rope from the capstan at the summit is made fast as soon as the tails of
the jackasses (laden with three cwt. of fish apiece) have wagged their
last flick at the brow of the steep; and then with "yo-heave-ho" above
and below, through the cliffs echoing over the dull sea, the groaning
and grinding of the stubborn tug begins. Each boat has her own special
course to travel up, and her own special berth of safety, and she knows
every jag that will gore her on the road, and every flint from which she
will strike fire. By dint of sheer sturdiness of arms, legs, and lungs,
keeping true time with the pant and the shout, steadily goes it with
hoist and haul, and cheerily undulates the melody of call that rallies
them all with a strong will together, until the steep bluff and the
burden of the bulk by masculine labor are conquered, and a long row of
powerful pinnaces displayed, as a mounted battery, against the fishful
sea. With a view to this clambering ruggedness of life, all of these
boats receive from their cradle a certain limber rake and accommodating
curve, instead of a straight pertinacity of keel, so that they may ride
over all the scandals of this arduous world. And happen what may to
them, when they are at home, and gallantly balanced on the brow line of
the steep, they make a bright show upon the dreariness of coast-land,
hanging as they do above the gullet of the deep. Painted outside with
the brightest of scarlet, and inside with the purest white, at a little
way off they resemble gay butterflies, preening their wings for a flight
into the depth.

Here it must have been, and in the middle of all these, that the very
famous Robin Lyth--prophetically treating him, but free as yet of fame
or name, and simply unable to tell himself--shone in the doubt of the
early daylight (as a tidy-sized cod, if forgotten, might have shone)
upon the morning of St. Swithin, A.D. 1782.