villages. Since the Government school system
spread, many little places have been established; but what can a poor
schoolmaster do with a pupil who is wanted nearly every morning to
gather bait on the rocks, and who must see the trouting boats off on the
summer afternoons? The fisher-boy always goes barefooted. Big sea-boots
suit him when he grows up, but the shabby compromise of shoes or
"bluchers" is totally unacceptable to him. When he goes to school he
sometimes puts the hated footgear on; but as soon as the prison-doors
are passed he slings the boots round his neck and goes merrily home with
his brown feet moving freely. He will charge through a clump of nettles
quite indifferently; and this wondrous power strikes civilized children
with awe. The fisher-boy's language is a strange mixture. No southerner
can understand him; for, besides using old words, the fisher speaks with
harsh gutturals that make a burring sound in his throat. He calls a wild
cherry a "guigne;" he calls a swede turnip a "baygee," a gooseberry a
"grozer," mud "clarts," a horse-collar a "brime." If he had to say "I
fell head over heels," he would remark, "Aw cowped me creels." The
stranger is puzzled by this surprising tongue, but the fisher is proud
of it. No words can express his scorn for a boy who learns to talk
"Massingem" (which is the fisher's word for English): he scouts that
degenerate boy and refuses to consort with him. When the fisher-lad gets
measured for his first oilskins he is very proud. To "get away Norrad"
is the right of men; and he feels himself manly as he sits amidships
while the coble skims out into the bay. He is usually sent to the
trouting first; and then all night long he glides about on the dark bay
and hears the sounds from the moor and the woods. It falls cold toward
the dawn, and the boy grows hard and strong through his nightly ordeal.
When his hands are properly hardened like his horny feet, he is allowed
to row the coble with crossed oars; and then he becomes very useful, for
the men are left free to haul nets and plash on the water to frighten
the trout. When he reaches the age of sixteen, the fisher-lad clothes
himself in thick pilot-cloth and wears a braided cap on Sundays. He
pierces his ears too, and his thin golden rings give him a foreign look.
The young fisher-folk are very shamefaced about sweet-hearting. A lad
will tramp eight miles after dark to see his sweetheart; but he would be
stupefied with shame