FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 241 



was unsuspected until brought to light by the investigations of the Fish 

 Commission. 



How THE News of His Wife's Death Was Told Him. — One of our 

 fishermen sailed on a mackereling trip, leaving his wife in her usual health, 

 with no thought that the messenger of death was hovering so near. After 

 a few days the wife died, and telegrams were sent to the husband along the 

 coast, to such ports as it was likely the vessel might put in. But he never 

 received them, and the vessel came home in about four weeks' time, arriv- 

 ing at two o'clock in the morning. The skipper and crew came ashore, and 

 on reaching the wharf the watchman asked the name of their vessel, and 

 upon being informed took the skipper one side and told him the sad news 

 and asked him to break it to the husband, as he had not the heart to. The 

 skipper's heart failed him also, as he walked alongside the man up the 

 wharf, into the familiar streets. Their houses lay in the same direction, the 

 skipper's being the farthest off. Finally they reached the man's home, and 

 as he stooped down to pick up a little stone to throw against the window 

 of the chamber, to awaken his wife, as was his custom when arriving in the 

 night, the skipper could no longer hesitate, but calling him by name, said : 

 "Your wife will never awaken on earth again, as she died three days after 



you left home, and this was what Mr. told me when he took me one side 



on the wharf; but I couldn't find heart to tell you before." The terrible 

 news almost paralyzed the poor fellow, and he could not realize that the 

 wife whom he had left and whom he had hoped so soon to meet again, was 

 gone from his sight forever. The family were soon awakened, and he was 

 made acquainted with the full details of the event which cast a shadow over 

 his life which time will never fully efface. 



Off for Georges. — The regular February appearance of large schools 

 of codfish on Georges Bank, which are used by the fish for their spawning 

 grounds, insures a large catch for the early fleet, and the temptation of big 

 trips, and the consequent realization of good returns, cannot be resisted by 

 men who have been lying idle and whose funds have run low, or to express 

 it as they do, more emphatically, "We haven't a shot in the locker; the fish 

 are there and we're just going for 'em!" And who can blame them.? It 

 is their business. They know its excitements and its dangers. Old ocean 

 has been their cradle for many a year. They have been rocked to sleep by 

 it in its calmer moods, as well as when in anger it has tossed their little 

 crafts up and down on the billows, and the stormy blast has shrieked through 

 the rigging, 'mid the gale. Georges may be their grave ; but this thought 

 does not deter them from going. And no wonder they are anxious to start 

 when they remember the big trips they have shared in ; quickly earned, too. 



