'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.
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