430 INTERIOR OF A FISHERMAN'S HOUSE. [CHAP. x. 



" bark," we see hanging on the outside stairs the paraphernalia 

 of the fisherman his "properties," as an actor would call 

 them ; nets, bladders, lines, and oilskin unmentionables, with 

 dozens of pairs of those particularly blue stockings that seem 

 to be the universal wear of both mothers and maidens. On 

 the stair itself sit, if it be seasonable weather, the wife and 

 daughters, repairing the nets and baiting the lines gossiping 

 of course with opposite neighbours, who are engaged in a 

 precisely similar pursuit ; and to day, as half a century ago, 

 the fishermen sit beside their hauled- up boats, in their white 

 canvas trousers and their Guernsey shirts, smoking their 

 short pipes, while their wives and daughters are so employed, 

 seeming to have no idea of anything in the shape of labour 

 being a duty of theirs when ashore. In the flowing gutter 

 which trickles down the centre of the old village we have 

 the young idea developing itself in plenty of noise, and adding 

 another layer to the incrustation of dirt which it seems to be 

 the sole business of these children to collect on their bodies. 

 These juvenile fisher-folk have already learned from the mud- 

 larks of the Thames the practice of sporting on the sands 

 before the hotel windows in the expectation of being re- 

 warded with a few halfpence. " What's the use of asking for 

 siller before they've gotten their denner?" we once heard one 

 of these precocious youths say to another, who was proposing 

 to solicit a bawbee from a party of strangers. 



To see the people of Newhaven, both men and women, 

 one would be apt to think that their social condition was one 

 of great hardship and discomfort ; but one has only to enter 

 their dwellings in order to be disabused of this notion, and to 

 be convinced of the reverse of this, for there are few houses 

 among the working population of Scotland which can compare 

 with the well-decked and well-plenished dwellings of these 

 fishermen. Within doors all is neat and tidy. When at the 

 marriage I have mentioned, I thought the house I was invited 



