into all that interests or concerns them, and gives counsel and cheery chat without a sign of patronage.  Then, after the little meeting is over, and the evening begins to fall, the fascinating landsman will stroll on the deck for a few minutes, until the smack’s boats come over the great seas to bear away the visitors; all his gossip is like a revelation to the rude, good-hearted creatures, and his words filter from vessel to vessel; his very accent and tone are remembered; and when the hoarse salute “God bless you!” sounds over the sea, as the boats go away, you may be sure that the fishers utter their blessing with sincere fervour.  Then there are the great meetings on calm, happy Sundays, when the cultured clergyman who has snatched a brief rest from his parochial duties, or five or six amateurs (many of them University men) stroll about among the congregation before the formal service begins.  The roughs who come on board for the first time are inclined to exhibit a sort of resentful but sheepish reserve, until they find that the delicate courtesy of these Christian gentlemen arises from sheer goodwill; then they become friendly and confidential.  Well, all this intercourse is gradually knitting together the upper and middle classes on shore and the great seagoing population; the fishers feel that they are cared for, and the defiant blackguardism of the outcast must by and by be nearly unknown.  I feel it almost a duty to mention one curious matter which came to my notice.  An ugly morning had broken with half a gale of wind blowing; the sea was not dangerous, but it was nasty—­perhaps nastier than it looked.  I was on board a steam-carrier, a low-built, powerful iron vessel that lunges in the most disturbing manner when she is waiting in the trough of the sea for the boats which bring off the boxes of fish.  The little boats were crashing, and leaping like hooked salmon, and grinding against the sides of the steamer, and I could not venture to walk about very much on that reeling iron deck.  The crowd of smacksmen who came were a very wild lot, and, as the breeze grew stronger, they were in a hurry to get their boxes on board.  Since one of the trunks of fish weighs 80 lbs., I need hardly say that the process of using such a box as a dumb-bell is not precisely an easy one, and, when the dumb-bell practice has to be performed on a kind of stage which jumps like a bucking broncho, the chances of bruises and of resulting bad language are much increased.  The bounding, wrenching, straining, stumbling mob in the boats did not look very gentle or civilized; their attire was quite fanciful and varied, but very filthy, and they were blowzy and tired after their wild night of lashing rain and chill hours of labour.  A number of the younger fellows had the peculiar street Arab style of countenance, while the older men were not of the very gentle type.  In that mad race against wind and tide, I should have expected a little of the usual cursing and fighting from a mob which