Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces

in the night, or let them hear through the angry roar the signalguns

of a ship in distress, and these men spring up into activity

so dauntless, so valiant, and heroic, that the world cannot surpass

it. Cavillers may object that they chiefly live upon the salvage

of valuable cargoes. So they do, and God knows it is no great

living that they get out of the deadly risks they run. But put

that hope of gain aside. Let these rough fellows be asked, in any

storm, who volunteers for the life-boat to save some perishing

souls, as poor and empty-handed as themselves, whose lives the

perfection of human reason does not rate at the value of a farthing

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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces

each; and that boat will be manned, as surely and as cheerfully, as

if a thousand pounds were told down on the weather-beaten pier.

For this, and for the recollection of their comrades whom we have

known, whom the raging sea has engulfed before their children’s

eyes in such brave efforts, whom the secret sand has buried, we

hold the boatmen of our watering-place in our love and honour, and

are tender of the fame they well deserve.

So many children are brought down to our watering-place that, when

they are not out of doors, as they usually are in fine weather, it

is wonderful where they are put: the whole village seeming much too

small to hold them under cover. In the afternoons, you see no end

of salt and sandy little boots drying on upper window-sills. At

bathing-time in the morning, the little bay re-echoes with every

shrill variety of shriek and splash – after which, if the weather

be at all fresh, the sands teem with small blue mottled legs. The

sands are the children’s great resort. They cluster there, like

ants: so busy burying their particular friends, and making castles

with infinite labour which the next tide overthrows, that it is

curious to consider how their play, to the music of the sea,

foreshadows the realities of their after lives.

It is curious, too, to observe a natural ease of approach that

there seems to be between the children and the boatmen. They

mutually make acquaintance, and take individual likings, without

any help. You will come upon one of those slow heavy fellows

sitting down patiently mending a little ship for a mite of a boy,

whom he could crush to death by throwing his lightest pair of

trousers on him. You will be sensible of the oddest contrast

between the smooth little creature, and the rough man who seems to

be carved out of hard-grained wood – between the delicate hand

expectantly held out, and the immense thumb and finger that can

hardly feel the rigging of thread they mend – between the small

voice and the gruff growl – and yet there is a natural propriety in

the companionship: always to be noted in confidence between a child

and a person who has any merit of reality and genuineness: which is

admirably pleasant.

We have a preventive station at our watering-place, and much the

same thing may be observed – in a lesser degree, because of their

official character – of the coast blockade; a steady, trusty, wellconditioned,

well-conducted set of men, with no misgiving about

looking you full in the face, and with a quiet thorough-going way

of passing along to their duty at night, carrying huge sou’-wester

clothing in reserve, that is fraught with all good prepossession.

They are handy fellows – neat about their houses – industrious at

gardening – would get on with their wives, one thinks, in a desert

island – and people it, too, soon.

As to the naval officer of the station, with his hearty fresh face,

and his blue eye that has pierced all kinds of weather, it warms

our hearts when he comes into church on a Sunday, with that bright

mixture of blue coat, buff waistcoat, black neck-kerchief, and gold

epaulette, that is associated in the minds of all Englishmen with

brave, unpretending, cordial, national service. We like to look at

him in his Sunday state; and if we were First Lord (really