The Brighton of my Boyhood 



for our friends and comrades : men who 

 lived in such untroubled if unexpressed 

 faith within constant sound of the sea, 

 from which, in frequent peril of death, they 

 must wrest their means of livelihood ; who 

 at the call of distress would get up from 

 sleep, or lay aside their pipes, as it were 

 all a part of the day's work, and though 

 the sea should fling their boats a dozen 

 times back on the beach, win out at length 

 by sheer strength of heart through the 

 fury of wind and wave — to return, if God 

 willed, with a burden of precious human 

 wreckage, perchance to return no more 

 at all. 



Old Master Hurst and his three sons 

 (giants in size and strength were all the 

 four of them) had saved more lives, it was 

 said, than any other ten on Brighton 

 beach ; but if you questioned them on the 

 matter they were shy as children, and did 

 you press them to relate but one of their 

 stirring adventures, would invariably ask 

 you, had you ever heard of their grand- 

 mother, old Mis' Hurst, who w^as reported 

 the stronofest woman 'lone all the coast in 

 her time ; for by simply sitting down and 

 pulling at a rope, with her heels dug deep 

 into the sand, she could haul up a boat as 

 well as any capstan. 



9 



