The lad came to
in four hours; had he died he would have been quietly reported as washed
overboard. If you can stand a few hours of talk from an old smacksman
you may hear a sombre litany of horror. Those fishers are, physically,
the flower of our race, and many of them have the noblest moral
qualities. Knowing what I do of the old days, I wonder that the men are
any better than desperate savages.
Jim Billings endured the bitterest hardships that could befall an
apprentice. For six years he was not allowed to have a bed, for that
luxury was generally denied to boys. He secured a piece of old netting,
and he used to sleep on that until it became rotten by reason of the
salt water which drained from his clothes. On mad winter nights, when
the sea came hurling along, and crashed thunderously on the decks, the
smack tugged and lunged at her trawl. All round her the dark water
boiled and roared, and the blast shrieked through the cordage with
hollow tremors. That One who rideth on the wings of the wind lashed the
dark sea into aimless fury, and the men on deck clung where they could
as the smothering waves broke and seethed in wild eddies over the
reeling vessel.
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