s yet night and giveth meat to her
household and a portion to her maidens'; and me never able to hire a
gel at eight pounds a year even!"

"If you did," retorted Mr. Trapp, "I don't see you turning out at
midnight to feed her."

Early in June this high-tide of business slackened, and by the close
of the second week we were moderately idle. On Midsummer morning I
descended to find, to my vast astonishment, Mr. Trapp seated at table
before a bowl of bread and milk and wearing a thick blue guernsey
tucked inside his trousers, the waist of which reached so high as to
reduce his braces to mere shoulder-straps. I could not imagine why
he, a man given to perspiration, should add to his garments at this
season.

Breakfast over, he beckoned me to the door and jerked his thumb
towards the lintel. The usual, sign had been replaced by a shorter
one: "S. Trapp. Gone Driving."

"If folks," said he, "ha'n't the foresight to get swept afore
Midsummer, I don't humour 'em."

"Are--are you really going for a drive, sir?" I stammered.

"To be sure I am. I drive every day in the summer. What do you
suppose?"

"It won't be a chaise and pair, sir?" I hazarded, though even this
would not have surprised me.

"Not to-day. Lord knows what we may come to, but to-day 'tis
mackerel and whiting; later on, pilchards."

He took me down to the quay; and there, sure enough, we stepped on
board a boat lying ready, with two men in her, who fended off and
began to hoist sails at once. Mr. Trapp took the helm. It turned
out that he owned a share in the vessel and worked her from Midsummer
to Michaelmas with a crew of two men and a boy. The men were called
Isaac and Morgan (I cannot remember their other names), the one
extremely old and surly, the other cheerful, curly-haired and active,
and both sparing of words. I was to be the boy.

We baited our hooks and whiffed for mackerel as we tacked out of the
Sound. And by and by we came to what Isaac called the "grounds"
(though I could see nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the
sea) and cast anchor and weighted our lines differently and caught a
few whiting while we ate our dinner. The wind had fallen to a flat
calm. After dinner Mr. Trapp looked up and said to Isaac:

"Got a life-belt on board?"

"What in thunder do 'ee want it for?" asked Isaac.

"That's my business," said Mr. Trapp.

So Isaac hunted up a belt made of pieces of cork and then was ordered
to lash one of t