Mary Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale

g is something like the grain shoot of a mill, or a screen for riddling gravel, so steep is the pitch of the ground, and so narrow the shingly ledge at the bottom. An

d and tide must be in good humor, or the only thing sure of any landing is the sea. The long desolation of the sea rolls in with a sound of melancholy, the gray fog droops its fold of drizzle in the leaden-tinted troughs, the pent cliffs overhang th

irs, stands facing you, and the cliff upon either side juts up close, to forbid any flanking movement, and the scanty scarp denies fair start for a rush at the power of the hill front. Yet here must the heavy boats beach themselves, an

grinding of the stubborn tug begins. Each boat has her own special course to travel up, and her own special berth of safety, and she knows every jag that will gore her on the road, and every flint from which she will strike fire. By dint of sheer sturdiness of arms, legs, and lungs, keeping true time with the pant and the shout, steadily goes it with hoist and haul, and cheerily undulates the melody of call that rallies them all with a strong will together, until the steep bluff and the burden of the bulk by masculine labor are conquered, and a long row of powerful pinnaces displayed, as a mounted battery, against the fishful sea. Wit

ing him, but free as yet of fame or name, and simply unable to tell himself-shone in the doubt of the early

ich is no little thing to say-and the fish had expressed their opinion of it by the eloquent silence of absence. Therefore, as the whole place lives on fish, whether in the fishy or the fiscal form, goodly apparel was

e set up for making breeches in opposition to the women, and showed a few patterns of what he could do if any man of legs would trade with him-from all these head-centres of intelligence, and others not so prominent but equally potent, into the very smallest hole it went (like the thrill in a troublesome tooth) that here was a chance come of feeding, a chance at last of feeding. For the man

dley, not of fisher-folk alone, and all their bodily belongings, but also of the thousand things that have no soul, and get kicked about and sworn at much because they can not answer. Rollers, buoys, nets, kegs, swabs, fenders, blocks, buckets, kedges, corks, buckie-pots, oars, poppies, tillers, sprits, gaffs, and

up suspicions, more than three yards off. In rivalry with these appeared the pale disk of the moon, just setting over the western highlands, and "drawing straws" through summer haze; while away in the northeast over the sea, a slender irregular wisp of gray, so weak that it seemed as if it were being blown

. He put his hand down to it, and, lo! it was a child, in imminent peril of a deadly crush, as the boat came heeling over. "Hold hard!" cried the man, not in time with his voice, but in time w

were all waiting, loath to hurry Captain Robin (because of the many things he had dearly lost), yet straining upon their own hearts to stand still. And the captain cou

etter, bound as he was to rush forth upon the sea, than lay the child gently aside of the stir, and cover him with an old sail, and leave word with an ancient woman for his wife when found. The little boy slept on calmly still, in spite of all the din and uproar, the song and the shout, the

er time of life it was unjust that she should be astir so early. And it happened that Mrs. Cockscroft followed her troubled husband down the steep, having something in her pocket for him, which she f

he had carried his obedience in the matter of keeping his hat and coat on; neither could anybody say what next those very clever fishermen might be after-nobody having a spy-glass-but only this being understood all round, that hunger and salt were the victuals for the day, and the children must chew the mouse-trap baits until their dads

h, a deeper power of melancholy, and a stronger turn up of the tail of discourse, by some called the end of a sentence. Over and above all these there dwell in "Little Denmark" many words foreign to the real Yorkshireman. But, alas! these merits of their speech can not be embodied in print without sad trouble, and result (if successful) still more saddening. Therefore it is proposed to let them speak in our inferior tongue,

because she ought to have been in bed, and by her side a little boy, who seemed to have no bed at all. The child lay above her in a tump of stubbly grass, where Robin Cockscroft had laid him; he had tossed the old sail off, perhaps in a dream, and he threatened to roll down upon the granny. The contrast between his young, beautifu

lder, but of tougher constitution. "Shame on ye to l

r," another proceeded with the elegant joke; "a

y, now as wide-awake as ever; "Master Robin Cockscroft gie

and prattling of the fish to be caught that day; and inasmuch as Joan had not been able to get face to face with her husband on the beach, she had not yet heard of the stranger child. But soon the women sent a little boy to fetch her, and she came amon

t think bud wat yon ba

nished changing his teeth as yet, a chronic uneasiness about Crappos haunted that coast alread

here? Frogmen ha' skinny shanks, and larks' heels, and holes down their bodies like lamperns. No sign of no frog aboot yon bairn.

y man of equal age arose to countervail it. But while they were thus divided, Mrs. Cockscroft came, and they stood aside. For she had been kind to everybody when her better chances were; and now in her troubl

f Joan Cockscroft. It was the exact look-or so she always said-of her dead angel, when she denied him something, for the sake of his poor

t. And women of high consideration, looking on, were wicked enough to be pleased at this, and say that he must be a young lord, and they had quite foreseen it. But Joan knew what children are, and soothed him down so with delicate hands, and a gentle look, and a