Then as to education, I have been surprised at their amount of knowledge and reading. One fair ruddy sturdy old fellow, the corners of whose lips were not free from the stains of tobacco, used to take me out occasionally in his boat and showed me the various rocks and caves, and he surprised me by his reading. The first time I was out with him I found that his boat was called The Chemorne, and I naturally enough asked why he had given it so quaint a name.
“Oh, it means Birch Canoe,” he said, and when I asked further, he told me that he had found the name in Hiawatha, when he was reading Longfellow’s poems.
One of my greatest intimates though amongst the fishermen, was a quiet stern-faced middle-aged man, who seemed to have some great trouble upon his mind; and one evening when he had rowed me out beyond the headland, and lay upon his oars, he began talking to me about the sorrow of his life, the death of the woman he had loved and who was to have been his wife.
“Yes,” he said, “I behaved bad to her ma’am, and all through blind obstinacy and want of faith.
“I’ve seen that same face of hers scores of times since, and though it makes me shudder, and nips me to the heart, I always go and have a good long earnest look at it, and come away a better man. You may see that face yourself—as much like as if it had been taken from her sad, anxious looks—you may see it at the picture-shop windows, and it’s of a woman tying a handkerchief round a man’s arm, and she looks up at him pitifully, and it’s called ‘The Huguenot.’ That’s like the look, and the face that gazed up into mine after she’d told me what I know now was the truth; and I—yet I’m most ashamed to own it—I flung her away from me, and wouldn’t believe what she said. There was a tear upon each cheek, and the bright drops were brimming in her eyes, and ready to fall; but I was hard and bitter, and whispered to myself that they were false tears, put on to cheat me, and I ran out of her father’s house, swearing that I’d enter it again no more.
“Speaking as a fisherman, and one who was brought up with the sound of the sea always in his ears, I may say we rowed well together in the same boat, Mary and I. I had a long fight of it before I could persuade her that it would be best for her future that she should take me for pilot, and not Harry Penellyn; but I did persuade her at last, and we were to be married down at the little fishermen’s church at the head of the cove. So we worked and waited.
“Two years of as happy a life then fell to my lot as could fall to that of any man in this life, I believe. My ways were rough, and hers were not those of a lady, but they suited our stations in life, and what more would you have? I look back upon that bright bit of life as if it was some dream; and though I can’t settle to go back to the old place, I cling to the fish, and look upon those days when a Lozarne boat comes in, as days worth recollecting; for they bring the blood in one’s cheek, and a bit of light into one’s eye.
“I can see it all now as plain as can be: the little fishing village under the cliff; the stout granite pier running out so as to form a harbour for the fishing-boats; and the blue sea, stretching away far as eye could reach. Down by its edge, too, the weed-fringed rocks, piled high in places, with the sea foaming amongst the crevices, and again forming little rock-pools where the bright sea growths flourished; and as the tide came in, with its fresh cooling waters, you saw the limpets and sea flowers wakening again to life, while many a spider-crab and shell-fish crept out of the nook or crack where it had hidden from the warm sun. I can see it all now at any time, though I am growing grey, and nigh a score of years have passed since; but brighter than all seem to stand out those two mournful eyes, with the same tearful look they gave me as I flung out of the door and saw them for the last time; for when next I looked upon that face the eyes were fast closed, and could I have opened them the lustre would have been gone.
“A west country fisherman’s life is one which takes him a deal from home, for sometimes we go off for perhaps three months at a time to the north coast, or to Ireland when the herring season is on; and, like the rest, I used to be off in my boat, sorry enough to leave home—happy enough to return after a busy season, till one year, when I took it into my head to think it strange that Harry Penellyn, Mary’s old beau, should spin his illness out so long and stop ashore, time after time, when the boats went out, and him seeming to be well and strong as any of us. There had been a heavy gale on the coast some weeks before, and, as we always do at such times, we had run in for the harbour as soon as we saw it coming; but, through bad seamanship, Penellyn’s boat came inside the rocks, when she should have come outside, and then, through their not having water enough, she grounded, lifted again, caught by the stern, and then swung round broadside to the waves, which swept her half deck, while a regular chorus of shrieks rose from the women standing ashore.
“It was a rough time, for even our boats that were in the harbour were groaning and grinding together, while every now and then the sea washed over so as to threaten to fill them, and sweeping the pier from end to end. In an ordinary way we made a custom of laughing at the crew of a boat who, from bungling, got her on the rocks, for born as we were in the bay, with our fathers fishers before us, we knew every stone along the coast, and could almost have steered our boat to them blindfold; but this was no time to jeer, for now the poor fellows were being swept one by one from their hold, and borne struggling through the surf to the rocks, where they were in danger of being dashed to pieces, for ours was no smooth, sandy beach. Some were swimming, some beating the water frantically; and clad as our men are, in their thick cloth trousers, heavy sea boots, and stout Guernsey shirts, they stand a poor chance of keeping long afloat, for the weight of their boots is enough to drag them down.