r off before she made the
return roll. A marvellous performance that was, and the marvel only
increased when you saw the young fellow pitching heavy boxes of fish on
to the deck of the great steam cutter.

With a roar, and a savage sweep the big seas came; on their mountainous
sides the shrill eddies of wind played, and the lines of foam twined in
wavering mazes. Hill on hill gathered, and the seas looked like swelling
Downs piled heap on heap, while the sonorous crests roared on hoarsely,
and sometimes the face of the wild water was obscured in the white smoke
plucked off by the gusts.

Jack did not mind weather; the steamer hurled herself up on the bulge of
a sea, and then you could get a glimpse of a tall, lithe figure,
straining in the small boat alongside the rearing iron hulk. That
splendid, lithe young lad performed prodigies of strength and courage;
the hulk and the little boat sank down,--down until the steamer's
mast-head disappeared; then with a rush the wave slid away, and the
craft came toppling down the hither side of the mountain, and still that
lithe figure was there, toiling fiercely and cleverly. Soon with a bound
and a loud laugh, he was on board of us again, and no one could tell
from one tremor of his merry, tawny face that he had been, of a truth,
looking into the very jaws of death.

This splendid man was innocent as a child of all worldly affairs
unconnected with the sea. He once told me, "I can make a shift to get
along with an easy book; but if I come to a hard word, I cry
'Wheelbarrows,' and skip him." On his own topics he was very sensible,
and no owner could have found fault with him had he not been just a
little racketty on shore. In my refined days I remember reading in one
of Thackeray's books about a young lord who was much loved by one Henry
Esmond: My friend Jack was very like that young man, and you could not
get vexed with him,--or, at any rate, you could not keep vexed very
long.

We soon made friends in The Chequers, and before midnight we were
confidential. On my expressing wonder at seeing a Barking lad among us,
Jack winked with profound meaning, and said, "I ain't Barking at all,
only for this trip. My gal's a Lowestoft gal, and she've come up here,
so I'm ready for her Sunday out to-morrow. See?"

Our second interview took place next day, and I saw the sweetheart. She
was an ordinary pretty servant-girl, such as most of the fishermen pick
up when they marry out of their