nor impolite.  The fisherman toils on till the time comes for him to stay ashore always.  His life is a very risky one, and the history of every village is largely made up of stories about drowned men, for the coast is an ugly place, and the utmost skill and daring can hardly carry a man through a lifetime without accident.  If the accident is fatal, there is an end of all:  the bruised bodies are washed up; the women wring their hands, and the old men walk about silently.  But if things go well, then the fisherman’s old age is comfortable enough.  The women look after him kindly, and on sunny mornings he enjoys himself very well as he nurses the children on the bench facing the sea.

A LONG CHASE.

The “Halicore” ran into harbour one October morning and took up her berth at the quay.  The brig had come from a nine months’ voyage and the men were regarded as heroes when they came ashore, for most of our vessels were merely coasters.  When all was made snug on board, the sailors went to their homes and received the admiring homage of the neighbours.  One young man whose parents lived in a cottage away to the north was very keen to get home.  He had a weary stretch of moorland to pass, and the evening was wild, with only fitful gleams of moonlight to brighten the dark, but the young sailor would not stay.  He knew the old people would be sitting by the fireside till half-past ten or eleven, and it delighted him to think how they would start with joy when he rattled the latch on the door.  An innkeeper warned him about the state of the roads, but the sailor was a light-hearted fellow, and paid no heed to the talk about “muggers,” or gipsies.  He had been very careful during the voyage, so that his leather belt under his waistcoat was well filled with sovereigns and silver.  Of course he knew that the “muggers,” (or travelling potters), were sometimes nasty customers to meet on a dark night, but he reckoned that he could hold his own anywhere.  Jack was well-built, and very swift of foot, and he strode fast over the dark and misty moor.  The furze bushes roared as the wind went through, and the heather made a mysterious whispering, but Jack did not mind the noises that affect the nerves of cultured persons.  A poacher bade him a kindly good-night, and added, “Mind there’ll be some queer fellows along by the Dead Man’s Trail,” but Jack did not turn back, although he felt the poacher’s warning a little.  Rabbits scampered past him, and an owl beat steadily over the heather like a well-trained setter.  When the dark grew thicker the wail of the curlews as they called from overhead was strange.  The howl of a fox, that weirdest of all sounds, came sharply from among the brown brackens, but Jack was not impressed:  he was home again, and the piercing cry of the fox was only a pleasant reminder of good fortune.