tle doubt that he would have made of it a fuller medium of expression. As it is, his poetry remains something of an experiment. But every experiment of a man of such power is worth preservation and study, and Messrs. Maunsel

The Times.

have done the reading public a service in preparing this collected edition of his works. We only regret that they have not been able to preserve Mr. W. B. Yeats's prefaces to some of the earlier editions.

The change of weather foretold by Benjamin Prowse came, just as he had predicted, during the night with the turn of the tide. First a little billow rolled in from the sou'-south-east: then the wind dropped out to that quarter. The sea began to make. A misty cloud hid the setting moon, filled the sky, and cloaked the tops of the cliffs in vapor.

At peep of day Benjie's nephew crept round the foot of West Cliff towards Western Bay. So long as his feet scrunched companionably on the narrow strip of shingle between the cliff and Broken Rocks he continued talk. ing to himself. ""Tis full o' it," he complained, glancing at the cloud and mist. "Benjie won't never stay down along there just when he'd better to for once. Who'd ha' thought thic fellow'd ha' turned up here this time o' day? Never see'd the like o' it!"

Arrived at the bay, Bill Prowse sat down and waited silently, peering along to the westward, and at intervals looking above his head to make sure that the soft red cliff was not falling out upon him.

It was one of those very gray dawns, when there seems to be plenty of light long before any object can be made out distinctly. The white calm of the evening before, when Benjie had put to sea, was replaced by several broken lines of surf flowing in across the flat sand, fading westward into the loom of Steep Head, and filling the whole bay with a re-echoed plaintive rattle. Gulls, looking nearly twice their size,

stalked about in the shallow water after sand-eels.

By and by a boat become visible suddenly, just outside the broken water. Prawn-nets were piled up high on the stern. One man was sheaving-standing up with bent back and rowing forwards whilst the other man pulled in the ordinary manner, seated face

astern.

"That's ol' Benjie, right enough," observed Bill Prowse.

He got up, walked to the water's edge, and, putting his hands funnelwise to his mouth, shouted as if he did not want to be overheard. "Bogey man! Bogey man to beach! 'Spector! Bide here a bit."

The rowing ceased. A word like "What?" came from the boat.

"Bogey man! Fishery 'Spector!" The next words from the boat sounded like, "Be the capstan fixed?" "Bogey man!" answered Bill.

But voices failed to carry across the noise of the surf. The boat could approach no nearer. Benjie had to turn it quickly in order to meet a broken wave bows on. He began rowing again with short, irritable strokes, and finally steered the boat outwards to clear Broken Rocks.

Bill Prowse's shouting died away helplessly: "Bogey man! Bogey-ey

ey

And still the boat held on its course for Saltertown beach.

Bill followed hurriedly alongshore. "This here's what comes," he grum

bled, "of Benjie blowing his hooter to the likes o' Vivian Maddicke. 'Don't care,' he says 'for no inspector what ever lived.' But 'tis best never to say nort to gentry-always was an' always will be."

II.

Two or three fishermen, and one other man slightly apart, stood waiting at the foot of the beach. Benjie ran the boat ashore, high on the crest of a wave; then jumped into the wash and lifted out half a dozen prawn-nets with their lines and cork buoys. "That'll lighten her," he said. "Now haul!"

His round sailor's cap was perched on one side of his head; his torn jumper was askew; seawater ran in streams from his patched greenish-blue trousers, which also were askew; and his wrinkled face, within its fringe of gray beard, was noticeably haggard after the night's toil. With his arms spread wide over the hoops of the nets and his head bent down by their weight, he almost bumped into the stranger. Whereupon he pulled up short. Screwing himself still farther sideways, he quizzed the man; mocked him silently with deeply crows-footed blue eyes, at once both childlike and shrewd.

"Who be you then?" he inquired, placing his prawn-nets very deliberately on the shingle. "Who be you? "Tisn't often the likes o' you starchcollar sort o' people comes down for to help lend a hand."

The fishermen drew nearer.

"N'eet any o' our own sort nuther," flashed Benjie, "so early as this in the day."

The stranger, a man in a bowler hat and a dark stuff overcoat of indifferent fit, cleared his throat.

""Tis the bogey man, Benjie-the 'Spector!" put in Bill Prowse breathlessly.

scorn.

"I knows that," said Benjie with "I know'd 'en all right. How long is it since you've a-favored us wi' a visit, sir? Eh?"

"Let me see your crabs and lobsters," demanded the bogey man.

"Hold hard, Mister 'Spector. Us been shrimping-prawning you calls it-prawning wi' the boat-nets-an' the prawns I catches I never shows to nobody. I ain't got no lobster pots. They was washed ashore an' broken up last October gales, an' I can't afford to replace 'em."

"But you catch lobsters in your prawn-nets

"For sure us do."

"Well, I want to see them." "There they be then."

Benjie pointed towards the boat and made as if to lift up his nets.

"Show them to me," said the Inspector, taking a measure from his pocket.

"You be the 'Spector, ben' 'ee?"

"No nonsense, now," replied the Inspector irritably. "It's my duty to inspect the catches in this fishery district."

If

"Very well, then; inspect away. 'tis your duty, you can't help o' it. You'm paid for the same. But 'tisn't my duty for to help 'ee. I bain't paid for thic. There's the boat."

Benjie scratched his whiskers: "And lookse here, Mister 'Spector. These here's me prawns what I've alabored for this night. Be so kind as to look."

He took a small canvas bag from the bows of the boat, walked into the sea, and shook out its contents. The few prawns that stuck in it by their spines he picked out and threw into the water after the rest. "There!" he said amiably. "Nort but prawns there. You see'd that. But you didn't see how many Benjamin have a-catched, an' you never won't; n'eet they there starch-collar jokers nuther-gen'lemen

they calls themselves-what goes downshore disturbing o' it an' catching a man's living for sport, so they says. Poaching I calls it. "Twas some o' they set 'ee on to me 'cause I won't tell 'em what I catches, nor where I shoots my nets. There's the boat. 'spect the rest o' I be going in house for me dinner an' a couple o' hours' sleep. Ain't had a bite since yesterday noon nor any sleep this three nights. I on'y hope your duty won't never bring 'ee to keeping a roof over your head wi' shrimping-an' measuring the crabs an' lobsters what you catches wi' an inch-rule in the dark."

Iss, 'twas! I knows.

You can b-y well what I catched.

Leaving the boat and the nets where they were, Benjie shouldered some drift-wood and strode up the beach.

"I shouted to 'ee t'other side o' rocks," Bill Prowse protested.

Benjie stopped and turned, his bearing and appearance that of an ancient prophet. "Hell about your shouting! Let 'en 'spect, I say. I'll get in out o' it."

He did.

The other fishermen stood with their hands in their pockets on top of the sea-wall, while the bogey man routed about in the boat. Undersized lobsters had been thrown for'ard, among some old cordage and bottles of tea; crabs were scuttling all over and under the bottom-boards and stern-sheets. Most of them were wildsters, but the bogey man did find half a dozen or so of tamesters. Doubtful specimens he measured carefully. When he had finished, he put the under-sized shell-fish into one of Benjie's sacks.

"An' the sack alone's wuth half a pint," Bill Prowse remarked in the Bogey man's hearing. "Ol' Benjie's so honest an' harmless a man as ever put to sea, for all he has his say out when he's a-minded. He've a-worked too hard all his life for to deserve a turn

"What's the fine? Twenty pound?" "Benjie'll never pay thic out o' his profits. He'll hae to sell up his fishing-boat an' nets-aye, an' then go short after that. P'raps they won't make 'en pay, fust time an' all. If the likes o' they, what makes such laws, know'd what the likes o' us has to contend with... But there! they don't know, nor never won't, n'eet Benjie'll tell 'em off, you

care.

Benjie was all but late for court. He had gone west downshore to pick up some driftwood for firing, and an unexpected easterly breeze gave him a pull home against wind and chop such as few men would have attempted. No time was left him to change his clothes.

Vivian Maddicke was on the bench. He always is. He takes his duties as a gentleman and a magistrate almost as seriously as he takes himself. That is to say, he does try, at considerable personal inconvenience, to administer justice, to hold the balance between an efficient and respectful police force and an unruly lower class. He spends, indeed, not a little of his abundant leisure in pointing out to the poor the advantages of hard work, and in impressing upon them his own view of right and wrong. Hence it is, possibly, that his subscriptions and charities and justice hardly bring him a fair return in popularity.

When Benjie entered the court in his

ragged discolored longshore rig, a faint expression of disgust passed over Vivian Maddicke's pale but otherwise healthy face. He ordered two windows to be opened. "Let us have some fresh air," he said. "Never mind the draught."

Benjie, though he appeared to be examining the nail-heads in the floor, was all the time looking up at the bench from beneath his shaggy eyebrows. He understood the slur very well. Still fingering nervously his old round cap, he turned a pair of candid eyes full on Vivian Maddicke, and Vivian Maddicke, who had been gazing benevolently round the court-room, turned his face to the papers on his desk.

The case proceeded. There was no legal defence: Benjie had not purchased legal advice.

"When I tells 'em how us be situated..." he had said. But he was too much on his guard to give any useful evidence, even on his own behalf. The undersized crabs and lobsters were produced—it is wonderful how they fall off in appearance when they have died otherwise than in boiling water. Vivian Maddicke took the opportunity of remarking, "I thought we should require some fresh air."

The Clerk to the Sea Fisheries Committee a spruce young lawyer in a hurry-did not wish to press the case too hard. They would be satisfied with a fine sufficient to show that the regulations of the Sea Fisheries Committee must not be trifled with. The costs of inspection and of prosecution were heavy. He would respectfully suggest to his worship

But his worship was not to be hustled among his own people, as he regarded them, by an outside lawyer. He sat back in his chair, crossed his legs in the magisterial manner, and dug his quill into his desk. When the lawyer had quite finished, he began.

In fining Benjie one pound, including costs, he remarked that it was not a large sum (murmurs of disapproval from fishermen at the back of the court), and that fishery inspectors were not to be trifled with or defied. Furthermore, he impressed upon Benjie in the most kindly manner possible that little lobsters grow into big ones.

"Iss, sir," said Benjie, "but the little ones be better eating if people only know'd it, same as mackerel."

With a passing reference to the depletion of the North Sea fisheries, the magistrate stated it as a fact, that if the fish were not in the sea they could not be caught out of it.

"For sure, sir!" Benjie assented. Under cover of being ready and willing to learn, he was edging in his remarks skilfully; for it was by no means the first time he had tackled the gentry who think they can teach fishermen their trade. With every show of respect, moreover, he was capturing the laugh in court.

Fishery Boards, Vivian Maddicke continued patiently, were created to protect the fisheries. Their regulations were framed in the interest of the fishermen themselves, so that there might be more fish caught.

"Don't you believe that, sir," burst forth Benjie with intense conviction. "Do you think the likes o' they makes rules and regylations so that the likes o' us can catch more fish? 'Tisn't likely! They bain't afeard o' us not catching fish. What they'm afeard o' is that they won't hae no fish to eat, or won't hae 'em so cheap. Us! I've a-know'd the time when I could go down along an' catch a pound's-wuth o' lobsters in half a dozen rounds wi' the boat-nets; but I can't do it now. An' why for? Not 'cause us have a-catched 'em. That's just what us an't done. An' nuther you, sir, n'eet they there Fishery Boards, nor eet me, that have know'd this coast for sixty years,

can tell where they'm gone to. Don't you believe they makes their regylations for the good o' us. I can tell 'ee better. How have 'em bettered fishing? I wants to know."

The magistrate's clerk had risen during Benjie's passionate harangue. Vivian Maddicke motioned him down. Benjie, by force of his sincerity and in virtue of his long hard experience, held the court.

"I did not, you understand, frame the regulations," Maddicke explained. "My duty is to see they are enforced." "Iss! Duty! That's what thic Inspector said down to beach . . ."

"One pound," Vivian Maddicke repeated with dignity. "And you can have a fortnight to pay in."

Rising from the bench, he added, "If you care to talk to me out of court about the conditions of your work, I shall be pleased to hear; and perhaps, if there is any special hardship, I can do something in the matter."

"Hardship! Hardship, do 'er say?" Addressing everyone around, gesticulating, trembling with speech, Benjie was hustled from the courtroom by those whose duty it is to do such jobs.

He did not go home as he was told to do; he waited outside the magistrate's entrance (other fishermen waited too at a discreet distance), and when Vivian Maddicke appeared, picking bits of fluff from the front of his coat, Benjie stood resolutely before him.

"You said as you'd like to know, sir; an' you ought to know how we'm situated; an' I be going to tell 'ee. You ought to know the nature o' it, sir; you ought to know what us got to contend with, afore you fines a man more 'n he can pay wi'out selling up some o' the gear what he's got to earn his living with."

"But you've a fortnight to pay in." "An' I thank you, sir, for that. I tell 'ee what,

An' I know'd your

father; a proper gen'leman he was; he used to go fishing 'long wi' me afore you was born. You come down 'long wi' me one night an' see what 'tis like for yourself. Then you'll know. Duty ain't never no excuse for not knowing. You can row, can't 'ee?"

"I used to go in for rowing; and if you'll send up and let me know when you're going, I will come."

"That's spoken proper, sir, like your ol' man hisself. "Tisn't everybody I'd take 'long with me; but you come, just for one night. That'll teach 'ee more 'n any amount o' chackle. I'll send up for 'ee right 'nuff. Why! I mind when

Maddicke said "Good morning" with the air of a man who has an appointment to keep.

"Good morning, an' thank you, sir," returned Benjie.

To the other fishermen, who joined him for the walk back to the beach, all he would say was: "You bide a bit an' The likes o' they sort thinks they bain't ignorant, an' us be."

see.

IV.

Benjie had luck. One afternoon the next week he hauled his boat down the beach, piled his prawn-nets beside it, then waited, instead of telling his fisherman mate to get ready.

"What be biding for?" asked Bill Prowse. "You bain't going to take he t'night, be 'ee?"

"Iss, I be. night, ain't it. sea-sick." Bill Prowse jerked his head to seaward.

Why for not? Nice calm 'Er can't very well be

The sun had begun to sink behind the dark mass of Steep Head. The water, a dead calm, was nevertheless not white calm, as it should have been, for to the south'ard and overhead the piled-up sky was black and heavy. It overshadowed the sea; seemed to be pressing down upon the water. And