1 66 ALONGSHORE ni 



in this here rotten, cranky, fools' harbour of a 

 place. . . . 'Tis a shame to catch the poor things 

 what you can't sell. Lord ! when I thinks of what 

 't used to be an' what 'tis got to now. They there 

 fish-buyers, won't always hae everything their own 

 way. You see, though I shan't be here to see it 

 very likely. Their time '11 come; always does 

 come to they sort that grinds them as an't got 

 nort an' takes away the fruits o' others' labour; 

 labour what they couldn't do theirselves, not if 

 they was paid for it. . . .' 



The first speaker was a man that has done 

 fishing as a standby, without being altogether a 

 fisherman; the second, an old fisherman who has 

 seen the great days when five times as many 

 drifters used to put to sea of an evening; who In 

 the hungry days before that was sometimes glad to 

 pick up a crust of bread; and who, now that he 

 has outlived both, scorns with barbed words our 

 jog-trot, latter-day habit of fishing when there 

 is nothing more profitable to do, and selling the 

 catches how we can. He himself fishes when he 

 is minded, no matter what else is doing. Hardly 

 a big catch for the last fifty years that he cannot 

 recollect in all particulars — who caught it, where 

 and how they fished, the number of the catch, and 



