Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 24, 2025
He soon climbed down into it, and the little boat, rowed by two strong pairs of hands, danced away to the fleet. Already the luggers were stretching off in a long line across the bay; and among them appeared a number of visitors: Lowestoft yawls come down to the West after the early mackerel. They were big, stout vessels, and many had steam-power aboard.
The Chesapeake luggers have gone out with the tide, too. And then, by God, by God, what then: the treaty of Ghent, with England impressing our seamen and tying our ships up in what ports she chose under a right of search!
"By the way, did you ever know a man called Quiller who had some fishing craft in these parts twenty years ago?" The man beamed at the question. "That's my father, sir. He lives along with my wife and the kids. Will you come and see him, sir? Oh, yes, he's well and hearty. But he's getting on in years, is dad. He don't go out with the luggers now. You'll come and see him, eh, sir?"
I wish they hadn't boarded it up, so that a fellow can't see where they used to hide the cargoes of silk and lace and kegs of brandy the French luggers brought across from Saint Malo wasn't that where they ran them from, Captain?" "Aye," replied the old sailor. "They don't now, though, my boy. Our coastguardsmen are too sharp for that, and the mounseers have to find another market for their goods!
He sent beams of yellow light shooting out to seawards. His hands quivered, and he was mumbling to himself under the influence of ungovernable excitement. His stakes were very large, and all depended on the flicker of those lanthorns out towards the men on the luggers that were hidden in the black expanse of the sea.
As a rule there were fishermen hanging over the rail on the top of the cliff a couple of hundred yards or so away, men busy with trawl or seine net on the smacks and luggers, and a score or two of boys playing about somewhere on the pier; but there was, as Tom Bodger had said, something going on in the town, and as soon as those ashore had done watching the man-o'-war's men and seen them row off, there was a steady human current setting away from the harbour, and not a listening ear to catch the sailor's hails and pass the word on for help, as he hung on to the boat's rope with all his might, feeling assured that if he slacked his efforts she would glide off the slimy stone and go to the bottom.
Herring fishing is carried on at night, when the fish cannot see the nets. Besides these large herring luggers, many open boats are used; and great numbers of other boats from the coasts of Scotland and the North of England resort to these seas in the herring season. There is yet another class of vessels which frequent this coast.
The arrangements above described are exactly those adopted by the lifeboats, which are also lugger-rigged, and being almost identical in their rig are singularly familiar to Deal men. The introduction of steam has diminished greatly the number of the luggers, as fewer vessels than formerly wait in the Downs, and there is less demand for the services of the boatmen.
The sea ran high, its white foam-caps and ridges fretting the rolling volume of it; the luggers fought their way out with buried noses and laboring hulls; rain still held off, but it was coming quickly, and the furze and the young grasses panted for it on Gorse Point.
One boat, however, has been known to bring in the enormous quantity of twenty lasts. Some few years ago upwards of nine thousand lasts, or nearly one hundred and twenty millions of fish, were caught by the Yarmouth luggers. Several vessels bring in one hundred lasts each. As is well-known, immediately the herring leaves the water it dies; hence the phrase, "dead as a herring."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking