1 90 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 



worthy owner was once sailor boy, sailor man, and skipper 

 himself, and he is too close a stickler for the proprieties to 

 grant the cheerful consent which trembles on his lips until 

 he has obtained the ratifying approval of the Scabird's 

 commander. It is not every shipmaster who will be pestered 

 with a useless landlubber on his busy decks. But the cap- 

 tain of the Seabird with a broad smile speaks his welcome, 

 and superadds the warning couched in the above remark. 



The herring season is in full swing, for the middle of 

 October has arrived, and in the splendidly furnished market- 

 place, which visitors to Yarmouth will well remember, the 

 poulterers' stalls are laden with Michaelmas geese. Huge 

 baskets of ripe blackberries are also exposed for sale, and 

 pyramids of delicious outdoor grapes add their testimony to 

 the lateness of the season. Should other witnesses be re- 

 quired, you mayjfind them on the bits of cardboard in the 

 lodging-house windows announcing empty apartments, and 

 a consequent scarcity of visitors. When these signs and 

 tokens appear, you may be sure the herring season is in full 

 swing. While the undoubted summer lasts, Yarmouth is one 

 of the most popular resorts of middle-class London, but 

 about the period^ when " the hunter's moon " begins, the 

 visitors smell the east wind and take flight. Then, about the 

 second week in September, the herring boats are ready for 

 the great harvest of the sea, which is expected to last till the 

 end of November. 



The Seabird, therefore, has already seen a month's active 

 service. There she lies in the turbid tidal river which gives 

 Yarmouth its name, resting awhile that her crew may enjoy 

 a few hours' respite. Yesterday she came in with a cargo of 

 fish; to-day she is moored idle in the bend of the river, 



