1200 MISCELLANEOUS. 



Friday, and can prove by a hundred incidents how infallible are the 

 signs and omens which he believes in. He thinks to die in his bed. 

 True it is, that he has been overset; that his boat, loaded with fish to 

 the ''gunnel," has sunk under him, and that a vessel has run over him; 

 but he is still alive, and ''was not born to be drowned." His "fish 

 stories" are without end. In politics, he goes for the largest liberty. 

 He has never heard of easements and prescriptive rights; but he occu- 

 pies at will both beach and upland, without any claim to either, and 

 will browbeat the actual proprieter who has the temerity to remind 

 him of their relative positions. Against speculators he wages per- 

 petual war : why should he not ? since it is they who put up the price 

 of his favorite ''flat-hooped, fine middlings flour," and put down the 

 price of fish and "ile!" 



And who shall do justice to his dress and to his professional gear? 

 The garments which cover his upper and nether man he calls his ile 

 sule. The queer-shaped thing worn upon his crown is a sou'-wester; 

 or, if the humor takes him, a north-easter. He wears neither mittens 

 nor gloves, but has a substitute which he has named nippers. 



When he talks about brush, he means to speak of the matted and 

 tangled mass which grows upon his head ; or the long, red hair under 

 his chin, which serves the purpose of a neckcloth; or of that in front 

 of his ears, which renders him impervious to the dun of his merchant. 

 His boots are stampers. Lest he should lose the movables about his 

 person, he has them fastened to his pockets by lannairds. One of his 

 knives is a cut-throat, and another is a splitter. His apron, of leather or 

 canvass, is a larvel. The compartment of his boat into which he 

 throws his fish as he catches them, is a kid. The state of the moon 

 favorable for "driving herring," he calls darks. The bent-up iron 

 hook which he uses to carry his burning torch on the herring-ground, 

 is a dragon. The small net with an iron bow and wooden handle, is a 

 dip-net, because it is with that that he dips out of the water the fish 

 which his light attracts to the surface. His set-net is differently hung, 

 and much larger; it has leads on its lower edge to sink it with in the 

 water, and corks upon its upper edge, at regular intervals, to buoy it 

 up and preserve it nearly in a perpendicular direction, so that the her- 

 rings may strike it and become entangled in its meshes. 



Nor ends his dialect here. Chebacco-boats and small schooners are 

 known to him as pinkies, pogies, and jiggers. He knows but little 

 about the hours of the day and night; everything with him is reckoned 

 by the tide. Thus, if you ask him what time he was married, he will 

 answer, "On the young flood last night;" and he will tell you that he 

 saw "a certain man this morning about "low- water slack;" or, as the 

 case may be, "just at half-flood," "as the tide turned," or "two hours 

 to low water." If he speaks of the length of line required on the dif- 

 ferent fishing-grounds, he will compute by "shots;" and by a shot he 

 means thirty fathoms. If he have fish to sell, and is questioned as to 

 their size, he will reply that they are ''two-quintal" fish, by which he 

 means that fifty will weigh one hundred and twelve pounds. 



He is kind and hospitable in his way; and the visitor who is treated 

 to fresh smother, duff, and jo-floggers* may regard himself as a decided 

 favorite. He believes in witches and in dreams. The famous pirate 



* Potpie of sea-birds, pudding, and pancakes the fisherman's three P.'s 



