t, as he muttered this, and was making up his mind to discontinue
further exertions,--not a very easy thing to do, when you are about to
go into another world, still floating on his back, with his eyes fixed
on the starry heavens, thinking, as Smallbones afterwards narrated
himself, that there wa'n't much to live for in this here world, and
considering what there could be in that 'ere, his head struck against
something hard. Smallbones immediately turned round in the water to see
what it was, and found that it was one of the large corks which
supported a heavy net laid out across the tide for the taking of
shoal-fish. The cork was barely sufficient to support his weight, but it
gave him a certain relief, and time to look about him, as the saying is.
The lad ran under the net and cork with his hands until he arrived at
the nearest shoal, for it was three or four hundred yards long. When he
arrived there, he contrived to bring some of the corks together, until
he had quite sufficient for his support, and then Smallbones voted
himself pretty comfortable after all, for the water was very warm, and
now quite smooth.

Smallbones, as the reader may have observed during the narration, was a
lad of most indisputable courage and of good principles. Had it been his
fortune to have been born among the higher classes, and to have had all
the advantages of education, he might have turned out a hero; as it was,
he did his duty well in that state of life to which he had been called,
and as he said in his speech to the men on the forecastle, he feared
God, honoured the king, and was the natural enemy to the devil.

The Chevalier Bayard was nothing more, only he had a wider field for his
exertions and his talents; but the armed and accoutred Bayard did not
show more courage and conduct when leading armies to victory, than did
the unarmed Smallbones against Vanslyperken and his dog. We consider
that _in his way_, Smallbones was quite as great a hero as the
Chevalier, for no man can do more than his best; indeed, it is
unreasonable to expect it.

While Smallbones hung on to the corks, he was calculating his chances of
being saved.

"If so be as how they comes to take up the nets in the morning, why then
I think I may hold on; but if so be they waits, why they'll then find me
dead as a fish," said Smallbones, who seldom ventured above a
monosyllable, and whose language if not considered as pure English, was
certainly amazingly Saxon; an