in the world. They lounge about, in obstinate and inflexible
pantaloons that are apparently made of wood, the whole season
through. Whether talking together about the shipping in the
Channel, or gruffly unbending over mugs of beer at the public-
house, you would consider them the slowest of men. The chances are
a thousand to one that you might stay here for ten seasons, and
never see a boatman in a hurry. A certain expression about his
loose hands, when they are not in his pockets, as if he were
carrying a considerable lump of iron in each, without any
inconvenience, suggests strength, but he never seems to use it. He
has the appearance of perpetually strolling - running is too
inappropriate a word to be thought of - to seed. The only subject
on which he seems to feel any approach to enthusiasm, is pitch. He
pitches everything he can lay hold of, - the pier, the palings, his
boat, his house, - when there is nothing else left he turns to and
even pitches his hat, or his rough-weather clothing. Do not judge
him by deceitful appearances. These are among the bravest and most
skilful mariners that exist. Let a gale arise and swell into a
storm, let a sea run that might appal the stoutest heart that ever
beat, let the Light-boat on these dangerous sands throw up a rocket
in the night, or let them hear through the angry roar the signal-
guns of a ship in distress, and these men spring up into activity
so dauntless, so valiant, and heroic, that the world cannot surpass
it. Cavillers may object that they chiefly live upon the salvage
of valuable cargoes. So they do, and God knows it is no great
living that they get out of the deadly risks they run. But put
that hope of gain aside. Let these rough fellows be asked, in any
storm, who volunteers for the life-boat to save some perishing
souls, as poor and empty-handed as themselves, whose lives the
perfection of human reason does not rate at the value of a farthing