The Young Trawler

Indeed, if truth must be told, Billy hated books, because the only point in regard to which he and his mother had ever differed was a book! A tattered, ragged, much-soiled book it was, with big letters at the beginning, simple arrangements of letters in the middle, and maddening compounds of them towards the end. Earnestly, patiently, lovingly, yet perseveringly, had Mrs Bright tried to drill the contents of that book into Billy’s unwilling brain, but with little success, for, albeit a willing and obliging child, there was a limit to his powers of comprehension, and a tendency in his young mind to hold in contempt what he did not understand.

One day a somewhat pedantic visitor told Billy that he would never be a great man if he did not try to understand the book in question—to thoroughly digest it.

“You hear what the gentleman says, Billy, you dirty little gurnet,” said David Bright on that occasion, “you’ve got to di-gest it, my lad, to di-gest it.”

“Yes, father,” said Billy, with a finger in his mouth and his eyes on the visitor.

The boy’s mind was inquisitive and ingenious. He pestered his father, after the visitor had gone, for an explanation as to what he meant by digesting the book.

“Why, sonny,” returned David, knitting his brows very hard, for the question was somewhat of a puzzler, “he means that you’ve got to stow away in your brain the knowledge that’s in the book, an’ work away at it—di-gest it, d’ee see—same as you stow grub into yer stummick an’ digest that.”

Billy pondered this a long time till a happy thought occurred to him.

“I’ll digest it,” said he, slapping his thigh one day when he was left alone in the house. “We’ll all di-gest it together!”

He jumped up, took the lid off a pot of pea-soup that was boiling on the fire, and dropped the hated book into it.

“What’s this i’ the soup, Nell?” said David that day at dinner, as he fished a mass of curious substance out of the pot. “Many a queer thing have I fished up i’ the trawl from the bottom o’ the North Sea, but ne’er afore did I make such a haul as this in a pot o’ pea-soup. What is’t?”

“Why, David,” replied the wife, examining the substance with a puzzled expression, “I do believe it’s the primer!”

They both turned their eyes inquiringly on the boy, who sat gravely watching them.

“All right, father,” he said, “I put ’im in. We’re a-goin’ to di-gest it, you know.”

“Dirty boy!” exclaimed his mother, flinging the remains of the boiled book under the grate. “You’ve ruined the soup.”

“Never a bit, Nell,” said the skipper, who was in no wise particular as to his food, “clean paper an’ print can’t do no damage to the soup. An’ after all, I don’t see why a man shouldn’t take in knowledge as well through the stummick as through the brain. It don’t matter a roker’s tail whether you ship cargo through the main-hatch or through the fore-hatch, so long as it gits inside somehow. Come, let’s have a bowl of it. I never was good at letters myself, an’ I’ll be bound to say that Billy and I will di-gest the book better this way than the right way.”

Thus was the finishing touch put to Billy Bright’s education at that time, and we have described the incident in order that the reader may fully understand the condition of the boy’s mind as he stood gazing round the library of the West End mansion.

“Books!” exclaimed Billy, afterwards, when questioned by a Yarmouth friend, “I should just think there was books. Oh! it’s o’ no manner o’ use tryin’ to tell ’ee about it. There was books from the floor to the ceilin’ all round the room—books in red covers, an’ blue covers, an’ green, an’ yellow, an’ pink, an’ white—all the colours in the rainbow, and all of ’em more or less kivered wi’ gold—w’y—I don’t know what their insides was worth, but sartin sure am I that they couldn’t come up to their outsides. Mints of money must ’ave bin spent in kiverin’ of ’em. An’ there was ladders to git at ’em—a short un to git at the books below, an’ a long un to go aloft for ’em in the top rows. What people finds to write about beats me to understand; but who ever buys and reads it all beats me wuss.”

While new and puzzling thoughts were thus chasing each other through the fisher-boy’s brain Ruth Dotropy entered.

“What! Billy Bright,” she exclaimed in a tone of great satisfaction, hurrying forward and holding out her hand. “I’m so glad they have sent you. I would have asked them to send you, when I wrote, but thought you were at sea.”

“Yes, Miss, but I’ve got back again,” said Billy, grasping the offered hand timidly, fearing to soil it.

For the same reason he sat down carefully on the edge of a chair, when Ruth said heartily, “Come, sit down and let’s have a talk together,” for, you see, he had become so accustomed to fishy clothes and tarred hands that he had a tendency to forget that he was now “clean” and “in a split-new rig.”

Ruth’s manner and reception put the poor boy at once at his ease. For some time she plied him with questions about the fisher-folk of Yarmouth and Gorleston, in whom she had taken great interest during a summer spent at the former town,—at which time she had made the acquaintance of little Billy. Then she began to talk of the sea and the fishery, and the smacks with their crews. Of course the boy was in his element on these subjects, and not only answered his fair questioner fully, but volunteered a number of anecdotes, and a vast amount of interesting information about fishing, which quite charmed Ruth, inducing her to encourage him to go on.

“Oh! yes, Miss,” he said, “it’s quite true what you’ve bin told. There’s hundreds and hundreds of smacks a-fishin’ out there on the North Sea all the year round, summer an’ winter. In course I can’t say whether there’s a popilation, as you calls it, of over twelve thousand, always afloat, never havin’ counted ’em myself, but I know there must be a-many thousand men an’ boys there.”

“Billy was right. There is really a population of over 12,000 men and boys afloat all the year round on the North Sea, engaged in the arduous work of daily supplying the London and other markets with fresh fish.”

“And what port do they run for when a storm comes on?” asked Ruth.

“What port, Miss? why, they don’t run for no port at all, cos why? there’s no port near enough to run for.”

“Do you mean to say, that they remain at sea during all the storms—even the worst?”

“That’s just what we does, Miss. Blow high, blow low, it’s all the same; we must weather it the best way we can. An’ you should see how it blows in winter! That’s the time we catches it wust. It’s so cold too! I’ve not bin out in winter yet myself, but father says it’s cold enough to freeze the nose off your face, an’ it blows ’ard enough a’most to blow you inside out. You wouldn’t like to face that sort o’ thing—would you, Miss?”

With a light laugh Ruth admitted that she disliked the idea of such North Sea experiences.

“Oh! you’ve no idea, Miss, how it do blow sometimes,” continued Billy, who was a naturally communicative boy, and felt that he had got hold of a sympathetic ear. “Have you ever heard of the gale that blew so ’ard that they had to station two men an’ a boy to hold on to the captain’s hair for fear it should be blowed right off his ’ead?”

“Yes,” answered Ruth, with a silvery laugh. “I’ve heard of that gale.”

“Have you, Miss?” said Billy with a slightly surprised look. “That’s queer, now. I thought nobody know’d o’ that gale ’cept us o’ the North Sea, an’, p’raps, some o’ the people o’ Yarmouth an’ Gorleston.”

“I rather think that I must have read of it somewhere,” said Ruth. Billy glanced reproachfully at the surrounding books, under the impression that it must have been one of these which had taken the wind out of his sails.

“Well, Miss,” he continued, “I don’t mean for to say I ever was in a gale that obliged us to be careful of the skipper’s hair, but I do say that father’s seed somethink like it, for many a time our smack has bin blowed over on her beam-ends—that means laid a’most flat, Miss, with ’er sails on the sea. One night father’s smack was sailin’ along close-hauled when a heavy sea struck ’er abaft the channels, and filled the bag o’ the mains’l. She was just risin’ to clear herself when another sea follared, filled the mains’l again, an’ sent ’er on ’er beam-ends. The sea was makin’ a clean breach over ’er from stem to stern, an’ cleared the deck o’ the boat an’ gear an’ everythink. Down went all hands below an’ shut the companion, to prevent ’er being swamped. Meanwhile the weight o’ water bu’st the mains’l, so that the vessel partly righted, an’ let the hands come on deck agin. Then, after the gale had eased a bit, two or three o’ their comrades bore down on ’em and towed ’em round, so as the wind got under ’er an’ lifted ’er a bit, but the ballast had bin shot from the bilge into the side, so they couldn’t right her altogether, but had to tow ’er into port that way—over two hundred miles—the snow an’ hail blowin’, too, like one o’clock!”

“Really, they must have had a terrible time of it,” returned Ruth, “though I don’t know exactly how dreadful ‘one o’clock’ may be. But tell me, Billy, do the fishermen like the worsted mitts and helmets and comforters that were sent to them from this house last year?”

“Oh! don’t they, just! I’ve heard them blessin’ the ladies as sent ’em, many a time. You see, Miss, the oil-skins chafe our wrists most awful when we’re workin’ of the gear—”

“What is the gear, Billy?”

“The nets, Miss, an’ all the tackle as belongs to ’em. An’ then the salt water makes the sores wuss—it used to be quite awful, but the cuffs keeps us all right. An’ the books an’ tracts, too, Miss—the hands are wery fond o’ them, an’—”

“We will talk about the books and tracts another time,” said Ruth, interrupting, “but just now we must proceed to business. Of course you understand that I must have some object in view in sending for a fisher-boy from Yarmouth.”

“Well, Miss, it did occur to me that I wasn’t axed to come here for nuffin’.”

“Just so, my boy. Now I want your help, so I will explain. We are to have what is called a drawing-room meeting here in a few days, in behalf of the Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen, and one of your fisher captains is to be present to give an account of the work carried on among the men of the fleet by the mission vessels. So I want you to be there as one of the boys—”

“Not to speak to ’em, Miss, I hope?” said Billy, with a look of affected modesty.

“No, not to speak,” replied Ruth, laughing, “only to represent the boys of the fleet. But that’s not the main thing I want you for. It is this, and remember, Billy, that I am now taking you into my confidence, so you must not tell what I shall speak to you about to any living soul.”

“Not even to mother?” asked the boy.

“No, not even—well, you may tell it to your mother, for boys ought to have no secrets from their mothers; besides, your mother is a discreet woman, and lives a long way off from London. You must know, then, Billy, that I have two very dear friends—two ladies—who are in deep poverty, and I want to give them money—”

“Well, why don’t you give it ’em, Miss?” said Billy, seeing that Ruth hesitated. “You must have lots of it to give away,” he added, looking contemplatively round.

“Yes, thank God, who gave it to me, I have, as you say, lots of it, but I cannot give it to the dear ladies I speak of because—because—”

“They’re too proud to take it, p’raps,” suggested Billy.

“No; they are not proud—very far from it; but they are sensitive.”

“What’s that, Miss?”