Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/195

 / / •'' 9 / 140 Devon Notes and Queries. boisterous laughter,'* and at such a time '* one envies the blue- eyed, yellow-bearded fishermen rocking in their green boats in the bay." The boats used to be all black, the envy of these men and the politeness of the adjectives applied to them seem inconsistent with the earlier statement as to ''a few years ago." What, indeed, can be more heroic than the life of the present people of Hallsands (such was the old way of writing the word) as described a few lines further on after some remarks about the fishing to be got there and thereabout. '^ You will wonder at the simple life of these fishermen, each one a hero, each one risking his life and saving a comrade's life daily throughout the winter time." How little is true heroism known ! And how do they arrange about the turns, the interchanges between saving and being saved? What sea-soaked clothes there must be in Hallsands ! Imagination staggers and falls down ! And there is another marvel : " The Start Bay fishermen nearly always sleep beneath the sea." This is a new habit in that region. The present writer knew the bay well for about five and thirty years. During that time, so far as one sea- faring hamlet was concerned, two boats turned over and one life was lost, and there are far fewer fishing boats there now than there were then. Moreover, though it appears that the hamlet can do without a churchyard, so far as the mere men are concerned, what happens to the bodies of the women and the children ? For the article proceeds '* it (».«., the sea) is their only churchyard; the sky is the roof of their only church." But the difficulties of this story are not over, for the next point is, ** once upon a time, some fifteen years ago, a present of several dogs was given them," and the historian goes on to say of what use these creatures were in bringing ropes from boat to shore. This implies that there were no such dogs at Hallsands before. The present writer well remembers the presence of such dogs there thirty and forty years ago as well as in more recent days. Fine fellows they were; not the black "Newfoundlands" of Torcross, but yellow creatures that could do fine work among the breakers. '' The dogs are all dead now," proceeds the inspired writer. This is sad, but it is not quite clear why, if they were so useful, they left no posterity or have no successors.