83 



He is neither a landsman nor a seaman, a soldier nor a marine ; but vou 

 would think by his talk that he could appear to advantage in either of 

 these characters. He is neither a merchant nor a mechanic, and yet 

 he can buy and sell, mend and make, as expertly as either. In the 

 healing art he is wise above all others, and fancies that he possesses a 

 sovereign specific for every ailment which all the world beside considers 

 as incurable. He holds nautical instruments in high derision : for the state 

 of the moon and the weather predictions of the almanac, the peculiar 

 sound of the sea when it "moans," and the particular size or shape of 

 a "cat's paw" or "glin" in the sky, lead him to far surer results. He 

 will undertake nothing of consequence upon a Friday, and can prove 

 by a hundred incidents how infalfible are the signs and omens which 

 he believes in. He thinks to die in his bed. True it is, that he has 

 been overset; that his boat, loaded with fish to the "gunnel," has sunk 

 under him, and that a vessel has run over him; but he is still alive, 

 and "was not born to be drowned." His "fish stories" are without 

 end. In pohtics, he goes for the largest liberty. He has never heaixl 

 of easements and prescriptive rights ; but he occupies at will both beach 

 and upland, without any claim to either, and will browbeat the actual 

 proprietor who has the temerity to remind him of their relative positions. 

 Against speculators he wages perpetual war: why should he not? 

 since it is they who put up the price of his favorite "flat-hooped, 

 fine middhngs flour," and put down the price of flsh and "ile!" 



And who shall do justice to his dress and to his professional gear ? 

 The garments which cover his upper and nether man he calls his ile 

 sute. The queer-shaped thing worn upon his crown is a son'' -wester; 

 or, if the humor takes him, a north-easter. He wears neither mittens 

 nor gloves, but has a substitute which he has named nippers. 



When he talks about brush, he means to speak of the matted and 

 tangled mass which grows upon his head ; or the long, red hair under 

 his chin, which serves the purpose of a neckcloth; or of that in front 

 of his ears, which renders him impervious to the dun of his merchant. 

 His boots are stampeis. Lest he should lose the movables about his 

 person, he has them fastened to his pockets by lannairds. One of his 

 knives is a cut-throat, and another is a splitter. His apron, of leather or 

 canvass, is a barrel. The compartment of his boat into which he 

 throws his fish as he catches them, is a kid. The state of the moon 

 favorable for "driving herring," he calls darks. The bent-up iron hook 

 which he uses to carry his burning torch on the herring-gi-ound, is a 

 dragon. The small net with an iron bow and wooden handle, is a dip- 

 net, because it is with that that he dips out of the water the fish which 

 his light attracts to the surface. His set-net is differently huvg, and 

 much larger ; it has leads on its lower edge to sink it with in the wa- 

 ter, and corks upon its upper edge, at regular intervals, to buoy it up 



strange skill through the turmoil of waters, and the boy, supple-limbed, yet weather-worn 

 already, and with steady eyes that look through the blast, you see him — understanding «om- 

 mandmeuts from the jerk of his father's white eye-brow — now belaying, and now letting go — 

 now scruuchmg himself down into mere ballast, or baling out death with a pipkin. Stale 

 enough is the sight; and yet when I see it I always stai-e anew, and with a kind of Titanic 

 exidtation, because that a poor boat, with the brain of a man and the hands of a boy ou board, 

 can match herself so bravely against black heaven and ocean," &c. 



