Telling of the Winter Life ltd by tht Stout-hearted Heroes who Man our Life-boats.

By HERBERT RUSSELL.

WHEN the shrill piping of the equinoctial gales has proclaimed the coming of the long bleak months of winter the boatmen of our coasts are seen to bustle into some show of activity. For the hoarse salt wind is a pleasant melody to the longshoreman's ears, and so he drops those postures of supine indolence in which he sprawls away the summer, dons his sea-boots and sou'-wester, and stands by ready for that opportunity which he hopes the mariners' distress may shortly furnish hir%with.

In truth, those who are familiar only with the British boatman as a prominent figure of the summer seaside holiday, know but one side of his life.

His monotonous refrain of "Boat, sir, boat? Beautiful day for a sail! " would meet with no response along the deserted esplanade or upon the vacant beach. His familiar bid for custom in the shape of his boisterous assur- ance that there are scores of fish as long as your arm waiting to be caught just outside the harbour might even be true for once; but of what avail is it when none but his fellow- boatmen are there to hear his persuasive voice ? This being so, how does the longshoreman live in winter ? He is not a fisherman, although he may " drift" for sprats and herrings alongshore; his pursuit is quite distinct from that of the smacksman.

MYSTERIOUS EXISTENCE.

The old lucrative business of hovelling, he assures you with a dismal shake of the head, is dead and gone ; steam has killed it. A bit of smuggling may be well enough in its way, but it cannot be followed as a regular business.

The Life-boat may be called out at times, but he is scarcely likely to pay his rent by his earnings in her. At home, his wife can- not always be taking in washing, neither is she in perpetual brisk demand for charing jobs.

In short, the longshoreman is lugubriously blowed if he knows how he lives during six months of the year. And yet he never fails to drink his nightly pints, and puff his reeking Cavendish from an inch of sooty clay, in the cosy little tap-room of the " Jolly Roger." I believe we all must have a sneaking kindness for the longshoreman, if only from the association of his burly form with the holiday spell down by the wash of the surf.

He is usually a cheerful companion, resting upon his pars while his wherry drifts with the babbling tide, and spinning astonishing yarns in a confidential voice, keenly conscious meanwhile that the eighteen-penny trip is being insensibly prolonged into a half-a- orown's worth.

And yet, for all I have said, to view the longshoreman at his best you must see him in winter. Take a scowling December day, when the billows are driving in frothing ridges from out of the scud-swept horizon, and the level rush of the gale staggers you as you walk.

MAN THE LIFE-BOAT.

Away out in the sullen gloom you may catch the flickering of the breakers playing madly upon the perilous shoal; and note, with a quickening of the pulse, that the dark leaning shaft of canvas which for hours has been buffeting the seas, close-hauled, is steadily but surely gaining the shore.

Then it is that the longshoreman becomes no longer a resemblance of his former loung- ing self.

The doors of the Life-boat house are open : he awaits but the boom of the lightship's gun before breaking into a headlong rush to be first in the scramble for a cork belt, and the privilege of hurling~himself at Death.

More than once have I witnessed the figure of a longshoreman rushing through the lamp- glimmering streets on a howling January midnight, in the attire in which he has sprung from his bed, to capture one of the coveted belts which ensures him a seat in the Life-boat, and then returns to his cottage to clothe himself and kiss his wife before setting forth upon his bitter, dangerous mission of mercy.

God bless these stout hearts I say I. For the twenty shillings with which the Royal National Life-boat Institution rewards their splendid and heroic acts cannot be deemed the only inducement which makes men race to face eternity.

That the longshoreman's pursuit during the winter months is often more than pre- carious I have already pointed out, in referring to the mystery of his existence during that period of the year. But the fault is none of his.

WHEN THE STORMY WINDS Do BLOW.

Take, by way of example, that fine and hardy race of longshoremen, the Deal boat- men. These men are what sailors term hovellers; that is to say, their business lies in rendering assistance to vessels in distress.

Time was when the Downs, that famous roadstead whose waters flow to the shingle slopes of his little Cinque Port town, was a happy hunting-ground for the Dealmen in winter. ~" Never a sou'-westerly gale blew but that two or three of the tossing and tumbling craft which flocked thither for shelter dragged their anchors or parted their cables, and, with the white smother of the Goodwins to lee- ward, their plight became one of great peril.This was the Deal boatman's opportunity.

Let the gale blow as fierce as it would, away sped his lugger down the beach, slap into the avalanche oi suit, and romped in buoyant flight after the drifting ;vessel, with a fresh anchor'and chain stowed in her well. It was a case of salvage, and when the longshoreman succeeded in bringing the ship to a mooring again he would be rewarded by a sum that might run into hundreds of pounds.

But the steam-tug, in combination with the decay of the sailing-ship, has killed this chance. And this is equally true of all parts of our coast. The hovelling jobs have become like the angels' visits, very few and far between; for the rhythmic champing of the engines now chants defiance to the screaming gale, and the whirl of snow kicked up by the racing screw gives the boatman to know that the lee shore is a matter of no moment whatever to the curtseying shape of iron which is being thrust on by those irresistible blades.

Reprinted from " The Daily Express.".