own class; but I could see that she was
likely to make some difference in John's rather convivial habits. She
spoke like an ignorant woman with strong natural sense, and when Jack
proposed having some beer, she said, "Ay, so! That's the way you fare to
go. I've seen them, as soon as ever they leaves the pay-office, turning
into the public-house. And a master lot o' good that do, doan't it now?
Men workin' like beasts for two months, and then dropping all their
money into the till in a week, and then off to sea short of clothes,
besides very likely getting into trouble. Nay! Have yow a glass of ale
if yow care, but no good never come on it, what I know. Leastways, not
for men that goes to the sea."

So Jack and I deferred to Sally's opinion--until nine o'clock in the
evening, and then we made up for lost time. It was amusing to see the
cool way in which the handsome lad parted from his sweetheart. They had
not met for two months, and yet I do not believe that they exchanged
kisses either at meeting or parting.

These folk are strangely undemonstrative. They are fond of each other,
and most faithful, but they show nothing. On a grim morning after a
gale, when the vessels are towing up with flags half-mast high, the
women will gather on the tow-path and by the quays; you see white, drawn
faces, but rarely a tear. The bleak, perilous life of the men seems to
be known intimately to the women, and they accept the worst fortune with
a dry pathos that is heartbreaking. Jack and his sweetheart were in the
flush of youth--nay, of physical beauty; they were passionately fond of
each other; and they parted like casual strangers. When Jack went again
below to the filthy, frowsy cabin of the smack, and thought over the
months of cold, toil, drenching weather, and hard fare, I have no doubt
but that he thought of the pretty girl, but he said very little, and
larked on as usual as soon as he got over his parting carouse.

For several trips after this, my handsome fellow was wild and careless;
his splendid constitution enabled him to drink with impunity the
abominable stuff sold by the Copers, and he was merely merry when older
soakers were delirious. His father and he parted, and the old man
stayed at home as ship's husband to a firm of smack owners, and the lad
had his head free. He was as desperately brave as ever, for the subtle
poison was long in attacking his nerve; but many of his ways were queer,
and the men who went home in t