bad the way those fellows go on; they don't care a
bit about running down a small craft in the dark. In the first place,
they know very well that they are not likely to be recognized, and so
steam straight on, and leave men to drown; and in the next, if they are
recognized, they are ready to swear that black is white all round, and
will take their oaths you hadn't got your side-lights burning, or that
you changed your course, and that they did all in their power to prevent
a collision. I wish some of the people of the Board of Trade would come
down the river sometimes in sailing-boats and see the way these coasters
set the law at defiance, and fine them smartly. What is the use of
making rules if they are never observed? Well, here we are home, and the
church is just striking six, so we have hit off the time nicely."

By eight o'clock Jack was in bed, and having acquired the fisherman's
habit of waking at any hour he chose, he was at the door when Bill
Corbett and his brother Joe came along. The day was already breaking
faintly in the east, for the month was May.

"Going to be fine, Bill?" Jack asked.

"Dunno. Wind is blowing strong from the north, though we don't feel it
here."

The water was off the flats and had sunk some distance in the creek.

"It is lower than I expected," Bill said. "Come on; come on."

"Where is she, Bill?"

"Close to the foot of the steps."

The boat had already taken ground; but Bill, getting into the water with
his high boots, shoved her off. The mast was stepped and sail hoisted,
and she was soon running fast down the creek.

"The boats were off an hour ago, I suppose?" Jack remarked.

"Ay, more than that. Some of them turned out at half-past one. But those
whose boats were down the channel didn't go for half an hour later.
Father told me. I saw him before I started. He couldn't sleep with the
pain in his leg."

Twenty minutes' sailing took them down to the mouth of the creek and
into the wider channel. They now turned the boat's head directly off
shore, and jibed the sail, and bore off for the sands stretching away
from the end of Canvey Island.

"No other boats here this morning?" Jack asked as the boat ran ashore.

"No; three or four of them went down to Shoebury last night. They say
there are more cockles down there than there are here now. But father
said we had best come here. I suppose he thought that Joe, you, and me,
made but a poor cocklers' crew. Of course, with the