and not a bad one higher up. I fancy most of the boats did well.
The _Hope_ was close to us, and I expect she must have done as well as
we did."

"That's good news, Jack. The catches have not been heavy lately, but now
they have once begun I hope that we shall have a better time of it."

The breakfast was fish, for fish is the chief article of diet at Leigh.

"Are you going to bed, Jack?"

"No, mother; I did not start until half-past one, and so I got a good
six hours before I turned out. I am going to help Uncle Ben put a fresh
coat of pitch on our boat. He is going to bring her in as soon as there
is water enough. Tom stopped on board with him, but they let me come
ashore in Atkins' boat; and of course I lent them a hand to get their
fish up. We shall land our lot when the bawley comes up."

"Then you won't go out again to-night, Jack?"

"Oh, yes, we shall, mother. We shall go out with the tide as usual. We
shall only do up to the water-line, and the pitch will be plenty dry
enough by night. We are going to fish over by Warden Point, I think."

"I am glad to hear it," his mother said. "I always feel more comfortable
when you are on that ground, as you are out of the track of steamers
there."

"Uncle is talking of going down to Harwich next week."

Mrs. Robson's face fell. She had expected the news, for every year a
considerable number of the Leigh bawleys go down to Harwich and fish off
that port for two or three months. The absence of Jack was always a
great trial to her. When he was with her she felt that he was safe, for
it is an almost unheard-of thing for a bawley to meet with an accident
when fishing in the mouth of the Thames; but off Harwich the seas are
heavy, and although even there accidents are rare--for the boats are
safe and staunch and the fishermen handle them splendidly--still the
risk is greater than when working at home.

The Leigh men themselves attribute their freedom from accident in no
slight degree to the fact that their boats never go out on Sunday. They
are God-fearing men these fishermen, and however bad the times, and
however hard the pinch, it is seldom indeed that a bawley puts out from
Leigh on Sunday, save to the assistance of a vessel in distress.

The excursionists who go down in summer weather to Margate and Ramsgate
scarcely think that ships could be cast away and broken up upon the
hidden sands beneath the sparkling waters. They know not that scarce one
of these sands