t very day at dinner-time.

It is like a knight of romance being equipped by his lady for the wars.
But what must be the difficulty to a young fisherman of earning his
bread and cheese, when all he can do for his sweetheart is to leave her
forthwith! There's a fine desperation in it.

Tony seemed rather proud. "They 'ouldn't think as I had a son old
enough for the Navy, wude they, sir? I married George's mother, her
that's dead, when I wer hardly olden'n he is. I should ha' joined the
Navy meself if it hadn' been for the rheumatic fever what bent me like.
I am. 'Tis a sure thing, you see--once yu'm in it an' behaves
yourself--wi' a pension at the end o'it. But I'm so strong an'
capable-like for fishing as them that's bolt upright, on'y I 'ouldn't
ha' done for the Navy. Aye! the boy's right. Fishing ain't no job for a
man nowadays; not like what it used to be. They'll make a man of him in
the Navy."

In the evening, after dark, I saw Tony again. He was standing outside a
brilliantly lighted grocer's shop, his cap awry as usual, and a reefer
thrown over his guernsey. Something in the despondency of his attitude
haled me across the road. "Well, Tony? George is there by now?"

"Iss ... I-I-I w-wonder what the boy's thinking o'it now...."

The man was crying his heart out. "I come'd hereto 'cause it don' seem
's if I can stay in house. Went in for some supper a while ago, but I
cuden' eat nort. 'Tisn' 's if he'd ever been away from home before, yu
know."

"Come along down to the Shore Road, Tony."

It seemed wrong, hardly decent, to let his grief spend itself in the
lighted-up street. The Front was deserted and dark, for there was rain
in the wind, and the sound of the surf had a quick savage chop in it.
Away, over the sea, was a great misty blackness.

As we walked up and down, Tony talked between tears and anger--tears
for himself and George, anger at the cussedness of things. He looked
straight before him, to where the row of lamps divided the lesser from
the greater darkness, the town noises from the chafing surf; it is the
only time I have ever seen a fisherman walk along shore without a
constant eye on the sea.

"He's taken and gone away jest as he was beginning to be o' some use
wi' the boats, an' I thought he wer settling down. _I_ didn' know what
wer going on, not till he came an' told me he wer off. But 'tisn'
that, though I bain't so strong as I was to du all the work be meself;
'tis what he's a-thinkin