"We did well this morning, mother," Jack said as he came downstairs in a clean guernsey and pilot trousers. "We had a fine haul off the lower Blyth, and not a bad one higher up. I fancy most of the boats did well. The Hope was close to us, and I expect she must have done as well as we did."
"That's good news, Jack. The catches have not been heavy lately, but now they have once begun I hope that we shall have a better time of it."
The breakfast was fish, for fish is the chief article of diet at Leigh.
"Are you going to bed, Jack?"
"No, mother; I did not start until half-past one, and so I got a good six hours before I turned out. I am going to help Uncle Ben put a fresh coat of pitch on our boat. He is going to bring her in as soon as there is water enough. Tom stopped on board with him, but they let me come ashore in Atkins' boat; and of course I lent them a hand to get their fish up. We shall land our lot when the bawley comes up."
"Then you won't go out again to-night, Jack?"
"Oh, yes, we shall, mother. We shall go out with the tide as usual. We shall only do up to the water-line, and the pitch will be plenty dry enough by night. We are going to fish over by Warden Point, I think."
"I am glad to hear it," his mother said. "I always feel more comfortable when you are on that ground, as you are out of the track of steamers there."
"Uncle is talking of going down to Harwich next week."
Mrs. Robson's face fell. She had expected the news, for every year a considerable number of the Leigh bawleys go down to Harwich and fish off that port for two or three months. The absence of Jack was always a great trial to her. When he was with her she felt that he was safe, for it is an almost unheard-of thing for a bawley to meet with an accident when fishing in the mouth of the Thames; but off Harwich the seas are heavy, and although even there accidents are rare – for the boats are safe and staunch and the fishermen handle them splendidly – still the risk is greater than when working at home.
The Leigh men themselves attribute their freedom from accident in no slight degree to the fact that their boats never go out on Sunday. They are God-fearing men these fishermen, and however bad the times, and however hard the pinch, it is seldom indeed that a bawley puts out from Leigh on Sunday, save to the assistance of a vessel in distress.
The excursionists who go down in summer weather to Margate and Ramsgate scarcely think that ships could be cast away and broken up upon the hidden sands beneath the sparkling waters. They know not that scarce one of these sands but at low water is dotted with low, black timbers, and that there are few more dangerous pieces of navigation in the world than the passage up the mouth of the Thames on a wild night when a fierce gale is blowing and the snow and sleet driving before it, obscuring the guiding lights that mark the channels between the sands.
The Bessy– for so Ben Tripper had named his bawley, after his favourite sister – was lying on the mud just above Leigh. A fishy smell pervaded the air, for close by were the boiling-sheds, with their vast heaps of white cockle-shells. These were dug by the cocklers either from the sand at the end of the Canvey Island or on the Maplin Sands somewhere off Shoebury.
The large boats often return deeply laden with them. On reaching Leigh the cockles are thrown out in great heaps by the side of the creek, where they are covered at each tide. Here they are left to clean themselves, and to get rid of the sand they have taken in when burrowing. Two or three days later they are carried up to the boiling-houses and thrown into great coppers of boiling water. They open at once, and the fish drop from the shells. The contents of the coppers are passed through large meshed sieves, to allow the fish to pass through and retain the shells, which go to add to the heaps outside. These heaps would in time rival in size the cinder tips of the Midlands were it not that there is a use for the shells. They make splendid lime, and are sometimes taken away in barge-loads and carried to town, where they are used instead of gravel in the parks, making, when crushed, the whitest and tidiest of paths.
Before starting, Jack had put on a canvas jumper, leggings and high boots, and was soon at work with his uncle, ankle-deep in the mud. The bawleys are boats almost peculiar to Leigh, although a few hail from Gravesend and the Medway. They are from thirty to forty-five feet long, and are divided into three classes of from six to fifteen tons burden. They are very broad in comparison to their length, some of them having a beam of fifteen feet, and they carry their width almost to the stern, which is square. This gives the boats a dumpy appearance, as they look as if they had been cut short. They are half-decked, with a roomy fo'castle and a well, where the fish are kept alive. They carry one mast.
The peculiarity of their rig is that they have no boom to their mainsail, which in shape somewhat resembles a barge-sail, and, like it, can in a moment be brailed completely up. They carry a lofty topmast and large topsails, and these they seldom lower, even when obliged to have two reefs in the mainsail. They are capital sea-boats, fast, and very handy; and it requires a good yacht to beat a bawley with a brisk wind blowing. The men are keen sailors, and when the trawls are taken up and their heads turned homewards it is always a race to be first back.
Ten years ago all the bawleys were clinker-built – that is, with the streaks overlapping each other, as in boats; but the new bawleys are now all carvel-built, the planks being placed edge to edge, so as to give a smooth surface, as in yachts and large vessels. They now for the most part carry spinnakers, boomed out when running before the wind, and balloon foresails, thereby greatly adding to their speed in light winds. One peculiarity of the bawleys is that, when at anchor, the mainsail, instead of being stowed with its spars parallel to the deck, is made up on its gaff, which is then hoisted with the throat seven or eight feet up the mast, while the peak rests on the stern.
This is done to give more room on deck, and enable the men to get more easily in and out of the fo'castle. It has, however, a curious appearance, and a fleet of bawleys at anchor resembles nothing so much as a flock of broken-backed ducks.
Ben Tripper and his mate, Tom Hoskins, finished tarring the boat under her water-line soon after four o'clock in the afternoon, Jack's share of the work consisting in keeping the fire blazing under the pitch kettle.
"What time shall we go out, uncle?"
"Not going out at all, Jack. We will finish tarring her the first thing in the morning, and there are two or three odd jobs want doing."
"Will you want me, uncle? because, if not, I shall go out early with Bill Corbett cockling. His father has hurt his leg, and is laid up, so he asked me to lend him a hand. I told him I didn't know whether you were going out again to-night or whether you could spare me in the morning, but that if you didn't want me I would go with him."
"You can go, Jack; besides, you will be in early anyhow. We will do the tarring without you."
CHAPTER II.
CAUGHT BY THE TIDE
Jack ran home.
"I thought you would have been in by two o'clock, Jack," his mother said reproachfully, "so as to see Lily before she went off to school again."
"So I should have done, mother, but I had to stick at the work until we had finished up to the water-line. Uncle Ben thought it was not worth while knocking off."
Jack's meal of bread and bacon was soon finished, then he waited a little until Lily had returned from school.
"Come on, Lil," he said, "I have been waiting to take you out with me."
"Be in by six," Mrs. Robson said.
"All right, mother! We are only just going down to the shore."
Near the little coast-guard station they came upon Bill Corbett.
"Can you come to-morrow, Jack?"
"Yes; uncle has agreed to do without me. What time are you going to start?"
"We will go out as late as we can, Jack. We can get down the creek till three anyhow, so at three o'clock you be ready down here."
"Joe is going, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes,