n A FAIR TERRIFIER 85 



To-day he is already a fisher-lad, growing lanky, 

 and strong at the oar. Then, he used to beg In a 

 most pitiful whine: 'Dad, will 'ee let me go out 

 In the boat? Will 'ee take me 'long with 'ee? 

 Dad? Dad?' Now, he asks confidently: 'Will 

 'ee come an' help me to shove off, please?' And 

 to sea he goes, all on his own, arriving back just 

 In time to snatch up a hunch of bread-and-butter 

 and race off to school. 'A proper slammick, the 

 boy's getting!' says his mother; but little he cares 

 about his clothes, his boots, or his hair, which the 

 sun has browned and crisped, so long as he can 

 get afloat; and punishment he disarms with fishing 

 talk after the style of an ancient mariner. In 

 so short a time he has grown out of all knowl- 

 edge, has found his feet; or, as perhaps one 

 should say, he has taken the tiller Into his own 

 hand. 



But during that time of quick growth, after 

 his remove from the infants' to the boys' school, he 

 was well called a fair terrifier; the worst of all they 

 there kids from the boat-owners', if not from the 

 sea's, point of view. Nothing was safe. Among 

 kids in mischief on the beach he was ringleader. 

 'You'm a fisherman's son,' I used to say to him. 

 'You ought to keep the other kids out of the 



