All through the next day, without rest or respite, the hardy young boatman unceasingly engaged on salvage duty. I accidentally heard, by the way, that on the previous day he had plunged twice into the sea from the breakwater to save two children who had fallen in--for which service he was munificently rewarded with five shillings.
At night, in answer to a question, he told me, "Sometimes in winter we've been out as much as three times in one night, and been at it again the night after. You soon get used to it, you know."
H'm! I _don't_ know: I only know that after that night I was laid up with a chill, whilst he made no more of his labours, his perils and exposure than if they had been part of a picnic; and I also know that when, in inquiring about my health, he wistfully struggled to tune his storm-tanned hardy face to a note of decent sympathy, he made me feel ashamed of my lubberly fragility.
Yet--tut, tut! Can I not win more pay for a nice little cackling article about his work, than this dreadnought will get for saving six men's and two children's lives?
Since everything is justly ordained in our best of all possible societies, my greater gain must prove, despite appearances, that I am this man's superior.
Besides, he speaks to me with manifest respect, and calls me "Sir."
A few nights later, there was another gale; a trawler was driven ashore, and her crew saved by the rocket apparatus.
Two or three nights later a Lowestoft smack was run down by a Norwegian barque, and the skipper and mate were drowned; one left a wife and four children, the other a wife and nine!
These casualties are happening constantly--they are so common they are scarcely reported, even in local papers; but what becomes of the widows and orphans?
A man's wages on the trawlers are 14s. a week, _when his boat is at sea_.
"They ought to be included in the Compensation Act," I suggested to a boatman.
"Who is to pay the compensation?" he asked.
"Oh, they couldn't afford it"; they couldn't afford more wages; couldn't afford anything. They also were to be numbered amongst those deserving unfortunate classes of disinterested British capitalists who are living on their losses. Yet one doesn't hear of _their_ starving in the winter, of _their_ being drowned in quest of a precarious livelihood, of _their_ widows and orphans being gathered into the workhouse. Nor the boatbuilders, nor the sailmakers, nor the Billingsgate "wholesalers," nor any of the men connected with the trade, except those who do the actual work of catching the fish.