A few days’ fine weather enabled the crew to repair sails and broken gear; then the “Wansbeck” clawed her way down the Norwegian coast and got into the “Sleeve.”  What the men longed for most was tobacco; and when at the end of some days’ sailing they sighted a Dutch galliot they boarded her, and the poor English scarecrows were helped liberally.  That night was passed in smoking and a blessed forgetfulness of pain.  The “Wansbeck” was given up at home, and some women had put on mourning before she was heard of.  Nothing could have saved her had not the young seaman seen that ugly dangerous place where the falling yard had smashed the dock in; and the owner had to thank the dogged hopeless bravery of his men for saving the brig even after the great leak was discovered.  The “Wansbeck” is still running; but she has patent rigging and serviceable pumps, and probably her owner is not so much the object of unfriendly wishes.

NORTH-COUNTRY FISHERMEN.

The men who go away in the great smacks and remain at sea for many weeks at a time are used to call themselves fishermen; but the long-shore fisher does not consider these smacksmen as being members of his profession at all.  A person who leaves his own village, and never comes home in the morning like a decent citizen, is regarded with much condescension by the owner of a coble.  The bolder voyager calls himself a fisher, but he is really only a kind of sailor; and as such he is a being to be patronized by the true craftsman.  Right up the coast, from the Tyne to Berwick, little villages are planted at intervals of about four miles; and these villages are mostly inhabited by men who only use open boats.  The ethnologists say that, as regards height, chest measurement, and strength, the population of this strip of coast shows the finest men in the world.  The Cumberland dalesmen are often very tall; but in weight and girth of chest the mountaineers are not equal to the Northumbrian fishers.  Dr. Brown has published some curious statistics bearing on this point; and he is of opinion that the flower of the English race may be found within a circle of two or three miles around the village of Boulmer.  The villages are much alike in every respect.  The early settlers seem to have looked for places where a range of low rocks lay like the string of a bow across the curve of a bay, or where a cove nestled under the southerly steep of a jutting point.  The beaches shelve very gradually, and are never shingly; so that a special kind of boat gradually had to be contrived in order that the peculiar nature of the landing might be suited.  The early fishermen saw that the boat must have a very light draught of water, and yet be sufficiently weatherly to face the open sea.  Thus, after years of experiment, the “coble” was designed in its present form; and these craft are as much the product of their special locality as are the men who man them.