yonder, coming into shore with its big sail like a sea-bird's wing? Keep
your eye on it for a minute, and then look at the top of that tower, and
you'll see that there are men there that have got their eyes and their
telescopes on it too. Now do you see these carts coming along, and do
you see those black barges floating ready to pull out when the cutter
comes near in shore? The cutter will unload a rare lot of fish. The men
on the look-out tower saw her coming, and signalled to the barges and
the carts to be ready. That shipload of fish will be off by a special
train to-night, Ben; and if you were in London you might, if you could
afford it, have some of it."

"But where's the herrings--the Yarmouth bloaters, you know?" asked Ben.

"Ah, well! this isn't the time to see so much of them. It's in the
winter you see the herring-smacks come in at the herring-wharf over
yonder, and hundreds of baskets full of the shining fellows brought
ashore and sold, and sent off fresh in no time; while others are kept
here to turn into bloaters, or red herrings, or kippers. Those sheds in
the yard over there are where hundreds of women and girls set to work to
salt or pack the herrings in barrels; the bloaters are what we call
cured in the herring-office."

"That's a funny name," said Ben.

"Yes; and it's funny what goes on there. The herrings are brought
ashore, are shot out of the baskets on to the stone floor, shovelled
into big tubs to be washed, and then threaded through the gills on to
long laths of wood. Then these laths with the rows of herrings strung on
'em are hung in frames from wall to wall of a top room, like a barn with
a stone floor, and a hole in the roof. When that room's full of herrings
all hanging in rows--thousands and thousands o' fish--a fire of oak
chips and logs is lighted on the floor, and the smoke going all among
the herrings, and only by degrees getting out of the hole in the roof,
the fish are smoked; and them that's salted first is red herrings, and
them that's only just touched dry with the smoke like are bloaters.

"So now we'll get down to our lodging, and have some supper, Ben; and so
to bed, that we may be up early in the morning; but don't you dream
about being a smack-boy, or you won't sleep at all sound, I can tell
you."

/*
THOMAS ARCHER
*/

THEIR WONDERFUL RIDE.

[Illustration: "TWO LITTLE FOLK WERE RIDING."]

As I passed down the pathway
I heard a merry pair
Shout