primary realities. He looksbackwards as well as forwards; his fondness and memory for anecdote isevidence of how he dwells on the past; instead of comparing anoccurrence with something in a book, he recalls a similar thing thathappened to So-and-so, so many years ago, you mind. .. . He knows vaguely(and it is our vaguer knowledge which shapes our lives) that only by asuccession of miracles a long series of hair's-breadth escapes andlucky chances, does he stand at any moment where he is; and he doesn'tsee why miracles should suddenly come to an end. Hence his activefatalism, as opposed to the passive Eastern variety. In Tony's opinion, "'Tis better to be lucky than rich. " I have never heard him say thatfortune favours the brave. He assumes it. 

3

[Sidenote: _INTELLECTUAL TYRANNIES_]

As one grows more democratic in feeling, as one's faith in the peoplereceives shock after shock, yet on the whole brightens--so does one'smistrust of the so-called democratic programmes increase. One becomesat once more dissatisfied and less, more reckless and much morecautious. One sees so plainly that the three or four political partiesby no means exhaust the political possibilities. The poor, thoughindeed they have the franchise, remain little more than pawns in thepolitical game. They have to vote for somebody, and nobody is preparedto allow them much without a full return in money or domination. Theypay in practice for what theoretically is only their due. Justice forthem is mainly bills of costs. The political fight lies still betweentheir masters and would-be masters; not so much now, perhaps, betweendifferent factions of property-owners as between the property-ownersand the intellectuals. Out of the frying-pan into the fire seems thelikely course; for the intellectuals, if they have the chance, enslavethe whole man; they are logical and ruthless. The worst tyrannies havebeen priestly tyrannies, whether of Christians, Brahmins or negrowitch-doctors; and those priests were the intellectuals of their time. I wonder when we shall have a party of intellectuals content to findout the people's ideals and to serve them faithfully, instead of tryingto foist their own ideals upon the people. 

Law-makers, however, will probably continue to work for the supposedbenefit of the people rather than on the people's behalf; and equally, the supposed welfare of the people will continue to be the handiestpolitical weapon; for the property-owning, articulate classes arebetter able to prevent themselves being played with. To those two factsone's political principles must be adjusted. The articulate classes, moreover, are actually so little acquainted with the inner life of thepoor that there is no groundwork of general knowledge upon which tobase conclusions, and it is impossible to do more than speak from one'sown personal experience. I don't mind confessing that, though I shouldprefer justice all round, yet, if injustice is to be done--as done itmust be no doubt--I had rather the poor were not the sufferers. Thereis no reason to believe that present conditions cannot be bettered--tobelieve, with Dr Pangloss, _que tout est au mieux dans ce meilleurdes mondes possibles_. I have found that to grow acquainted with theclass that is the chief object of social legislation is to see moreplainly the room for improvement, and also to see how much better, howmuch sounder, that class is than it appeared to be from the outside:how much might be gained, of material advantage especially, and at thesame time how much there is to be lost of those qualities of characterwhich have been acquired through long training and by infinitesacrifice. To learn to care for the poor, for their own sake, is tofear for them nothing so much as slap-dash, short-sighted sociallegislation. 

[Sidenote: _THE WILL TO LIVE_]

The man matters more than his circumstances. The poor man's _Courage toLive_ is his most valuable distinctive quality. Most of his finestvirtues spring therefrom. Any material progress which tends to diminishhis _Courage to Live_, or to reduce it to mere _Will to Live_, mustprove in the long run to his and to the nation's disadvantage. And the_Courage to Live_, like other virtues, diminishes with lack ofexercise. Therefore every material advance should provide for thecontinued, for an even greater, exercise and need of the _Courage toLive_. If not, then the material advance is best done without. 

That is the main constructive conclusion to be drawn. Somewhat akin toit is another conclusion of a more critical nature. 

In Nietzsche's _Beyond Good and Evil_ there is an apophthegm to theeffect that, "Insanity in individuals is something rare--but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. " And whilst, on the onehand mental specialists have been extending the boundaries of insanityto the point of justifying the popular adage that everyone is a bitmad, they have, on the other hand, tended to narrow down the differencebetween sanity and its reverse until it has become almost entirely aquestion of mental inhibition, or self-control. 

 The highest aim of Mental Hygiene should be to increase the power of mental inhibition amongst all men and women. Control is the basis of all law and the cement of every social system among men and women, without which it would go to pieces. .. . _Sufficient power of self-control should be the essence and test of sanity. _[20]

 [20] "The Hygiene of Mind, " by T. S. Clouston, M. D. , F. R. S. E. , (London, 1906). Without an extension which Dr Clouston provides, though not in so many words, the definition I have italicized is psychologically a little superficial. Mental inhibition, generally, needs dividing into self-control and, say, auto-control. Where one man may _self-control_ himself by an effort of will, another man, in the same predicament, might _auto-control_ himself instinctively, without a conscious effort of will. Which is the saner, and likelier to remain so, under ordinary circumstances and under extraordinary circumstances, would be most difficult to determine. Many people are only sane in action because they know that they are insane in impulse, and take measures accordingly. They keep a sane front to the world by legislating pretty sternly for themselves. 

[Sidenote: _SOCIAL HYGIENE_]

It is too gratuitously assumed by law-makers (_i. E. _ agitators forlegislation as well as legislators) that the poor man is woefullydeficient in inhibition and must be legislated for at every turn. Because, for instance, he furnishes the police courts with themajority of 'drunks and disorderlies, ' he is treated as a borndrunkard, to be sedulously protected against himself, regardless ofsuch facts as (1) there is more of him to get drunk, (2) he prefers'going on the bust' to the more insidious dram-drinking and drugging, (3) he has more cause to get drunk, (4) he gets drunk publicly, (5)tied-house beer and cheap liquors stimulate to disorderliness morethan good liquor. The truth is that the poor have a great deal ofself-restraint, quite as much probably as their law-makers; but it isexercised in different directions and, possibly, is somewhat fritteredaway in small occasions. The poor man has so much more bark than bite. He fails to restrain his cuss-words for example--but then cuss-wordswere invented to impress fools. There is much in his life that wouldmadden his law-makers, and _vice versa_. If control is the cement ofevery social system and if it is the highest aim of mental hygiene, itfollows that control should be the highest aim of legislation andcustom, which together make up social hygiene. And--always rememberingthat control is of all virtues the one which strengthens with use andwithers with disuse--every piece of new legislation should be mostcarefully examined as to its probable effect on the self-control ofthe people. Control, in short should be the paramount criterion of newlegislation. A proximate advantage, unless it be a matter of life anddeath, is too dearly purchased by an ultimate diminution ofself-control. 

4

Since the Industrial Revolution and rise of the press, the middle-classhas become more and more the real law-maker. The poor have votedlegislators into power; the upper class in the main has formally madethe laws; but the engineering of legislation has been, and is, the workof the middle class. And the amusing and pathetic thing is that themiddle class has used its power to try to make other classes likeitself. That it has succeeded so badly is largely due to the fact thatthe poor man is not simply an undeveloped middle-class man. Thechildren at Seacombe showed true childish penetration in treating a_gentry-boy_ as an animal of another species: the poor and the middleclass are different in kind as well as in degree. (More differentperhaps than the poor and the aristocrat). Their civilizations are nottwo stages of the same civilization, but two civilizations, twotraditions, which have grown up concurrently, though not of coursewithout considerable intermingling. To turn a typical poor man into atypical middle-class man is not only to develop him in some respects, and do the opposite in others; it is radically to alter him. Thecivilization of the poor may be more backward materially, but itcontains the nucleus of a finer civilization than that of the middleclass. 

[Sidenote: _TWO CIVILIZATIONS_]

The two classes possess widely dissimilar outlooks. Their morale isdifferent. Their ethics are different. [21] Middle class peoplefrequently make a huge unnecessary outcry, and demand instantunnecessary legislation because they find among the poor conditionswhich would be intolerable to themselves but are by no means so to thepoor. And again, the benevolent frequently accuse the poor of greatingratitude because, at some expense probably, they have pressed uponthe poor what they themselves would like, but what the poor neitherwant nor are thankful for. The educated can sometimes enter fully, andeven reasonably, into the sorrows of the uneducated, but it is seldomindeed that they can enter into their joys and consolations. 

 [21] "The more one sees of the poor in their own homes, the more one becomes convinced that their ethical views, taken as a whole, can be more justly described as different from those of the upper classes than as better or worse. " ("The Next Street but One. " By M. Loane. London, 1907. )

Broadly speaking, the middle-class is distinguished by the utilitarianvirtues; the virtues, that is, which are means to an end; theprofitable, discreet, expedient virtues: whereas the poor prefer whatMaeterlinck calls 'the great useless virtues'--useless because theybring no apparent immediate profit, and great because by faith ordeeply-rooted instinct we still believe them of more account than allthe utilitarian virtues put together. [22]

 [22] "When one begins to know the poor intimately, visiting the same houses time after time, and throughout periods of as long as eight or ten years, one becomes gradually convinced that in the real essentials of morality, they are, as a whole, far more advanced than is generally believed, but they range the list of virtues in a different order from that commonly adopted by the more educated classes. Generosity ranks far before justice, sympathy before truth, love before chastity, a pliant and obliging disposition before a rigidly honest one. In brief, the less admixture of intellect required for the practice of any virtue, the higher it stands in popular estimation. " ("From their Point of View. " By M. Loane. London, 1908. )

 It is difficult to see on what grounds Miss Loane implies--if she does mean to imply--that the poor would do well to exchange their own order of the virtues for the other order. Christianity certainly affords no such grounds, nor does any other philosophy or religion, except utilitarianism perhaps. 

The poor, one comes to believe firmly, if not interfered with by thosewho happen to be in power, are quite capable of fighting out their ownsalvation. A clear ring is what they want--the opportunity for their'something in them tending to good' to develop on its own lines. (WhenI say 'a clear ring' I do not mean that one side should have secondsand towels provided and that the other side should be left withneither. ) That their culture, so developed, will be different from ourpresent middle-class culture, is certain; that it will be superior isprobable. The middle class is in decay, for its reproductive instinctsare losing their effective intensity, and it is afraid of havingchildren; its culture, that it grafted on the old aristocratic stem, must decay with it. When the culture derived from the lower classes isready to be grafted in its turn upon the old stem it is possible thatmankind's progress will go backwards a little to find its footing, andwill then take one of its great jumps forward. 

5

[Sidenote: _THE SOCIO-POLITICAL PROBLEM_]

The socio-political problem turns out, on ultimate analysis, to be awide restatement of the old theological Problem of Pain. Suffering doesnot necessarily make a fine character, but the characters that werecognise as fine could not, apparently, have been so withoutsuffering. It is possible to say, "I have suffered, and though I amscarred and seared, yet I know that on the whole I am the better forthat suffering. I do not now wish that I had not had that suffering. Ieven desire that those I love shall suffer so much as they can bear, that their conquest may be the greater, their joys the fuller, andtheir life the more intense. " Nevertheless, the very next moment, thesame man will try by every means possible to avoid suffering forhimself and for those he loves. That is the dualism which dogs humanityin the mass no less than in the individual. That lies at the core ofdomestic politics. But it may be that the part of our nature whichfinds reason to be grateful for past suffering is higher than that partwhich seeks to avoid it in the future. 

Waste of the benefits of suffering is waste indeed. 

IX

 SEACOMBE, _December_. 

1

We hired a drosky--one of the little light landaus that they use with asingle horse in this hilly district--and thus we came down from thestation. On the box were the coachman (grinning), a cabin trunk, aportmanteau, a gaping gladstone bag, and a rug packed with sweaters andboots. On the front seat, a large parcel of books, a typewriter, adispatch case, a grubby moon-faced little friend of Tommy's, Tommyhimself, and Jimmy. On the back seat, Straighty, Dane and myself. Thesmall boy stood up on the seat, and Dane squatting on his haunches, overtopped us all. 

Down the hill we drove, swerving, wobbling, laughing--a May party inleafless winter. Dane, in his efforts to lick the children's faces, tumbled off his perch. We helped him back to his seat amid a chorus ofhappy screams. The grubby boy was just too astonished to cry, just tooproud of travelling in a carriage. He screwed up his face--andunscrewed it again. Every now and then Tommy sat back as far as hecould from the disorder, the collection of jerking arms and legs, inorder to adjust the Plymouth spectacles, of which he is so proud, onhis small pug nose. As we passed the cross-roads, Straighty was tryingto snatch a kiss. While we drove along the Front, the children wavedtheir hands over the sides of the drosky, and shouted with delight. 'Twas a Bacchanal with laughter for wine. The Square turned out towitness our arrival. "Her's come!" the kiddies cried. Dane leapt outfirst, found a rabbit's head and bolted it whole. The rest of usscrambled out. The luggage was piled up in the passage. Hastening inhis stockinged feet (he had been putting away an hour) to say that hewas on the point of coming up to station, Tony bruised a toe and barkeda shin. But it was no time to be savage. I wonder where else the twoshillings I paid for the drosky would have purchased so much delight. Or rather, the delight was in ourselves, in the children; the twoshillings served only to unlock it. 

[Sidenote: _CHILDREN_]

What precisely there is of difference between these children and thoseof the middle and upper classes has always puzzled me. That there is adifference I feel certain. A few years ago, when I had so much to dowith the boys and girls of a high school, they liked me pretty well, Ithink, and trusted me, but they did not take to me, nor I very greatlyto them. They went about their business, and I about mine. If I invitedthem for a walk, they came gladly, not because it was a walk with me, but because I knew of interesting muddy places, and where to findstrange things. Their manners to me were always good: good mannerssmoothed our intercourse. But in no sense were our lives interwoven. Wewere side-shows, the one to the other. I was content that it should beso, and they were too. 

Here, on the other hand, my difficulty is to get rid of the childrenwhen I wish to go out by myself. They follow me out to the Front, andmeet me there when I return, running towards me with shouting and armsupraised, tumbling over their own toes, and taking me home as if I werea huge pet dog of theirs. "Where be yu going?" they ask, and, "Where yubeen?" Jimmy regards me as a fixture. "When yu goes away for two ordree days, " he says, "I'll write to 'ee, like Dad du. " I cross theSquare, and some child, lolling over the board across a doorway, laughsto me shrilly and waves its arms. If by taking thought, I could sendsuch a glow to the hearts of those I love, as that child, withoutthinking, sends to mine. .. . But I cannot. I can only wave a hand backto the child, and be thankful and full-hearted. Often enough I wish Icould have a piano and find out whether my fingers will still playChopin, Beethoven, and Bach; often I hanker after a sight of a certainpicture or a certain statue in the Louvre or Luxembourg, for a concert, a theatre, a right-down good argument on some intellectual point, orfor the books I want to read and never shall. Yet, all in all, I amnever sorry for long. This children's babble and laughter, thesesimple, commonplace, wonderful affections, are a hundred times wortheverything I miss. 

It is not that I buy the children bananas or give them an infrequentha'penny. When bananas and ha'pence are scarce, their love is no less. It is not that I am always good-tempered and jolly. Sometimes I snapunmercifully, so that they look at me with scared, inquiring eyes. Itis not that they are always well-behaved. Frequently they are verynaughty indeed. The causes of our sympathy lie deeper. 

They are more na�ve than the children who are in process of beingwell-educated; more independent and also more dependent. They feel morekeenly any separation from those they love; they cry lustily if theirmother disappears only for an hour or two; and nevertheless they canfend for themselves out and about as children more carefully nurturedcould never do. Less able to travel by themselves, they do travelalone, and in the end quite as successfully. They make more mistakesand retrieve them better. Affection with them more rapidly and franklytranslates itself into action. They laugh quickly, cry quickly, swearquickly. "Yu'm a fule!" they rap out without a moment's hesitation; andI suppose I am, else they wouldn't want to say so. Perhaps I overvaluethe physical manifestations of love, but if a child will take my hand, or climb upon my knee, or kiss me unawares, then to certainty of itsaffection is added a greater contentment and a deeper faith. The peaceof a child that sleeps upon one's shoulder, is given also to oneself. The appurtenances of love mean much to me; nearness, warmth, caresses. But I cannot make the advances; I was bred in a different school where, though frankness was encouraged, _na�vet�_ was repressed; and I am themore grateful to these children for taking me in hand--for being ableto do so. 

[Sidenote: _MANNERS_]

Tommy has returned from the Plymouth Eye Infirmary much quietened downin many respects and, as most people would say, much better mannered. He is neater and a better listener to conversation. He puts his shoesunder the table, does not throw them. But he has brought back also someof the nurses' exclamations of surprise--"Oh, I say!" "Not I!" "Youdon't say so!" "What idiocy!" and the like. No doubt those expressionssounded quite proper among the nurses, but on Tommy's lips they seemcuriously more vulgar than his natural and rougher expletives. It is, besides, as if one were eavesdropping outside the nurses' common room. 

Much of the charm of these children, and of the grown-ups too, lies inthe fact that, apart from a few points on which etiquette is verystrict, they have no manners. I don't mean that they are bad-mannered;quite the contrary; what I mean is that their manners are not codified. Having no rules for behaviour under various circumstances, they must oneach occasion act according to their kindliness and desire to please, or the reverse. They must go back to the first principles of manners. What they are, that they appear. What they feel at the moment, thatthey show. The kind man or child is kindly; the brutal or spiteful bynature are brutal or spiteful in manner. Elsewhere, among people ofbreeding, manners make the man--and hide him. Here, the man makes hisown manners, and in so doing still further reveals himself. 

I have known a professional man who was rather well-spoken of for hisgood manners, fail lamentably so soon as he found himself insurroundings not his own. His code of manners did not apply there, andoutside his code he had no manners. He was excessively rude. He showedat once that his customary good manners were founded on rules welllearnt, and not on any real consideration for other people's feelings. The incredible impertinence of clergymen and district visitorsfurnishes plenty of cases in point. Their manners, no doubt, are prettygood among themselves. Yet it is a common saying here, "What chake theygentry've got!" A 'district lady' entered Mrs Stidson's cottage withoutknock or warning, just when Mrs Stidson was cleaning up and wanted novisitors of any sort. "What's the matter with your eye?" asked thedistrict lady. Mrs Stidson refused to answer. ("Untidy, intractablewoman!") But a neighbour upspoke and said, "Tis her husband, mam, ashave give'd her a black eye. " At which the district lady exclaimed, "Mygood woman, why don't you leave him. You _ought_ to leave him--atonce!" Mrs Stidson has a number of young children. 

[Sidenote: _TONY'S FOOT IN IT_]

It might have been expected, on the other hand, when Tony and myselfwent on holiday up-country, stayed at a largish much-upholstered hotel, and dined out several times as he had never done before, that he wouldhave been like a fish out of water, very awkward, and would havecommitted a number of bad _faux pas_. Nothing of the sort. He wasnervous, certainly, and the numerous knives, forks and glasses somewhatconfused him at first. But Tony's good manners are not codified. He issensitive, kindly, desirous of pleasing, quick to observe. On thatbasis, he invented for himself, according to the occasion, the mannershe had not been taught. At the same time he remained himself. And hewas a complete success. Nobody had any reason to blush on Tony'sbehalf. Except once; when he remarked to some ladies after dinner thathe found Londoners very nice and free-like; that a pretty young ladyhad stopped him in the Strand the evening before, and had called himPercy; that he hadn't had time to tell her she'd made a mistake, andthat, in fact, he might have knowed her tu Seacombe, only he didn'trecollect. 

There was a bad pause. 

Tony doesn't think ill of anybody without cause. _Honi soit qui mal ypense_ might very well be _his_ motto. 

2

News has come along from Plymouth that the boats there have fallen inwith large shoals of herring. The air here has since been charged withexcitement--the excitement of men who earn their livelihood by gamblingwith the sea. The drifters have fitted out. Most of the boats are upover--lying on the sea wall--but a few days ago many busy blue men slidthe big brown drifters down their shoots to the beach. Looking along, one saw a couple of men standing in each drifter and, with theleisurely haste of seamen, drawing in their nets. It gave a peculiarsavour, a hopeful animation, to the blank wintry sea. It was as if thespring had come to us human beings prematurely, before it was ready toseize on nature. 

[Sidenote: _ON THE CLIFFS_]

Yesterday afternoon I felt too unwell to lend a hand in shoving off theboats. So I climbed to the top of the East Cliff. The air was cool andstill--so still that all the Seacombe smoke hung in the valley anddrifted slowly to seawards and faded there. While the sun was settingbehind a bank of sulky dull clouds, some woolpacks, faintly outlined inwhite against the grey, rose almost imperceptibly in the western sky. Everything, the sea itself, seemed very dry. Nothing moved on thecliffs, except some small birds which flittered homelessly among theblack and twisted burnt gorse. They were very tiny and pitiful against, or indeed amid, the solemn gathering of the great slow clouds. Onlooking down from the edge of the cliff, a slight mistiness of the airgave one the impression that there was, lying level above the sea, asheet of glass that dulled the sound of the water yet allowed one todiscern every half-formed ripple, and even the purple of the rocksbeneath. Five hundred feet below and a quarter of a mile out, werethree boats. They also, like the birds, seemed pitifully tiny. But, unlike the birds, they did not seem purposeless. It was evident theywere moving, though one could not see rowers, oars, or splashes, forthey progressed in short jumps and above the dulled rattle of a billowbreaking on the pebbles, the faint click-thud of oars betweenthole-pins was plainly audible. I had an odd fancy that the six menwere rowing through immensity, into eternity, to meet God; and thatthey would so continue rowing, eternally. 

This morning, very early, the crackle of burning wood in the kitchenfireplace awoke me. Then I heard the sea roaring; then Tony's bare feeton the stairs. "Wind's backed an' come on to blow, " he said. "They'vea-had to hard up an' urn for it. Two on 'em's in, an' one have a-lostedtwo nets. I told 'em 'twasn't vitty when they shoved off. 'Tis blowinghard. I be going out along to see w'er t'other on 'em's in eet. "

The sea was angry, the moon obscure. The dead-asleep town stood upmotionless before the madly-living breakers. It seemed as if a horriblefight was in progress; loud rage and dumb treachery face to face in thesemi-darkness; and between the livelong combatants, little men ran toand fro, peering out to sea. 

Presently the third boat ran ashore. Its bellied sail hid everythingfrom us who waited at the water's edge. It was hoisted on a high wave, and cast on land. The sea did not want it then. The sea spewed it up. The sea can afford to wait, even until the clean bright little town isa ruin on a salt marsh. 

Returning in house, we made hot tea, and laughed. 

3

We had, as it were, said _Good-Night_ to the town, though it was onlyhalf-past three in the afternoon. Most lazy we must have looked as wesailed off to the fishing ground with a light fair wind, NNW. John'syoung muscular frame was leaning against the mainmast, like amagnificent statue dressed for the moment in fishermen's rig. Tony aftwas lounging across the tiller. He fits the tiller, for he is older andbent and his eyes are deeply crowsfooted with watching. Both of themshowed the same splendid contrast of navy-blue jerseys against sea eyesand spray-stung red and russet skins. I was lying full length along themidship thwart. We lopped along lazily, about three knots to the hour. 

[Sidenote: _HERRING DRIFTING_]

As we lounged and smoked, each of us sang a different song, more orless in tune. It sounded not unmelodious upon the large waters. Atintervals we asked one another where the 'gert bodies of herrings' hadgone off to. Eastwards, westwards, to the offing, or down to the bottomto spawn?

So near the land we were, yet so far from it in feeling. There, to theNE. Was the little town, sunlit and brilliantly white, with the churchtower rising in the middle and the heather-topped cloud-capped hillsbehind. There around the bay, were the red cliffs, crossed by deepshadows and splotched with dark green bushes. The land was there. Wewere to sea. The water, which barely gurgled beneath the bows of thedrifter, was rushing up the beaches under the cliffs with amyriad-sounding rattle. Gulls, bright pearly white or black ascormorants, according as the light struck them, were our onlycompanions. The little craft our kingdom was--twenty-two foot long byeight in the beam, --and a pretty pickle of a kingdom!

Mixed up together in the stern were spare cork buoys, rope ends, sacksof ballast and Tony. Midships were the piled up nets and buoys. For'ardwere more ballast bags and rope ends, some cordage, old clothes, sacks, paper bags of supper, four bottles of cold tea, two of paraffin oil andone of water, the riding lamp and a very old fish-box, half full ofpebbles, for cooking on. All over the boat were herring scales andsmelly blobs of roe. It's sometime now since the old craft was scrapedand painted. 

But the golden light of the sunset gilded everything, and the probablecatch was what concerned us. 

We chose our berth among the other drifters that were on the ground. Weshot two hundred and forty fathom of net with a swishing plash of theyarn and a smack-smack-splutter of the buoys. We had our supper ofsandwiches and tatie-cake and hotted-up tea. 

"Can 'ee smell ort?" asked John sniffing out over the bows. 

"Herring!" said I. "I can smell 'em plainly. "

"Then there's fish about. "

Tony however remarked the absence of birds, and declared that the waterdidn't look so fishy as when they had their last big haul. "Theyherrings be gone east, " he repeated. 

"G'out! What did 'ee come west for then? I told yu to du as yu wasminded, an' yu did, didn' 'ee? Us'll haul up in a couple o' hours an'see w'er us got any. "

We didn't turn in. We piled on clothes and stayed drinking, smoking, chatting, singing--a boat-full of life swinging gently to the nets inan immense dark silence, an immense sea-whisper. 

[Sidenote: _HAULING IN THE NETS_]

About nine o'clock we hauled in for not more than nine dozen of fish. The sea-fire glimmered on the rising net, glittered in the boat, andthen, with an almost painful suddenness, snuffed out. "They be so fullas eggs, " said John every minute or two, holding out fish to Tony, whofelt them and answered, "Iss, they'm no scanters [spawned or undersizedfish]. _They_ bain't here alone. "

Nets inboard, we rowed a little east of another boat, to shoot a secondtime. John said, "Hoist the sail, can't 'ee. " Tony said, "What's theneed?"

Before eleven we were foul of the other boat's nets and had again tohaul in. Tony puffed and panted with the double weight; Johndisentangled the mesh and swore. 

"If we'd a-hoisted the sail. .. " he grumbled. 

"There wasn't no need if we'd a-pulled a bit farther. "

"What's the good o' pulling yer arms out?"

"I knowed where to go, on'y yu said we was far enough. "

"No I didn't!"

"S'thee think I don' know where to shute a fleet o' nets?"

"Well, we'm foul, anyhow. "

"I was herring drifting afore yu was born. I knows well enough. "

"Why don' 'ee hae yer own way then, if yu knows. Yu'm s'posed to beskipper here. "

"If I'd had me own way. .. . "

"Hould thy bloody row, casn'!"

It sounded like murder gathering up; but Tony calls it their brotherlylove-talk, and they are no worse friends for it all. The better thecatch, the more exciting the work, and the livelier the love-talk. Theysay, therefore, that it brings luck to a boat. 

A third time we shot nets, safely to the east of every other craft. Then John with his legs in a sack and a fearnought jacket round him, snored in the cutty, whilst Tony nodded sleepily outside. The skyeastwards had already in it the weird whitish light of the coming moon. The risen wind was piping out from land. I could see the bobbing lightsof the other drifters to westward, and the glint of the Seacombe lampson the water. Every now and then a broken wave came up to the boat witha confidential hiss. I had a constant impression that out of the darkflood some great voice was going to speak to me--speak quite softly. 

"Shall us hot some more tea?" said Tony. "My feet be dead wi' cold. "

We took the old fish-box and placed on the pebbles in it an oldsaucepan half full of oakum soaked in paraffin. Across the saucepan weledged a sooty swivel, and on the swivel a black tin kettle whichleaked slowly into the flame. Tony and myself lay with our four feetcocked along the edge of the box for warmth. The smoke stank in ournostrils, but the flame was cheery. By that flickering light the boatlooked a great deep place, full of lumber and the blackest shadows. Theherring scales glittered and the worn-out varnish was like rich brownvelvet. And how good the tea, though it tasted of nothing but sugar, smoke, paraffin and herring. 

[Sidenote: _A LONG NIGHT AT SEA_]

It was nearly midnight. Tony suggested forty winks. 

John was still sprawling beneath the cutty. Tony and I snoozed underthe mainsail, huddled up together for the sake of warmth, like animalsin a nest. At intervals we got up to peep over the gunwale or to balethe boat out. Then with comic sighs we coiled down together again. Itwas bitterly cold in the small hours. We pooled our vitality, as itwere, and shared and shared alike. When we finally awoke, about five inthe morning, the wind had died down, the sky and moon were clouded, anda dull mist was creeping over the sea. 

We hauled in the net--fathoms of it for scarcely a fish. 

"Have 'ee got anything to eat?" asked Tony. 

"No. "

"Have yu got ort to drink?" asked John. 

"No. "

"Got a cigarette?" I asked. 

"Not one. "

"If we was to go a bit farther out and shute. .. . " said Tony. 

"G'out! Hould yer row!"

"All very well for yu. Yu been sleeping there for all the world like agert duncow [dog-fish]. Why didn' 'ee wake up an' hae a yarn for tokeep things merry like?"

[Sidenote: _NORT' AT ALL_]

John was leaning out over the bows. He rose up; stretched himself. "Shute again!" he said with scorn. "Us an't got nort to eat, nort todrink, nort to smoke, nor nort to talk about, an' us an't catched nort. Gimme thic sweep there, an' let's get in out o' it, I say. "

It was foggy. I steered the boat by compass over a sea that, under thesmudged moon, was in colour and curve like pale violently shaken liquidmud. In time we glimpsed the cliffs with the mist creeping up overthem. Day was beginning to break, and with a breath of wind that hadsprung up from the SE. , we glided like a phantom ship on a phantom seatowards a phantom town between whose blind houses the wisps of the fogwrithed tortuously. 

Sixteen hours to sea in an open boat--for three hundred herrings--andthe price three shillings a hundred!

It is nothing to fishermen, that; but we were all glad of ourbreakfast, a smoke and our beds. 

4

Tony was gone to sea on Christmas Eve. (They caught three thousand). Mrs Widger had cricked her back, or had caught cold in it standing atthe back door with the steaming wash-tub in front of her and anortherly wind behind. We wanted some supper beer. .. . 

I felt more than a little shy on entering the jug and bottle departmentwith a jug. It is such a secret place. To face a bar full of people andplump a jug down on the counter, is one thing; but it is quite anotherto slink up the stairs and into the wooden box--about seven feet highand four by four--that does duty for the jug and bottle department, andthe privy tippling place, of the Alexandra Hotel. There is no gasthere. Light filters in from elsewhere. It holds about five people, jammed close together. Round it runs a shelf for glasses, and at oneend is a tiny door through which jugs are passed to the barman. Oncethere was a curtain across the entrance, but it was put to such goodand frequent use that they removed it. Talk in the jug and bottle boxis usually carried on in soft whispers punctuated by laughter. 

Three cloaked old women were there and one young one. Their jugs stoodon the shelf, ready to take home, but meanwhile they were having around of drinks on their own account. They looked surprised at myarrival (it was an intrusion); and more surprised still when, onhearing that the barman was merely having a chat the other side, Irattled the jug on the shelf and bumped the little door. They gaspedwhen I slipped the bolt of the little door with a penknife. What chaketo be sure! The hotel shows respect to its light-o'-day customers, butthe dim jug and bottle box is supposed to show respect to the hotel. Itcalls the barman _Sir_. It said, "Good-night, sir!" in astonishedchorus to me. 

But just as the mere act of jumping a skipping rope made me long ago afreeman among the children, so I notice that fetching the supper beerhas resulted in another indefinable promotion. I am not so much now'thic ther gen'leman tu Tony Widger's. ' I am become 'MisterSo-and-so'--myself alone. 

When I returned with the jug Jimmy was seated at the table and sayingbetween tears, "I want some supper, Mam. I be 'ungry. "

"Yu daring rascal! Yu'll catch your death o' cold if yu goes on gettingyour feet wet like this, night after night. I'll break every bone inyour body, I will! Take off they beuts to once, an' go on up over. An'tgot no supper for the likes o' you. Yu shan't wear your best clothesto-morrow, n'eet at all, spoiling 'em like this, yu dirty little cat!I'll beat it out o' 'ee. Now then! Up over!"

Very tearful, very hungry, and very slowly, Jimmy went to bed. 

"No supper's the thing for the likes o' he, " his mother remarked. "Ishall gie it to him one o' these days, but I don't hold wi' knocking'em about tu much. "

Her impatience in speech and patience in action are alikeextraordinary. She says she will half kill the children and seldomstrikes even: if I had the responsibility of them, I fear I should doboth. 

[Sidenote: _SUNDAY CLOTHES_]

Next morning there was a fine dispute over the Sunday clothes. BothJimmy and Tommy went upstairs defiantly, and routed them out. Thekitchen was filled with cries and jeers and threats. Tommy appealed tome. I told him I knew nothing about it, because I hadn't got any Sundayclothes myself. 

"Iss, yu 'ave, " said Tommy. 

"No, not a rag. "

"Yu 'ave. "

"I haven't. I've none at all. You've never seen them. "

"G'out!"

"That's right. "

"Well, " said Tommy confidentially, "Yu got a clean chimie-shirt then, an't 'ee?"

In the laughter which followed, the Sunday clothes were slipped on. Andwhile Jimmy was struggling with a new pair of boots, he paid me thenicest compliment I have ever heard. He looked up, red but thoughtful. "Yu'm like Father Christmas, " he said. 

"Why for, Jimmy?"

"'Cause yu'm kind. "

Jimmy doesn't know how kind he is to me. And I don't suppose it woulddo him any good to tell him. 

We had a very typical and enjoyable English Christmas. We over-ateourselves, and were well pleased, and the children went to bed crying. 

5

[Sidenote: _THE "SHOOTING STAR" FITS OUT_]

"_Shuteing Star o' Seacombe!_ '_Tis_ a purty crew to go herringdriftin'! I'd so soon fall overboard in a gale o' wind as go out to saywi' thic li'l Roosian like that ther. Lord! did 'ee ever see the likeo'it? I never did. But there, what can 'ee 'spect when the herring beup in price an' men an' boats as hasn' been to sea for years fits outfor to go herring driftin'? Coo'h! driftin'!"

That was Uncle Jake's opinion. He stood on the shingle with his oldcuriosity of a hat cocked on one side and his hands deep in his trouserpockets, turning himself round inside his clothes to rub warmth intohis skin; talking, always talking, whilst his twinkling eyes watch seaand land; but ready to help a boat shove off, and willing to take aspay the opportunity of talking to, and at, its crew. "'Tis blowing afresh wind out 'long there, I tell 'ee, " was his formula ofencouragement for a starting boat. 

Herrings were up! Sixteen shillings a thousand they had been beforeChristmas; then eighteen, twenty-three, thirty-one. .. . "They'm fetchingtwo poun' a thousand tu Plymouth, what there is, an' buyers therewaiting from all over the kingdom. An' they'm still going up, 'causethere ain't none. Nine bob a hunderd tu St Ives, I've a-heard say. There's a Plymouth buyer here to-day. I've a-see'd our Seacombe buyersluke. They Plymouth men be the bwoys!"

Herrings too have been in our bay as they have not come foryears--'gert bodies of 'em'--while a succession of gales and blizzardshas been sweeping the whole of the rest of the British coasts, anddriving the steam-drifters into harbour. Hence the price of fish:quotations very high; business nil, or next door to it. Our bayhowever, by a fortunate freak of the weather, has been amply calm forour little undecked drifters, though squalls off land have made sailingtricky in the extreme. We have seen the snow on the distant hills butnone has fallen here. We have had the ground-swell, rolling in fromoutside, but of broken seas, not one. 

The boats that came in early on Christmas night (they didn't like thelook of the weather) brought hauls of ten thousand or so. They hadgiven away netfuls of herring to craft from other places, because theyhad caught so many, and the wind was against them and the sky wild. 

Next night, much the same thing. It was rumoured that some Cornishcraft were beating up to the bay. 

Next day, the Little Russian, a small, snug, ragged, much-bearded man, was to be seen painting the stern of his old boat--a craft moretattered and torn, if possible, than her owner. 

"What be doing, Harry?"

No reply. Great industry with the paint-brush. 

"Be going to sea then?"

"Iss intye! What did 'er think?"

The Little Russian went on doggedly with his work, and when he rosefrom his knees, there appeared complete, on the stern of his boat, inlanky, crooked white letters: _Shooting Star of Seacombe_. 

"Be it true yu'm going to sea t'night, Harry?"

"Iss. "

"What do 'ee 'spect to catch? Eh?"

No answer again. The Little Russian was hauling a couple of netsaboard. 

"Who be going with 'ee?"

"Ol' Joe Barker an' 'Gustus Theodore. "

"Good Lord! '_Tis_ a crew, that! Be 'ee going to catch dree dozen orten thousand?"

"We'm on'y taking two nets, " replied the Little Russian quiteseriously. 

He was very busy. 

[Sidenote: _AND SHOVES OFF_]

About three in the afternoon, when the drifters put out to sea, thenor'west wind was springing out from land in squalls. It had notsea-space to raise big waves, but it blew the white tops off thewavelets which hurried out against, and on the top of, the sou'westerlyswell that was heaving its way in. As Uncle Jake remarked: "'Tisblowing fresh, I can tell 'ee, an' not so very far out at that. An''tis blowing half a gale from the sou'west outside in the Channel. Do'ee see thic black line across the horizon? That's the sou'west wind, an' plenty o'it. Luke at thees yer run along the shore, wi' a calm sea. 'Tis the sou'west outside as makes that tu. "

The boats hoisted their smaller mainsails. "Aye, an' they'll hae toreef they down afore they gets out far. There! did 'ee see thic? That'sthiccy seine-boat as fitted out. Seine-boats ain't no fit craft forherring driftin'. "

The mainmast of the seine boat had toppled over to port. No sooner wasit re-stepped, and the sail hoisted, than over it went again. "Step o'the mast gone, I'll be bound, " said Uncle Jake. "They'm going tocapsize, going on like that, if they bain't careful. Poor job! whenmastises goes over like that. Better to row. .. . There's thic Li'lRoosian shoving off!"

In fact, the _Shooting Star_ was shoved off, but a wave threw her backupon the shore. She was again shoved off. Again she grounded on thesand, and there she stuck. A roar of laughter broke forth all along thebeach. The Little Russian and his crew stood up in the heeled-overboat, and by using their oars like punt poles, they tried to preventthe seas from slewing them round broadside on. Very helpless theylooked, very comic, very futile. 

A swarm of small boys buzzed around and jeered. The Little Russianjumped up and down with vexation. Augustus Theodore, rowing franticallyin a foot or so of water, splashed and 'caught crabs. ' Joe Barker, tall, patriarchal, thin and thinly clad, stood up to his oar, lookedsavage curses from his sunken old eyes and muttered them into hisbeard. 

[Sidenote: _AND GETS OFF_]

"That _be_ a purty crew!" repeated Uncle Jake. "I 'ouldn' go to say wi''em, not if. .. . A purty fellow, thic 'Gustus Theodore! They callschil'ern by names nowadays, but they called he 'Gustus Theodore, an' uscan't get over thic, so us al'ays calls 'en 'Gustus Theodore in long. Bain't no gude tu hisself nor nobody else. I've a-took 'en to say. .. . Never again! 'Er ain't no fisherman nuther. An' thic Joe Barker's pastit. He've had his day. Been in the Army an' been in the Navy, an' an'tbrought no pension out o' the one n'eet out o' t'other. Helped throw a'Merican midshipman overboard once, so they say, drough a porthole. Thought they was going to be hanged for it, but they wasn't. He'vea-lived wildish in his time, I can tell 'ee; an' now he's the man forsleep. Take 'en out shrimping or lifting crab-pots, stop rowing aminute an' he's fast asleep. The Li'l Roosian hisself an't been to saythees dozen years. 'Tis a crew o'it! Luke! _they_ can't shove off. Ican see they wants Uncle Jake there. "

The _Shooting Star_ was still being shoved. The Little Russian wasstill jumping up and down in the stern-sheets; Augustus Theodore wasstill rowing fast and fruitlessly; and Joe Barker stood impassivelytall--a mummy of a man, wrapped up in aged clothes and a great dirtywhite beard. Life was contracted within him. No more than his eyesseemed alive, and hardly those until you looked closely; for the yellowrims and whites appeared to be dead, and the old cursing flame of lifeburnt only in the pupils. 

"Do 'ee really mean to go?" asked Uncle Jake, taking up a long oar toshove with. "'Tisn't nowise fit for a crazy craft like thees yer. "

"When a man, " said the Little Russian solemnly, "when a man has achance to catch herring and pay his way, and pay a debt or two maybe, 'tis on'y right to try. "

"For sure 'tis. But why an't 'ee been to say thees twelve year then?"

"An't been fit. .. . "

"Fit! Tis the price o' herring fetches the likes o' yu. Have 'ee gotyer lead-line and compass aboard?"

"I've broke mine. "

"'Tis tempting Providence to go away wi'out 'em Be yu off? Off yu goesthen. Luke out!"

A yell went up as a wave broke in over the stern and soaked JoeBarker's back. 

"They'm off!" cried Uncle Jave with ironic merriment. "Wet drough tothe skin they be!"

The Little Russian rowed steadily on the same side as 'Gustus Theodore. Both of them just balanced Joe Barker, who rowed on the other side instrong jerks, as if his aged strength revived for a part only of eachstroke. 

Darkness, drawing in over the sea, hid the drifters from sight. Alongthe beach we asked one another in jest, "I wonder what the _ShuteingStar_ is doing now?"

The commonest answer was a laugh. But we did want to know. 

Between eleven o'clock and midnight sail after sail appeared silentlyon the black darkness, as if some invisible hand had suddenly paintedthem there. The boats were coming in. Creaks and groans of winchessounded along the beach. 

[Sidenote: _AND RETURNS_]

"Who be yu?" was the greeting from a rabble of youths who scuttled upand down the waters' edge to guide boats to their berths and gain firstnews of the catches. "Have 'ee see'd ort o' the _Shuteing Star_?" theyshouted. 

"No-o-o-o!"

"_I_ shan't go to bed till they comes in, " said Uncle Jake. "Cuden'sleep if I did. '_Tis_ a craft! Her's so leaky as a sieve, lying dryall these years. Not but what her was a gude 'nuff li'l craft in hertime--tu small for winter work. But I wishes 'em luck, I du. "

At last, the _Shooting Star_ did row in. They had not dared to sailher. She touched the beach before we glimpsed her, for all ourwatching. A crowd ran down to haul her up and to crack jokes on her. 

"Have 'ee catched ort, Harry?"

"Tu or dree dizzen, an' half a ton o' coral an' some wild-crabs. "

"Did 'er sail well--keep up to the wind? Eh?"

"Us rowed. 'Tis blowin' a gale out there. "

"What yu done to your nets?"

"Broke 'em. "

"On to the bottom?"

"Iss. "

"Why didn't 'ee go crab-fishing proper? Be 'ee going again?"

The little Russan saw no joke. He bustled about the boat and replied:"A-course we be, if 'tis fit. "

"Well, I wishes 'ee luck then. "

We all wished luck to the _Shooting Star_--to that cranky old boatloadof pluck, ill-luck, and ancient desperation. 

Said Uncle Jake: "I'd rather see they come in wi' a boatload o' herringthan any boat along the beach. 'Tis a purty craft an' a purty crew, butthey du desarve it. "

So said we all. 'Twas the least payment we could make for ourentertainment. 

As soon as they were hauled up, Joe Barker lit his pipe, and, insteadof going to bed, he went west along the shore, and carried up andsifted sand till dawn. 

"Jest what he be fit for now, " Uncle Jake remarked. "That'll get 'enhis bread an' baccy far sooner'n drifting for herring in thic _ShuteingStar_. "

But if we only could have looked into the _Shooting Star_ at sea. The_Shooting Star of Seacombe_!

6

"Us got 'em at last then!" so we tell one another. We have caught thecatch of the season. 

For three or four days the hauls had been fairly good. Elsewhere on thecoast, the snow, sleet, wind and wrecks continued. Here alone, inSeacombe Bay, it got colder and colder, and the sea became calmer andsunnier. "Tis like old days, " Uncle Jake said while he spliced a newcut-rope to the drifter. "The herring be come again, in bodies, and theprice be up. Us'll hae 'em. "

[Sidenote: _PAYING CALLS AT SEA_]

An hour before sunset on Saturday afternoon we were shoved off thebeach--Tony, John, and myself. Every article of underclothing induplicate, a couple of guernseys and a coat or two were next tonakedness. We were bloated with clothes, but that northerly air, itseemed to be fingering our very skins. Yet there was hardly wind enoughto fill the sail. Ricketty-rock, ricketty-rock, went the sweeps betweenthe thole-pins, as we rowed to the fishing ground six miles or so away. Not one of us wished to shirk the heavy work. 'Twas indeed our onlysource of warmth. The sun was setting. The moon began to rise. The seawas all of a glimmer and glitter. 

"I should think we was nearly where they fish be, " said John. 

"Bit farther, " said Tony. "Us'll drift back 'long when the flid tidemakes. "

"Du as yu'm minded tu. "

"Steer her a little bit in, " directed Tony. 

"A little bit out, " directed John the next minute. 

It was a middle course that turned out so happily. 

We shot our nets--seven forty-fathom nets we had aboard--between thedying sunlight and the rising moon. Very still was the sea, and quiet, except where the other drifters were shooting their nets. Their talklingered on the water; small voices that yet sounded strong. By thelight of the moon I counted twenty-seven drifters, some of them greatharbour craft from Cornwall, carrying fifteen or more nets. It seemedas if not a herring on that little fishing ground could escape the longfleets of nets. 

We lighted the paraffin flare; supped on sandwiches and oily tea. Westamped about the stern-sheets to try and warm our feet. We sat awhilebeneath the cutty. We thought we smelt fish, but it might have beenonly the smoke from our oil fire and the herring roe plastered aboutthe boat. Despairing of sleep in such a cold, we sang and smoked. 

Presently a plash of oars. Little punts were detaching themselves fromthe larger drifters and flitting about on the sea like slow-wingedmoon-butterflies. One came alongside. 

"Whu's that there?"

"Tony an' John Widger--Have 'em been catching much to Hallsands?--Bethey Plymouth drifters up t'night?--What price yu been making?--Howdeep yu got yer nets?--Have 'ee catched holt the bottom?--How's Aaronan' Charles?--Did he get back ort o' his gear?--Us an't done a gertdeal eet. Few thousands thees week. Be yu going to haul insoon?--Better, be her? Thought her was dead by now. .. . "

[Sidenote: _HAULING IN_]

The fish-gossip over, we knew all the news of our stretch of coast. After taking another cigarette and another pull at our 'drop o' summutshort, ' the man in the punt rowed off to his drifter. 

"D' yu know your fourth buoy's awash?" he shouted back. 

"Is it, by God!" said John. 

"I can see 'tis, " said Tony. 

"G'out! why didn' 'ee see 'twas afore then? Let's go an' luke. "

We buoyed the end of the road and started rowing alongside thenet-buoys. The fourth was bobbing up and down. The fifth appeared nowand then. None of the others was visible. 

"Damn'd if us bain't going to see some sport!" shouted John as wehastened back to take up the road. 

We tugged on oilskins and then waited watchfully--for the inside net tofill as well. The third buoy disappeared. The second went awash. "Now'tis time, ain't it?"

"Iss, I reckon. "

We bent to it, and began to haul. 

The road come in heavy: John hauled and Tony coiled. As the net rose wesaw a shimmer in the water, not of sea-fire--it was too cold--but ofsilver-sided herring. Then John took the foot of the net, Tony the meshand myself the headrope. One strain. Altogether! Net and fish came inover the gunwale. 

"No use to try and pick 'em out yer!" said John. 

"Us 'ould never ha' got 'em in wi' two, " panted Tony. 

"Haul, casn'! Trim the boat. We'm going to hae all us can carry ift'other nets be so full as thees yer. "

We hauled, and pulled, and puffed and swore. The fish came over theside like a band of jewels, like shining grains on a huge andnever-ending ear of corn, like a bright steel mat. .. . It was as if themoonlight itself, that flooded air and water, was solidifying into fishin the dimmer depths of the sea. A good catch must have dropped backout of the net. At times, it seemed as if nothing could move theheadrope. I jammed a knee against the gunwale, waited till the dippingof the boat gave me a foot or two of line, then jammed again to holdit. The sea-birds screeched at their feast. 

Tony, an inflated mannikin, danced on the piled-up nets and fish. "Help, help!" he cried to the next drifter. "Us got a catch. "

"Hould yer row!"

"Help, help!"

"Shut up, yu fule!--We'm not done yet. --Thee doesn't want to pay forhelp, dost?"

[Sidenote: _THE CATCH OF THE SEASON_]

We hauled, pulled, puffed and swore again. Yard by yard the nets cameup, now foul, now broken, now tangled, now wound about the headrope andalmost solid with fish. 

"Oh, my poor back. "

"Lord, my arms!"

"Casn' thee trim a boat better'n that?"

"Where 'er down tu?"

"There's only two strakes to spare. "

The water was within less than a foot of the gunwale, and we were fiveor six miles from home. 

"Help, help!" shouted Tony again, and this time we let it pass. Fiveout of our seven nets were aboard; we could not take the remaining two. 

Another drifter came alongside and took in the sixth net. 

"Come on! here's the seventh--the last. "

"Can't take no more. "

"Ther's on'y thees yer outside net. Casn' thee take thic?"

"Can't du it. We'm leaking now. Here's your headrope. Good-night. "

Tony gave a gesture of despair. "What shall us du? Us can't take inmuch more. 

"Hould yer row, an' haul!"

The last net was fuller than ever. We hauled in half of it. A punt camenear. "Can 'ee take one net?" yelled Tony. 

"Us got 'en half in now, " said John. 

"Iss, but the wind's gone round--north-easterly--dead against us. An'luke at the circle round the mune. Ther's wind in thic sky, I tell 'ee. Us got so much now as we can carry home on a calm sea, let 'lonechoppy. "

We cut the net. 

"Hurry up! Hoist sail and get in out o'it 'fore the wind rises. Comeon!"

With two oars out to windward we started beating home. We made a tackout to sea. There the waves skatted in over the bows, for thedeeply-laden boat was down by the head because the heavy pile of netand fish prevented the water from running aft where we could havebailed it out. If we had had to tack much farther to sea. .. . We shouldhave lost the catch, and perhaps ourselves. 

We put the boat round towards Seacombe. "Luff her up all yu can, " saidJohn. "Luff her up, I tell thee, or we'm never going to fetch. Thesea's rising an' us an't got nort to spare. "

By keeping the luff of the sail in a flutter, sometimes too much intothe wind, I just fetched. Then we rowed into smoother water. 

"'Tis fifteen thousand if 'tis one, " said John. 

"'Tis more'n that, " said Tony with a note of respect in his voice. 

[Sidenote: _PACKING THE FISH_]

"Better wait till they sends some boats out. Us can't baych the boatwi' thees weight in her. "

We yelled, anchored, then waited; swore, yelled and waited. Someonecame at last. The great heavy mast was sent ashore. Two boatloads ofnet and fish followed, and finally the drifter herself was beached. 

The crowd that had gathered on the shingle worked at the winch andropes. We walked about among them answering questions, but for themoment doing nothing. We felt we had a right to watch the landlubberswork in return for the herrings we threw out to them. We had been tosea; had caught the catch of the season. 

I came in house and fried some herrings for supper. Tony and John wentback to the boat. All night long they worked under the moon, drawingout the net and picking the fish from it, standing knee-deep in fish, spotted with scales like sequins. Far into Sunday they worked, countingand packing the fish while the Sunday folk in their best clothesstrolled along the sea-wall and sniffed. 

Twenty-two long-thousand herrings--squashed, dirty andbloodstained--were carted away in the barrels. Twenty-eight hours Tonyand John had worked. Then they washed, picked herring scales offthemselves, and rested. The skin was drawn tightly over their facesand, as it were, away from their eyes. I saw, as I glanced at them, what they will look like when they are old men: the skull andcrossbones half peeped out. And I said to myself: "When we feed onherrings we feed on fishermen's strength. Though we don't cook humanmeat, we are cannibals yet. We eat each other's lives. "

Rightly considered, that's not a nasty thought. Nor a new one either. 

7

New Year's Eve last night. .. . Tony did not go to sea. He announced thathe would turn over a new leaf, and be a gen'leman, and not do no workno more. "Summut'll turn up, " he said when I asked him how he was goingto feed his family. "Al'ays have done an' al'ays will, I s'pose. Theesyer ol' fule 'll go on till he's clean worked out. Thee casn' die butonce, an' thee casn' help o'it nuther. 

"Shut thee chatter an' bring in some wude, " said Mrs Widger. "Now thenyu children, off yu goes! Up over, else my hand'll be 'longside o'ee!"

"Gude-night!" say the children in chorus. "Gude-night! Gude-night! Seeyu t'morrow morning. Du us hae presents on New Year's Day, Mam?"

"Yu'll see. P'raps a cracker. .. . "

"Coo'h. .. . "

"Up over!"

"What 'tis tu be a family man, " said Tony. 

"Whu's fault's that?" Mam Widger retorted. 

"There, me ol' stocking, don't thee worry a man! Gie us a kiss. .. . "

"G'out!"

[Sidenote: _DREE-HA'P'ORTH_]

The Christmas decorations and the little spangled toys from thechildren's crackers were still hanging from clothes-lines across thekitchen. We piled wood on the fire; it had barnacle shells on it; withthe wreckage of good ships we warmed ourselves. Mam Widger laid thesupper. The steam from the kettles puffed merrily into the room. Herrings were cooking in the oven. A faint odour--they were beingstewed in vinegar--stole out into the room to give us appetite and forthe moment a sense of plenty. Mrs Widger took a penny-ha'penny from thehousehold purse and handed it, together with a jug to Tony. "Dree-ha'p'orth o' ale an' stout. Go on. "

Tony returned with tupence-ha'p'orth. He had added a penny out of hisown pocket because he is ashamed to ask for less than a pint. GranniePinn came in at the same time. "I got the t'other pen'orth for memither-in-law, " said Tony. 

"Chake again!" Grannie Pinn cried. "I wants more'n a pen'orth, I du. "

Tony slipped off his boots just in time. It was I who had to fetch anextra dree-ha'p'orth. 

We supped with the uproariousness that Grannie Pinn always brings here. Some other people dropped in to see how we were doing. Not staying toclear the supper, we sang. The songs, as such, were indifferently good, but we meant them and enjoyed them. For a while Grannie Pinn contentedherself with humming and nodding to the chorus. She started singing:swore at us for laughing at her. "I cude sing a song wi' anybody once, "she said; and therewith she struck up a fine, very Rabelaisian old songin many verses. She lifted up her face to the ceiling, blushed (I amsure the Tough Old Stick blushed), and in a high cracked voice thatgradually gathered tone and force, she trolled her verses out. With aninfectious abandonment, we took up the chorus. After all, 'twas a songof things that happen every day--one of those pieces of folk-humourwhich makes life's seriousness bearable by carrying us frankly back tothe animal that is in us, that has been cursed for centuries and stillremains our strength. 

Grannie Pinn's song was the event of the evening. Excited by herefforts to the point of hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry, shetold us we were 'a pack o' gert fules, ' and went. The other visitorsfollowed after. 

"Don' know what yu feels like, " said Tony when they were all gone. "Ifeels more-ish. 'N hour agone I wer fit for bed, now I feels 's if Icude sing for hours on end. .. . "

[Sidenote: _THE NEW YEAR_]

"May as well welcome in the New Year now 'tis so late as 'tis, " saidMrs Widger, taking from one of her store-places a bottle of greenginger-wine and another of fearful and wonderful 'Invalid Port' which, as she remarked, 'ain't so strengthening as the port what gentry has. 'Tony added hot water to his ginger-wine, lay back in the courtingchair, plumped his feet on Mrs Widger's lap, and sang some more ofthose sea songs that have such melancholy windy tunes and yet mostcuriously stimulate one to action. I think it must be because they echothat particular sub-emotional desperation which causes men to do theirreckless best--the desperation that the treacherous sea itselfengenders. 

At a minute or two before twelve by the clock, the three of us went outto the back door. When the cats had scuttled away, the narrow walled-ingarden was very still. By the light of the stars, shining like pointsin the deep winter heavens, I could see the beansticks, the balks ofwood and the old masts and oars. I could also smell the drain. Tony, inhis stockinged feet, leant on his wife's shoulder while he raised firstone foot from the cold stones, and then the other. We were a littlehushed, with more than expectancy. So we waited; to hear the churchclock strike and to welcome in the New Year. 

And we waited until Tony said that his feet were too cold to stay thereany longer. The church clock struck--_ting-tang, ting-tang_--in thefrosty air. .. . A quarter past! The New Year had been with us all thewhile. It was our German-made kitchen clock had stopped. 

We laughed aloud because the strain was relaxed; then bolted the doorand began putting away the supper things. 

"If anybody wants to make me a New Year's Gift, " said Tony, "they cangie me a thousand a year. "

"And then yu'd be done for, " I said. "Yu cuden' stand a life o' nort todu. Nor cude I. We'm both in the same box, Tony. We've both got onlyour strength and skill and health, and if that fails, then we'm done. We'm our own stock-in-trade, and if we fail ourselves, then we've bothgot only the workhouse or the road. "

"Iss, " said Mam Widger, "an' I don' know but what yu'm worse off thanTony. He _cude_ get somebody to work his boats--for a time. An' I cudework. But afore yu comes to the workhouse yu jest walk along thees way, an' if us got ort to eat yu shall hae some o'it. "

"Be damn'd if yu shan't!" said Tony. (I was putting away the pepper-potat the moment). "Us 'ouldn't never let thee starve, not if us had itourselves for to give 'ee. "

 * * * * *

So there 'tis. I'd wish to do the same for him, that he knows. How muchthe spirit of such an offer can mean, only those who have been withouta home can understand fully. This New Year's Day has been happier thanmost. Life has made me a New Year's Gift so good that I cannot freemyself from a suspicion of its being too good. 

It has given me home. 

X

POSTSCRIPT

 SEACOMBE. 

I am often asked why I have forsaken the society of educated people, and have made my home among 'rough uneducated' people, in a poor man'shouse. The briefest answer is, that it is good to live among those who, on the whole, are one's superiors. 

It is pointed out with considerable care what ill effects such a lifehas, or is likely to have, upon a man. It is looked upon as a kind ofrelapse. But to settle down in a poor man's house is by no means toadopt a way of life that is less trouble. On the contrary, it is moretrouble. 

It is true that most of what schoolmasters call one's accomplishmentshave to be dropped. One cannot keep up everything anywhere. 

It is true that one goes to the theatre less and reads less. Life, lived with a will, is play enough, and closer acquaintance with life'ssterner realities renders one singularly impatient with the literatureof life's frillings. I do not notice, however, that it makes one lesssusceptible to the really fine and strong things of literature and art. 

It is true that one drops into dialect when excited; that one's mannerssuffer in conventional correctness. I suppose I know how to behavefairly correctly; I was well taught at all events; but my manners neverhave been and never will be so good, so considerate as Tony's. 'Tisn'tin me. 

It is true that one becomes much coarser. One acquires a habit oftalking with scandalous freedom about vital matters which among theunscientific educated are kept hid in the dark--and go fusty there. ButI do not think there is much vulgarity to be infected with here. Coarseness and vulgarity are incompatibles. It was well said in a bookwritten not long ago, that "Coarseness reveals but vulgarity hides. "Vulgarity is chiefly characteristic of the non-courageous who areeverlastingly bent on climbing up the social stairs. Poor people arehardly ever vulgar, until they begin to 'rise' into the middle class. 

[Sidenote: _WISDOM_]

It is true that, so far as knowledge goes, one is bound to be cock o'the walk among uneducated people--which, alone, is bad for a man. Butknowledge is not everything, nor even the main thing. Wisdom is morethan knowledge: it is _Knowledge applied to life, the ability to makeuse of the knowledge well_. In that respect I often have here to eat aslice of humble-pie. For all my elaborate education and painfullygained stock of knowledge, I find myself silenced time after time bythe direct wisdom of these so-called ignorant people. They havepreserved better, between knowledge and experience, that balance whichmakes for wisdom. They have less knowledge (less mental dyspepsy too)and use it to better purpose. It occurs to one finally that, accordingto our current standards, the great wise men whom we honour--Christ, Plato, Shakespeare, to name no more--were very ignorant fellows. Possibly the standards are wrong. 

[Sidenote: _DIFFERENTIAL EVOLUTION_]

To live with the poor is to feel oneself in contact with a greatercontinuity of tradition and to share in a greater stability of life. The nerves are more annoyed, the thinking self less. Perhaps thedifference between the two kinds of life may be tentativelyexpressed--not necessarily accounted for--in terms of DifferentialEvolution, [23] somewhat thus:

 (1) The first, the least speculative, evolutionary criterion of an animal is its degree of adaptation to its environment. 

 (2) Man exhibits a less degree of adaptation to environment than any other animal; principally because (_a_) he consists, roughly speaking, incomparably more than any other animal, of three interdependent parts--body, thinking brain, and that higher mental function that we call spirit--the development of any one of which, beyond a certain stage, is found to be detrimental to the other two; and because (_b_) he is able possibly to control directly his own evolution, and certainly to modify it indirectly by modifying the environment in which he evolves. He is able to make mistakes in his own evolution. 

 (3) The typical poor man is better adapted to his environment, such as it is, than the typical man of any other class; for he has been kept in closer contact with the primary realities--birth, death, risk, starvation;--in closer contact, that is to say, with those sections of human environment which are not of human making and which are common to all classes. He has fewer mistakes to go back upon. 

 [23] Evolution is at present the last refuge of unscientific minds which think they have explained a process when they have given it a new name, just as chemists used to call an obscure chemical action _catalytic_ and then assume that its nature was plain. _Evolution_ means an _unfolding_. In that sense it is an observed fact, though exactly how the unfolding is brought about is still conjectural. But it does not matter for the purposes of my argument whether human beings evolve by the transmission to offspring of acquired characteristics, or by bequeathing to them as birthright an environment that their fathers had to make. The material for constructing any theory of mental, or joint mental and physical evolution, is so hazy that one cannot do more than speculate. It may be noted, however, that acquired mental characteristics appear to be more transmissible, and less stable, than acquired physical characteristics; and that mental evolution (in the broad sense again) proceeds faster and collapses more readily than physical evolution. 

 It might be said, of course, that mal-adaptation at any given moment is more than counterbalanced by greater evolutional potentialities, or by greater inducement to evolve; and that the above chain of reasoning simply goes to prove that the poor man is more of an animal--less evolved. On the other hand, from an evolutionary standpoint, the animal faculties are the most basic of all. A sound stomach is more necessary than a highly developed brain, and good reproductive faculties are essential; because the first demand of evolution is plenty of material. It does not follow that our typical poor man is more of an animal, is less evolved, or has a smaller potentiality to evolve, because he has preserved better the animal faculties which lie at the basis of evolution. 

Furthermore:

 (4) There is a reasonable probability that an interior balance, between body, brain, and spirit, is more needful for realising the potentialities of evolution than rapidity of development in any single respect. _Mens sana in corpore sano--animaque integra_ is an ideal as sound as it is unachieved. More haste less speed, is probably true of human evolution. A healthy baby is more hopeful than a mad adult. 

 (5) The typical poor man does, now, exhibit a better balance between these three components of him. Less evolved in some ways, he is on the whole, and for that reason, more forward. His evolution is proceeding with greater solidity. It is more stable, and more likely to realise its potentialities. 

 * * * * *

That is a speculation among probabilities and possibilities; an attemptto go in a bee-line across fields that are mainly hidden ditches; afirst spying out of a country that wants mapping; a course over a seathat can never perhaps be buoyed, where bearings must be taken afreshfrom the sun for each voyage that is made. In any case, my belief growsstronger that the poor have kept essentially what a schoolboy calls thebetter end of the stick; not because their circumstances arebetter--materially their lives are often terrible enough--but becausethey know better how to make the most of what material circumstancesthey have. If they could improve their material circumstances andcontinue making the most of them. .. . That is the problem. 

Good Luck to us all!