Big
Harry and his son rowed into the cove, and then Little Harry went to
catch the old mare on the moor. A boy drove the night's fish to the
station, and Big Harry slept heavily in the dark box bed.

Father and sons led this life for many years. Their only change came
when the herring shoals moved southward, and then the five strong men
used to make a great deal of money. They saved too, and were much better
off than some people who live in finer houses. Indeed, they had much
need to earn a great deal, for those great frames were not easily kept
up. Big Adam once ate five eggs after his return from a night's
fishing. He then inquired "When will breakfast be ready?". So it will be
seen that his appetite was healthy.

It seemed that nothing but gradual decay could ever sap the strength of
any one of these fine athletes, yet a miserable mischance made a break
in the family, and changed Big Harry into a sorrowful man. He came
ashore one rainy morning, and he and his son had sore work in hauling
the coble up. There was no one to drive the fish to the station, so
Little Harry volunteered. It was a long drive for such a bad day, and
when the young man came home he was chilled. He shivered a good deal and
could not sleep, but no one dreamed of bringing a doctor for a man with
a forty-seven inch chest. Within a very short while Little Harry was
taken by rapid consumption, and succumbed like a weakling from the town.
On the day of the funeral the father would not follow the coffin over
the moor. He lay with his face pressed on the pillow, and the bed shook
with his sobbing. He never would take another son for mate, because he
thought he might distress the lad if he showed signs of comparing him
with the dead. He preferred a stranger. He liked carrying Little Harry's
son about, and he used to be pleased when the clergyman said to the
child, "Well, and how is your big pony?"--the pony being the
grandfather. When the lad grew big enough to handle the small-sized
plasher the old man took him as partner, and he boasts about the little
fellow's cleverness.

THE COLLIER SKIPPER.

Many old-fashioned people who read of the massacres caused by steamboat
collisions, think regretfully of the time when eight hundred sail of
ships would make the trip between Tyne and Thames without so much as the
loss of a bowsprit from one of the fleet. It was slow work, perhaps, and
it might be a tedious sight (say those who praise past times), t