A Chapter of Adventures

who, once at Southend, take the trouble to walk three miles along the shore to the fishing village. It may be doubted, indeed, whether

, ever alive with ships passing up and down, have grown from fishing hamlets to fashionable watering-places; while Leigh remains, or at any rate remained

steep road that winds down from the church at the top of the hill; to get out again you must go by the same way. The population is composed solely of fishermen, their families, and the shopkeepers who supply their necessities. The men who stand in grou

art their time for work; although many of the bawleys go out on the day-tide also, for at Leigh the tide is all-important. For five hours in th

o be drawn, lines of twenty women and girls with pails, each patiently waiting her turn. There are not many boy

ier, and the mud-flats of Leigh. The flats are still uncovered, but the tide is rising fast in the winding channel leading up to the village. In a few minutes there will be water enough for the boats, and already these can be seen leaving the baw

haps, for rough winter work, they may sometimes take an extra hand. In the bow of the first boat that comes tearing along up to the wharf sits a good-looking lad, about fourteen years old. His face is bronzed with the sun and wind, his clothes are as rough and pat

ry coppers, into which the shrimps are baled straight from the nets, so that they are in readiness to send off to town as soon as they are landed.

in all sa

t enough wind, and not too much. I ought to have bee

g for school, that the boats were coming up

bread and cheese when we dropped anchor. I wil

herman, who had owned his own bawley; indeed, most of the bo

called by it, and would hardly have answered if addressed as Snow-was one of the prettiest girls in Leigh; so thought William Robson, a young artist, who came down t

his thoughts. She was as sweet-tempered as she was pretty, and at last Will Robson made up his mind to marry her if she would take him. He was himself an orphan, and had no friends who had any right to object to his marrying according to his f

the picture never was painted. He was always too busy at what he called pot-boilers, which had to be sold to dealers for a trifle, in order to enable him to meet the butcher's and baker's bills. He never repented his marriage; Bessy wa

nds elsewhere; and she knew that money went much further there than in most other places. Two hundred pounds were spent in purchasing the cottage in which she now lived, and another two hundred in buying a bawley. At Leigh, as at most other fishing places, the men work

and she was obliged in specially bad times to dip a little into her reserve of a hundred pounds. Upon the other hand, there was oc

ight. For two years the former attended the school on the hill, and

here was always such a line passing up and down the river, but he was too young for that when he first began his work on board the bawley; and as the time went on, and he became accustomed to the life of a fisherman, his longings f

trousers. "We had a fine haul off the lower Blyth, and not a bad one higher up. I fancy most of

een heavy lately, but now they have once begun

for fish is the chief

going to

fresh coat of pitch on our boat. He is going to bring her in as soon as there is water enough. Tom stopped on board with him, but they l

go out again t

e shall only do up to the water-line, and the pitch will be plenty dr

s feel more comfortable when you are on that grou

of going down to H

always a great trial to her. When he was with her she felt that he was safe, for it is an almost unheard-of thing for a bawley to meet with an accident when fishing in the mouth of the Thames; but of

er go out on Sunday. They are God-fearing men these fishermen, and however bad the times, and however hard the pinc

hey know not that scarce one of these sands but at low water is dotted with low, black timbers, and that there are few more dangerous pieces of navigation in the world than the passage

ishy smell pervaded the air, for close by were the boiling-sheds, with their vast heaps of white cockle-shells. These we

re carried up to the boiling-houses and thrown into great coppers of boiling water. They open at once, and the fish drop from the shells. The contents of the coppers are passed through large meshed sieves, to allow the fish to pass through and retain the shells, which go to add to the heaps outside. These h

They are from thirty to forty-five feet long, and are divided into three classes of from six to fifteen tons burden. They are very broad in comparison to their length, some of them having a beam of fifteen feet, and they carry their w

ry a lofty topmast and large topsails, and these they seldom lower, even when obliged to have two reefs in the mainsail. They are capital sea-boats, fast, and very handy; and it requires

as in yachts and large vessels. They now for the most part carry spinnakers, boomed out when running before the wind, and balloon foresails, thereby greatly adding to their speed in light winds. One peculiarity of the bawleys

n and out of the fo'castle. It has, however, a curious appearance, and a fleet

her water-line soon after four o'clock in the afternoon, Jack's share o

shall we go

arring her the first thing in the morning, an

his leg, and is laid up, so he asked me to lend him a hand. I told him I didn't know whether you were going out

will be in early anyhow. We wi