The Brighton of my Boyhood 



and so, too, when you passed east of the 

 Steine, Brighton ceased to be, and you 

 were in open country from there to Rot- 

 tingdean. 



And in the foreground of this old 

 Brighton lay the beach full of the quaint 

 life and business of the fishery folk. There, 

 dotted about, stood the rope-shops, little 

 huts made from the fore-parts of disused 

 hog-boats, in which the fishermen stored 

 their nets and ropes and many a whole- 

 some tarry-smelling thing proper to their 

 trade. Nets in tangled heaps, or widely 

 spread for the drying, lay all about, craving 

 careful stepping of the unaccustomed 

 visitor. Here the fishermen, brawny 

 fellows with hair falling to their very 

 shoulders from under their red caps, and 

 great boots more than knee high and meet- 

 ing their full petticoats, tarred their boats, 

 mended their nets or lolled against the 

 great capstans, pipe in mouth. There, at 

 the doors of the rope-shops the older 

 among them, some so old that they had 

 done with going to sea, sat in the sun and 

 patched the russet and ruddy sails. And 

 the brow^n beach-children threw ducks and 

 drakes at the water's edge and played among 

 the idle boats in which some day they too 

 must put out to the perilous harvesting. 



