I opened the conversation in true English fashion by a remark on the weather, asking his opinion as to the probability of rain.
'Snow more likely,' he answered laconically, but quite civilly.
'I daresay you are right,' was my reply, 'for I should think you are one of the weather-wise people.'
'Ought to be, if there's anything learned in being always twelve hours in the four-and-twenty out of doors all seasons,' was the rejoinder.
'Rather hard work for you, my man,' I said sympathisingly.
'I don't complain. There's lighter work to be sure, but there's some that's a deal heavier; and after being at it so many years, maybe it comes easier to me than it would to another. I was only fifty-five when I began, and now I'm seventy-three.'
'And is it necessary that you should work all the six hours that the tide is ebbing?' I asked, really desiring the information.
'Quite necessary,' he replied, descending a step, and plying his broom vigorously as he spoke. 'Why, if I did not begin at the beginning and go on regularly, the mud would harden, and I should have to drag up buckets of water to wash the steps with. And gentlefolks want nice clean steps going to the boats.'
'I suppose you are glad when your work does not happen to be in the dead of the night?' I observed.
'I don't know that I care. It is the change in the time that makes the variety in the work. And sometimes on fine nights, when the stars are blinking and winking, or the moon floating in the sky, with the clouds rushing along as if every now and then they were washing her face--I think things and feel things as I don't at other times. I think it is a mistake for people always to sleep of nights, I do.'
'I suppose you depend on some one to call you up at the turn of the tide?' I said inquiringly.
'No; I don't,' replied the old man, with a shake of his head. 'I tried that at first, but it didn't answer. I daresay Larkins might do it; but it was before he took to the business of knocking at doors; and the man I trusted to made mistakes or else forgot, and didn't wake me right, and I very nearly lost the place; and ever since I have trusted to myself.'
'That is just what I don't know, except that it seems to me it is managed for me. I only know that if it is high-water in the deadest hour of the night, I always do wake. It is just as if something said: "Look alive; time's up;" and sure enough it always is. I often wonder at it; but I have come to think that wondering is of no more use than wondering at the tides coming up so surely, and the new moons shining just as they are expected, and the stars all keeping their places so safely. O sir, some folks, no doubt, are very learned, but there's a deal more in the world than people can ever make out.'