FISHERMEN IN WAR TIME 



tension of the fishers' operations was an almost in- 

 credible revelation. 



The common view of fishing life was that if not 

 so good it was, at any rate, not so bad, and there 

 was reason for that general impression, for it was 

 mostly based on observation made at romantic 

 watering-places by holiday-makers who were sus- 

 ceptible to comforting impressions. There were the 

 little brown-sailed craft beloved of the visitor, and 

 the bluff, hearty fisherman, whose life apparently 

 was made up of pleasant trips to sea, well within the 

 protection of the land. There was the picturesque 

 marketing of the catch, perhaps on a sun-bathed 

 beach, followed by the return home, often to the 

 little cottage under the hill or up the creek, which 

 looked so suug and pretty. There was perhaps the 

 added attraction of the old, old story of the lover 

 and his lass — he so big and strong and bronzed and 

 handsome ; she so comely and so much a daughter 

 of the sea. All this delightful picture came into the 

 view of the casual observer ; an image seen largely 

 through the artistic eye, and therefore to a great 

 extent misleading, for that standpoint must ignore 

 the sordid and unlovely. 



That common view of fishing life was wholly 

 wrong and incomplete. It was true that there were 

 many little trips to sea on calm blue water, under 

 glowing summer suns, and many safe havens to 

 which the fisherman might run for shelter when the 

 snarl of the rising wind was heard and the seething 

 surge came up as herald of the growing sea. But 



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