LITTLE TOILERS OF THE NIGHT.
II—THE FISHER-BOY.
enny, so here we are then," said the sturdy-looking sailor, as Ben, the "Reading-Boy," went running up to the railway station at Liverpool Street, London, just as the last shower of night rain was blowing away over the houses, and the sun was just peeping out and giving the grey sky a tint of salmon colour. "I'm glad as you've got from this mornin' to Wednesday, Benny, becos you see it's a pretty long v'yge from here to Yarmouth, and I'm glad you're in good time, Ben; an' I'm glad as your precious mother has made you put a coat over your jacket. 5.15 the train goes, Ben."
"What fun it is, eh, uncle! Only fancy my going down to the sea! Why, I shouldn't want to come back if it wasn't for mother."
"Now don't you be a rollin' stone, Benny. It's all very fine for fair weather sailors, to go and sit about on the beach, and p'raps be rowed out a little way, or take a trip when everything's smooth below and aloft, but just you find yerself aboard one of our smacks, in the North Sea, one night when there's a stiff sea on, and the wind cuttin' your hair off your head, and your hands stiff and blue with haulin' on to the trawl-nets, and you'd tell a different story. No, no, I don't think as you're cut out for a fisher-boy, or leastways a smack-boy, for that's what they call 'em."
"A smack-boy! that's a queer name," said Ben, laughing.
"Ah, ain't it? and there's a double meanin' in it too, for I can tell you the smack-men ain't very slow for to give the youngsters a knock over the head, or a smack of the face, or a rope's-endin'. But as it's Yarmouth we're bound for, you will soon see what our fisheries are really like; and there, too, you'll find our men hard at it in tarpaulins or canvas frocks, and wet through and through perhaps, and not much time to get a drop of hot coffee nor a bit to eat. Think of that, Benny."
Ben looked serious when he heard this, and it was not till they had taken their seats in the railway-carriage, and were rattling along far beyond the houses and amidst the trees and fields of the country that he began to talk again.