i96 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



all rush to the windward bulwarks and lean over the rail 

 with undisguised interest. It is only a small rough box, but 

 it is fished carefully up, and for the space of half an hour all 

 the probabilities which human ingenuity could suggest as to 

 the origin and history of this bit of woodwork are advanced. 

 Talk about an " exhaustive debate," you should have heard 

 the crew of the Seabird before they had dismissed this six- 

 pennyworth of white deal from their hands and minds. 



About the hour when the people on shore are walking 

 home from their churches and chapels the Seabird has 

 reached the fishing ground, and has taken her station as one 

 of a very numerous family. The sun has become obscured, 

 the sea rises with the wind, and the skipper prophesies " a 

 breeze." To the crew this is a matter of positive indif- 

 ference. They must remain here until a certain quantity of 

 herrings are in the hold — it may be one day, it may be 

 three — but the weather is a consideration which never 

 troubles them. Since the sun was beclouded we can see 

 nothing of land, but ships of all sizes are continually passing) 

 proceeding up or down with an adverse wind. 



The Seabird, it appears, will drive with the tide all night, 

 and I make apparently careless, but really anxious, inquiries 

 with the view of ascertaining what the chances are of being 

 " collided." Are herring boats ever run down ? Oh, yes, 

 run down sometimes. A lugger, for example, was cut in 

 two last year — no, the year before — and seven out of eight 

 men went to " the locker." This is the way in which death 

 by drowning is spoken of — very familiar, it struck me, as 

 well as slightly disrespectful to the Davy Jones commonly 

 associated with the metaphor. 



The person who was facetiously described by the shorelings 



