WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 125 



deep into the spongy turf, and rain and sleet and snow 

 make the decks slippery, it is not quite so jolly. Yet 

 even then, so strong is the love of motion, a run with 

 the wagon is preferred to stationary work. 



The captain, when bound on a voyage, generally 

 slips his cable or weighs anchor with the rising sun. 

 His crew are first-rate helmsmen, and to see them 

 sweep into the rickyard through the narrow gateway, 

 with a heavy deck cargo piled to the skies, all sail set, 

 a stiff breeze, and the timbers creaking, is a glorious 

 sight ! Not a scrape against the jetty, though " touch 

 and go " is the sign of a good pilot. His greatest 

 trouble is when his cargo shifts out of sight of land : 

 sometimes the vessel turns on her beam-ends with a 

 too ponderous and ill-built load of straw, and then the 

 wreck lies right in the fairway of all the ships coming 

 up the channel. To load a wagon successfully is 

 indeed a work of art : on the hills, where the wagons 

 nave to run " sidelong " to pick up the crops, one 

 side higher than the other, no one but an experienced 

 hand can make the stuff stay on. Then there is often 

 a tremendous bumping and scraping of the keel on the 

 rocks of the newly-mended roads, and the nasty chop- 

 ping seas of the deep ruts, besides the long regular 

 Atlantic swells of the furrows and ' ' lands. ' ' So that the 

 cargo had need to be firmly placed in the hold. 



Every now and then she goes into dock and gets 

 a new streak of paint and a thorough overhauling. 

 The running rigging of the harness has to be polished 

 and kept in good condition, and the crew are rarely 



