United States or Turks and Caicos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is the business of a bumboat-woman to know everything going forward, what ships are likely to be commissioned, the characters of the captains and officers, when they are to sail, and where they are going to.
My father being a sober, steady man, having saved more of his pay and prize-money than had most of his shipmates, when he left the service bought a wherry, hired and furnished a house, and married my mother, Polly Treherne, the daughter of a bumboat-woman who plied her trade in Portsmouth Harbour.
"And so you ought; it's not every pretty girl, like me, who will give up a new bonnet. Only look what a rubbishy affair this is," continued Nancy, giving her own a kick up in the air. "I wish I had a sovereign to give away," said Joey to Mrs Chopper; "I wish I had not said a word about the clothes." "Do as you like with your own money, my dear," said the bumboat-woman.
"No, indeed," replied Nancy, who, by agreeing with Mrs Chopper in all she said, and praising Joey, and his likeness to Peter, at last quite came over the old bumboat-woman; and Nancy quitted her boat with the two herrings, the loaf; and the paper of tobacco. "Shall I put them down, Mrs Chopper?" said Joey.
"And was thy mother a bumboat-woman, a true, honest soul, one of the excellent of the earth?" he asked. "Ay, ay, sir! That was my mother," I said, my heart beating with pleasure to hear her so spoken of. Then he told me that he was Mr Silas Gray, and asked if I remembered the visits he used to pay to our house. Of course I did.
"What, won't you go to church?" "Bless you, child! who is to give the poor men their breakfast and their beer? A bumboat-woman can't go to church any more than a baker's man, for people must eat on a Sunday. Church, like everything else in this world, appears to me only to be made for the rich; I always take my Bible in the boat with me on Sunday, but then I can't read it, so it's of no great use.
This assurance had a surprising effect upon Pipes, who, though he made no manner of reply, thrust the helm into the master's hands, saying, "Here, you old bumboat-woman, take hold of the tiller, and keep her thus, boy, thus;" and skipped about the vessel, trimming the sails, and managing the ropes with such agility and skill, that everybody on deck stood amazed at his dexterity. Mr.
Word Of The Day