ishing. I watched them hoist
the little sprit-sail, and drift a little until they caught the wind,
and then I looked again for Georgie, whose boat was like a black spot
on the water.

I knew him better soon after that. I used to go out with him for
lobsters, or to catch cunners, and it was strange that he never had any
cronies, and would hardly speak to the other children. He was very
shy; but he had put all his heart into his work,--a man's hard work,
which he had taken from choice. His father was kind to him; but he had
a sorry home, and no mother,--the brave, fearless, steady little soul!

He looked forward to going one day (I hope that day has already dawned)
to see the shipyards at a large seaport some twenty miles away. His
face lit up when he told me of it, as some other child's would who had
been promised a day in fairy-land. And he confided to me that he
thought he should go to the Banks that coming winter. "But it's so
cold!" said I; "should you really like it?"--"Cold!" said Georgie.
"Ho! rest of the men never froze." That was it,--the "rest of the
men;" and he would work until he dropped, or tend a line until his
fingers froze, for the sake of that likeness,--the grave, slow little
man, who has so much business with the sea, and who trusts himself with
touching confidence to its treacherous keeping and favour.

Andrew West, Georgie's father, was almost as silent as his son at
first, but it was not long before we were very good friends, and I went
out with him at four o'clock one morning, to see him set his trawl. I
remember there was a thin mist over the sea, and the air was almost
chilly: but, as the sun came up, it changed the colour of everything to
the most exquisite pink,--the smooth slow waves, and the mist that blew
over them as if it were a cloud that had fallen down out of the sky.
The world just then was like the hollow of a great pink sea-shell; and
we could only hear the noise of it, the dull sound of the waves among
the outer ledges.

We had to drift about for an hour or two when the trawl was set; and
after a while the fog shut down again gray and close, so we could not
see either the sun or the shore. We were a little more than four miles
out, and we had put out more than half a mile of lines. It is very
interesting to see the different fish that come up on the
hooks,--worthless sculpin and dog-fish, and good rock-cod and haddock,
and curious stray creatures which often even the