» HOUSES THAT FIT 69 



new, and being seamen, they hav^e usually the 

 handiness to do it. How often is one told, on 

 remarking that a rope, or a strake, or a spar, 

 ought to be replaced: 'Ah, let it bide, let It 

 break! 'Tis different wi' the likes o'us from 

 what 'tis wi' gen'lemen's boats. When they sees 

 summut be wore, or a rope's losted its nature, 

 they orders a new 'un; but the likes o'us, us 

 lets it bide till summut carries away, an' then us 

 knows 'tis done for, an' nort more's to say about 

 it!' A certain tenderness, too, for that which is 

 old and has served well puts out of mind the 

 possibilities of danger from breakage. 



As It Is with boats and gear, so It is with 

 buildings; and hence It is that fishermen's houses 

 are huddled, patched, and old, and above all 

 picturesque. They fit the men around whom 

 they have grown, and whose harbours they are, 

 as the placid, dirty, walled-in, sheet of water 

 down below Is a harbour for the larger craft, or the 

 littered beach outside a berth for the little boats; 

 and, continually buffeted by the salt cleanly winds, 

 they fall to pieces without, as It were, ever be- 

 coming rotten. In house, the shipshape neatness 

 of the mariner tradition disputes power with the 

 unorderllness of fishermen, who, In whatever 



