of the tens of thousands of excursionists who every summer travel down by rail to southend, there are few indeed who stop at leigh, or who, once at southend, take the trouble to walk three miles along the shore to the fishing village. it may be doubted, indeed, whether along the whole stretch of coastline from plymouth to yarmouth there is a village that has been so completely overlooked by the world. other places, without a tithe of its beauty of position, or the attraction afforded by its unrivalled view over the thames, from gravesend to warden point, ever alive with ships passing up and down, have grown from fishing hamlets to fashionable watering-places; while leigh remains, or at any rate remained at the time this story opens, ten years ago, as unchanged and unaltered as if, instead of being but an hour's run from london, it lay far north in scotland.
its hill rises steeply behind it; there is room only for the street between the railway and the wharves, and for a single row of houses between the line and the foot of the hill. to get into leigh from the country round it is necessary to descend by a steep road that winds down from the church at the top of[6] the hill; to get out again you must go by the same way. the population is composed solely of fishermen, their families, and the shopkeepers who supply their necessities. the men who stand in groups in the street and on the wharf are all clad in blue guernseys or duck smocks and trousers of pilot cloth or canvas. broad-built sturdy men are they, for in point of physique there are few fishermen round the coast who can compare with those of leigh.
a stranger in the place would think that the male population had nothing to do but to stand in the street and talk, but night is for the most part their time for work; although many of the bawleys go out on the day-tide also, for at leigh the tide is all-important. for five hours in the day it washes the foot of the wharves, for seven a wide expanse of mud stretches away to canvey island in front, and southend pier to the east.
at the wells—for leigh still depends for water on its wells—are, during the hours at which water is permitted to be drawn, lines of twenty women and girls with pails, each patiently waiting her turn. there are not many boys about, for boys require more sleep than men, and a considerable portion of their time on shore is spent in bed.
it is ten o'clock in the day; the bawleys have returned from the fishing grounds, and scores of them have anchored in the ray—a deep stretch of water lying between the spit of sand that extends from the end of canvey island close up to southend pier, and the mud-flats of leigh. the flats are still uncovered, but the tide is rising fast in the winding channel leading up to the village. in a few[7] minutes there will be water enough for the boats, and already these can be seen leaving the bawleys and making for the mouth of the channel. the wind is fair, and each boat hoists its sail, white or yellow or brown, and with the crew sitting up to windward comes flying along the shallow channel, making, as they always do, a race of it home.
the boats are large and roomy, and are, as they need to be, good sea-boats; for they have at times to live in rough water that would swamp lighter craft like cockle-shells. each boat carries two men and a boy, that being the regular crew of a bawley; although, perhaps, for rough winter work, they may sometimes take an extra hand. in the bow of the first boat that comes tearing along up to the wharf sits a good-looking lad, about fourteen years old. his face is bronzed with the sun and wind, his clothes are as rough and patched as those of the other fisher lads; but although as strong and sinewy as any of his companions of the same age, he is somewhat slighter in his build, more active in his movements, and has a more springy and elastic walk in spite of the heavy boots that he wears.
he helps the others to land several baskets of shrimps, and carry them to the railway-station hard by. they are already boiled, for the bawleys carry coppers, into which the shrimps are baled straight from the nets, so that they are in readiness to send off to town as soon as they are landed. when the baskets are all piled on the platform he crosses the line, follows it along for some fifty yards, and then enters a neat cottage facing it.
"back again all safe, jack?"[8]
"all right, mother! it's been a fine night, with just enough wind, and not too much. i ought to have been in half an hour ago, but tide is late this morning."
"lily brought word, just as she was starting for school, that the boats were coming up the creek, so your breakfast is all ready."
"and so am i, mother; though i had a piece of bread and cheese when we dropped anchor. i will just wash my hands, and be ready in a jiffey."
mrs. robson was a native of leigh. her father had been a fisherman, who had owned his own bawley; indeed, most of the boats at leigh are the property of one of the men who work them.
bessy tripper—not that her real name was tripper, but snow; but her father for some unknown reason got the nickname of tripper, and his sons and daughters were also called by it, and would hardly have answered if addressed as snow—was one of the prettiest girls in leigh; so thought william robson, a young artist, who came down to leigh to spend the summer there, sketching the picturesque boats as they came in and out, or lay, with their heads pointing all round the compass, on the soft mud.
he had taken lodgings at tripper's house, and when not at work with his brush spent much of his time on board the enterprise. bessy tripper was a conspicuous figure in the foreground of many of his sketches, and occupied as prominent a place in his thoughts. she was as sweet-tempered as she was pretty, and at last will robson made up his mind to marry her if she would take him. he was himself[9] an orphan, and had no friends who had any right to object to his marrying according to his fancy, and he could therefore do as he pleased without question or comment. bessy tripper was quite ready to take him when he asked her, and they were married at the church at the top of the hill, and went to live at a little cottage near dulwich.
william robson was no genius; he had the knack of painting pretty marine sketches in water-colours. these sold readily, but at low prices; and although he was always talking of doing a great picture in oils that was to make his fortune, the picture never was painted. he was always too busy at what he called pot-boilers, which had to be sold to dealers for a trifle, in order to enable him to meet the butcher's and baker's bills. he never repented his marriage; bessy was an admirable housewife, and made a shilling go as far as many women would a half-crown. in the summer they generally went down for a couple of months to leigh, for her to see her friends, for him to gather a fresh stock of new subjects.
he died suddenly from the effects of a chill, and when his affairs were wound up bessy found herself mistress of the five hundred pounds for which he had insured his life, and the furniture of the cottage. it was natural that she should return to leigh. she had no friends elsewhere; and she knew that money went much further there than in most other places. two hundred pounds were spent in purchasing the cottage in which she now lived, and another two hundred in buying a bawley. at leigh, as at most other fishing places, the men work on shares—the boat takes a share, and each of the men a share—the[10] owner of a boat supplying nets as well as the boat itself. the bawley, therefore, brought mrs. robson in a sum equal to that earned by a fisherman, with deductions, however, for damages to nets and spars.
in good seasons the receipts sufficed to keep her and her boy and girl comfortably; in bad seasons they had to live very closely, and she was obliged in specially bad times to dip a little into her reserve of a hundred pounds. upon the other hand, there was occasionally a windfall when the smack rendered assistance to a vessel on the sands, or helped to get up anchors or discharge cargoes.
at the time of her husband's death jack was ten years old and lily eight. for two years the former attended the school on the hill, and then went as a boy on board a bawley belonging to one of his uncles.
the lad's own predilections were entirely for the sea; his happiest times had been spent at leigh, and his father's work had kept the longing alive at other times. he would have preferred going to sea in one of the ships of which there was always such a line passing up and down the river, but he was too young for that when he first began his work on board the bawley; and as the time went on, and he became accustomed to the life of a fisherman, his longings for a wider experience gradually faded away, for it is seldom indeed that a leigh boy goes to sea—the leigh men being as a race devoted to their homes, and regarding with grave disapproval any who strike out from the regular groove.
"we did well this morning, mother," jack said as he came downstairs in a clean guernsey and pilot[11] trousers. "we had a fine haul off the lower blyth, 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[12] 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 but at low water is dotted with low, black timbers, and that there are few more dangerous pieces of navigation in the world than the passage up the mouth of the thames on a wild night when a fierce gale is blowing and the snow and sleet driving before it, obscuring the guiding lights that mark the channels between the sands.
the bessy—for so ben tripper had named his bawley, after his favourite sister—was lying on the mud just above leigh. a fishy smell pervaded the air, for close by were the boiling-sheds, with their vast heaps of white cockle-shells. these were dug[13] by the cocklers either from the sand at the end of the canvey island or on the maplin sands somewhere off shoebury.
the large boats often return deeply laden with them. on reaching leigh the cockles are thrown out in great heaps by the side of the creek, where they are covered at each tide. here they are left to clean themselves, and to get rid of the sand they have taken in when burrowing. two or three days later they are carried up to the boiling-houses and thrown into great coppers of boiling water. they open at once, and the fish drop from the shells. the contents of the coppers are passed through large meshed sieves, to allow the fish to pass through and retain the shells, which go to add to the heaps outside. these heaps would in time rival in size the cinder tips of the midlands were it not that there is a use for the shells. they make splendid lime, and are sometimes taken away in barge-loads and carried to town, where they are used instead of gravel in the parks, making, when crushed, the whitest and tidiest of paths.
before starting, jack had put on a canvas jumper, leggings and high boots, and was soon at work with his uncle, ankle-deep in the mud. the bawleys are boats almost peculiar to leigh, although a few hail from gravesend and the medway. they are from thirty to forty-five feet long, and are divided into three classes of from six to fifteen tons burden. they are very broad in comparison to their length, some of them having a beam of fifteen feet, and they carry their width almost to the stern, which is square. this gives the boats a dumpy appearance,[14] as they look as if they had been cut short. they are half-decked, with a roomy fo'castle and a well, where the fish are kept alive. they carry one mast.
the peculiarity of their rig is that they have no boom to their mainsail, which in shape somewhat resembles a barge-sail, and, like it, can in a moment be brailed completely up. they carry a lofty topmast and large topsails, and these they seldom lower, even when obliged to have two reefs in the mainsail. they are capital sea-boats, fast, and very handy; and it requires a good yacht to beat a bawley with a brisk wind blowing. the men are keen sailors, and when the trawls are taken up and their heads turned homewards it is always a race to be first back.
ten years ago all the bawleys were clinker-built—that is, with the streaks overlapping each other, as in boats; but the new bawleys are now all carvel-built, the planks being placed edge to edge, so as to give a smooth surface, as in yachts and large vessels. they now for the most part carry spinnakers, boomed out when running before the wind, and balloon foresails, thereby greatly adding to their speed in light winds. one peculiarity of the bawleys is that, when at anchor, the mainsail, instead of being stowed with its spars parallel to the deck, is made up on its gaff, which is then hoisted with the throat seven or eight feet up the mast, while the peak rests on the stern.
this is done to give more room on deck, and enable the men to get more easily in and out of the fo'castle. it has, however, a curious appearance, and a fleet of bawleys at anchor resembles nothing so much as a flock of broken-backed ducks.
ben tripper and his mate, tom hoskins, finished[15] tarring the boat under her water-line soon after four o'clock in the afternoon, jack's share of the work consisting in keeping the fire blazing under the pitch kettle.
"what time shall we go out, uncle?"
"not going out at all, jack. we will finish tarring her the first thing in the morning, and there are two or three odd jobs want doing."
"will you want me, uncle? because, if not, i shall go out early with bill corbett cockling. his father has hurt his leg, and is laid up, so he asked me to lend him a hand. i told him i didn't know whether you were going out again to-night or whether you could spare me in the morning, but that if you didn't want me i would go with him."
"you can go, jack; besides, you will be in early anyhow. we will do the tarring without you."
