“Eh!  I was thinkin’ about a gentleman as came from this Mission vessel aboard of us.  He saw our twelve o’clock haul, and he says, ’Bad breeze last night, my man.  Did you work through it?’ Well, there was nothing much of a wind—­just enough to make us reef her; so I answers, and he says, ‘I suppose this is your night’s work.  Now, what is your share?’ So I said my share would likely be tenpence.  Well, he gives a reg’lar screech; and then I reckoned up the price of all the lot as well as I could guess, and he screeched again.  ‘Why,’ says he, ’old Mother Baubo, that keeps the shop in my district at home, would charge me eight shillings for that turbot, four-and-six for that, eightpence for each of those sixty haddocks, and nobody knows what for the rest.’  Now, I’ve thought of that gentleman and his screech many a time since, and when I felt the light a-comin’ to my eyes here, I thought again.  Do you think I shall die, sir?  Excuse me.”

“Die!  No.  Fact is, I’m too good-natured a doctor.  I shall have to stop you from talking.  Die!  We’ll make a man of you, and send you on board soon.  Go on, I can stay another five minutes.”  “Well, sir, when I thought of death, I thought what people would say if they knew how much I got for risking this smash.  That night I was over the rail on to the trawl-beam twice; I was at the pumps an hour; I pulled and hauled with both arms raw, and the snow freezing with the salt as soon as it came on my ulcers, and then I got the smash.  And all for about eightpence.  And that screeching gentleman told me as how his Mother Baubo, as he calls her, drives a broom and two horses, or a horse and two brooms—­I’m mixed.  No, ’twas a land-oh and two horses, and a broom and one horse.  And I gets eightpence for a-many hours and a smash.  I never mind the fellows that tells us on Sundays when we’re ashore to rise and assirk our rights or something, but there’s a bit wrong somewhere, sir.  It don’t seem the thing.”

“Well, you see people would say you needn’t be a fisherman; you weren’t forced to come.”

“But I was, sir.  I knew no more what I was coming to than a babe, and once you’re here, you stays here.”  “Well, never mind for the present, my man.  Why, you’re a regular lawyer, you rascal; I shall have to mind my p’s and q’s with you.  Now don’t talk any more, or you’ll fidget, and that won’t do your back any good.  Will you have bread and milk, or beef-tea and toast, you luxurious person?  And I must be your valet.”

“I don’t know about vally, sir.  It’s vally enough for me.  To think as I should have a gentleman waitin’ on me as if he was a cabin-boy!  Anything you like, sir.  The sight of you makes me better.”