Sometimes I have had the privilege of being present at the sessions of our neighbour and the pilot. One day the pilot described the sorrows of fishermen when the stinging jelly-fish are about, for he spends an odd day at sea in a smack.
‘The water’s full o’ they blessed ould stingin’ squalders, and every time us hauls aour net that’s full on ’em, and they do make me swear suthen. That ain’t a mite o’ use tryin’ to be religious, same as if you wants to be, with them stingin’ squalders abaout. They’re puffect devils.’
I remember the pilot’s comment on our neighbour’s account of a hailstorm. ‘That was a wonnerful heavy hailstorm, that was,’ said our neighbour, ‘and the stones was most as big as acorns. And one come and hit me on the laower part of the thumb. Lor’, that did hurt suthen!’
‘Well, that come a long way, yer see,’ said the pilot.
Another day the pilot, who is appreciably more mobile than our neighbour, described to me an errand of mercy he had undertaken.
‘I’ve just been daown to see pore ould George what bruk his arm last week. Yaou know him, sir, don’t ye? Him what’s skipper of the Nancy. I wonder who’ll sail she while ’is arm’s a mendin’. Wonnerful venturesome fellow is George, and that’s haow ’e come to do ut. He took and bought one o’ they bicycles. From what I can hear of it, ’e larnt to ride that well enough same as on the flat. They what taught he to ride tould he to shorten sail same as goin’ daown hills and that, and maybe ’e did. But accordin’ to what I can hear of it, that bicycle took charge daown the hill just past the railway, and George den’t fare to knaow what to do, so ’e reckoned that were best to thraow she up in the wind. And they picked the ould fellow out o’ the ditch with his arm bruk. ’E’s gettin’ on well, and is all right in ’is ’ealth. The doctor’s a givin’ of him some of that medicine aout o’ one o’ they raound bottles.’
Besides his boat our neighbour owns a shed. When he applied originally to the landowner for leave to put up the shed he was refused, because the landowner feared that it would be unsightly. The negotiations that followed are a model for diplomacy.
The old man next asked that he might be allowed to haul up an ancient sieve-like boat on to the bank. To this the landowner assented—if it could be done, which he doubted.
It was done.