Picture to yourself a dense, dark night, when you can hardly see your hand before your face; a little schooner tossing at anchor on the Banks, all but one of her crew asleep in their bunks. Suddenly there falls upon the solitary watcher's ear a sound that thrills him with terror: it is the throbbing of mighty engines and the onward rush of an ocean greyhound as she spurns the foaming water from her bows.
Springing upon the poop he shouts with all his might, the crew below leap from their berths, and though only half awake join him in the cry.
But it is of no avail. The mast-head light is seen by the steamer's look-out too late to change her course. There is a splintering crash, the iron monster feels a slight shock, hardly enough to waken the lightest sleeper in her staterooms, and the sharp prow cuts through the little schooner as though it were but another wave.
Then the frenzied shrieks of strong men in their agony ring out upon the midnight air; then all is silent again, and the steamer speeds on to her destination, while to another home in Herring Cove comes the dreadful experience of which the poet says,—
"How much of manhood's wasted strength,
Of woman's misery,—
What breaking hearts might swell the cry,
They're dear fish to me."
Yet it is the ambition of every boy at Herring Cove or Shad Bay to have a share in a Banker, or, better still, to own one all by himself; and to this he looks forward, just as city boys do to being bank presidents or judges or editors of newspapers.
Hard work, much danger, a little schooling, and still less playing is the summary of a fisher-boy's life. It makes him very healthy, brown, and strong, but it never makes him rich. The most he can do is to earn enough to build and furnish a cottage when he marries, and provide plain food and coarse clothing for the family that soon springs up around him.
Now and then—that is, whenever he has fish to sell—he goes up to the city; and this is his only holiday. While still a boy he generally behaves himself well enough on these visits, but, growing older, he does not always grow wiser, I am sorry to say, and I have often seen sad-faced wives rowing the heavy boat wearily home, while their husbands lay in the stern-sheets in a drunken stupor.
LOST ON THE LIMITS.
(A CHRISTMAS STORY.)