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.
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