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MRS. GODSTONE found no difficulty whatever in persuading Jack's mother to allow him to take advantage of her husband's offer. Mrs. Robson had at her husband's death decided at once that, with the small sum of money at her disposal, the only method she could see of making ends meet was to go down to Leigh and invest it in a bawley.

Mack returned late in the afternoon, having passed the Colt on his way to the Depot, towards which he dragged himself with difficulty, but Bawley was beyond recovery; he gave the poor animal the water, however, for he was a humane man, and then left him to die.

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.

All through the years since Marthy had gone down that rocky gash in search of Buck and Bawley, no human being had entered or left the Cove save through that narrow opening. The tingle of romance which swept always the nerves of the girl when she rode that way fastened upon her now.

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 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.

"It was a lucky day for me, sir, that was," Jack said. "I had then nothing to look forward to, beyond sailing a bawley; now I have got the life I always wanted to follow, and every prospect of getting on." "That you have, my lad," Hoare agreed. "It was a rare bit of luck for you that you made us out, no doubt, and a rare bit of luck for us too." The voyage began well.

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.

"There are few boats will beat a bawley," Ben said. "Well handled, they will live through pretty near anything." "I can quite believe that. Which of you was it who sprang overboard to get our line?" "It was not either of us," Ben said. "Neither Tom nor I can swim a stroke. It was my nephew Jack that lad who has just come out of the fo'castle." "It was a gallant action," the captain said.

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.

"My daughter and I have come round to thank you for the very great service you rendered us." Mrs. Murchison and Mildred Godstone also shook hands with Jack. The former added her thanks to Mrs. Godstone's. Jack coloured up hotly and said, "It is my uncle you have to thank, ma'am. It was his bawley, and he and Tom sailed it, and I had nothing to do with it one way or the other."