ees yer bellyache what thins me every summer an' wears a fellow out,
don't come from nothing but tearing about then. I wer al'ays on the
tear, day an' night, in from sea to meals an' out again 'fore I'd had
time to bolt down two mouthfuls. Often I wer so tired that Father'd hae
to call me a dozen times afore I cude wake up, an' then I'd cry, _cry_,
if I wer ten minutes laate to work--when I had summut to du on land,
that was. Half the day I wer more asleep than awake, wi' bein' out
fishing all night. But I didn' let 'em see it. Not I! Rather'n that,
I'd go up to the closet an' catch off there for five minutes, before
they shude see I wern't fit to du me work. An' I never had nort o' me
own for years, for all I done. Whether I earned two pound, or thirty
shillings, or nothing at all, I never had so much as a penny for
pocket-money, to call me own. I had to take it all in house--aye! an'
tips too, when I got 'em. Father, he wern't doing much then, an' ther
were seven younger'n me. That's where my earnings went. An' me, as did
the work, was wearing Mother's boots an' Father's jacket."

[4] Prawning.

[5] Periwinkle gathering.

[6] Freights, _i.e._ pleasure parties.

When Tony was indisputably grown up, one half of what he earned went,
according to custom, to the boat-owner, in this case his father,
frequently had be thu to pay for repairs and new gear. That went on for
years after he was married--'hauling an' rowing an' slaving an' pulling
me guts out wi't!'--until, in fact, the present Mrs Widger insisted on
his buying boats of his own.

[Sidenote: _THE DEAD NOT WHOLLY SO_]

Our talk shifted to Tony's first wife, who died (and Tony almost died
too) as the result of the landlord's taking up the drains, and leaving
them open, in the height of a hot summer. Tony told me about her people
and her native place, a fishing village along the coast. He showed me
photographs of her, and a framed, pathetically ugly, imitation cameo
memorial, which is getting very dirty now. I knew he loved her very
much. He nearly went out of his mind when she died, leaving him with
four young children. The untidy little kitchen, with its bright fire,
its deep shadows and its white clothes hung along the line; Tony's
drooping figure, bent over the hearth in an old blue guernsey: the
contrasting redness of his face, and the beam of light from a cracked
lamp-shade falling across his wet, memory-stuck blue eyes.... The
kitchen s