Chapter 1. Ben's Home

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_ Chapter One. Ben's Home

On the east coast of England, there is a small hamlet surrounded by high sand-hills, with scarcely a blade of grass or even a low shrub to be seen in its neighbourhood. The only vegetable productions, indeed, which can flourish in that light soil, are the pale green rushes, whose roots serve to bind the sand together, and to prevent the high easterly winds, so constantly blowing on that coast, affecting it as much as they would otherwise do. Even in spite of the opposition of the rushes, several deserted huts have been almost entirely covered up by the drifting sand. See Note 1.

The population of the village consists of seafaring people and their families. The men form the crews of the numerous vessels employed in the herring fisheries which belong to the various fishing-places on the coast. Nowhere along the shores of England are finer sea-boats or more hardy crews to be found.

Most of the herring vessels are luggers, from thirty to forty tons burden, and entirely decked over. Each carries from eight to ten men. They are divided below into compartments, or tanks: in one compartment, salt is stowed; into another, the herrings, as soon as caught, are thrown; in a third they are salted, and are then packed away in lockers, on either side of the vessel, till she is full. She is then steered for the shore to the point nearest to a railway, or where there is a market. Each vessel has several long nets: the upper part of the net floats close to the surface of the water, buoyed up by bladders; the lower part is kept down by small bits of lead, and one end is moored to the bottom by a heavy weight. The fish, as they swim in large shoals, strike against the net as against a wall, and are caught in the meshes. Herring fishing is carried on at night, when the fish cannot see the nets. When a vessel or boat has cast out her nets, she hangs on to the lee [See note 2] end of them till the morning.

Besides these large herring luggers, many open boats are used; and great numbers of other boats from the coasts of Scotland and the North of England resort to these seas in the herring season. There is yet another class of vessels which frequent this coast. They are the deep-sea fishing smacks--cutters measuring from thirty to fifty tons, each carrying about ten men. Their nets differ much from those used by the luggers and boats. They fish with trawls, and so are called _trawlers_. A trawl is a net with a deep bag fastened to a long beam, which long beam has a three-cornered iron at each end. This beam is dragged along at the bottom of the sea, and stirs up the turbot, bream, plaice, soles, and other flat-fish which lie there; when they swim into the bag and are caught. These trawlers fish in the North Sea, sometimes a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles away from England, off the Texel. Other fishing grounds are from twelve to twenty miles off the British coast. At times, more than a hundred vessels are together, forming a large fleet. One of the oldest and wisest of the captains is chosen as their head man, and is called the admiral of the fleet.

They have, of course, many rules and laws to govern them. When they fish far from the land, they remain out six weeks, or more; and do not once, all that time, go into port. There are, however, steamers employed, which run to and fro to carry them food and fresh-water, also to take ice to them. With this ice the fish are packed, as soon as caught, in large baskets. The steamers then collect the fish from the different fishing-vessels, and carry it to London, or to the nearest port where there is a railway station. This account will give an idea of the many thousand people employed as fishermen on the eastern coasts of our country. In summer, while the weather is fine, their calling is pleasant and healthy; but when storms arise the hardships and perils are very great, and many of the men every year lose their lives, leaving widows and orphans behind them.

There was belonging to Sandhills, the little hamlet about which I have spoken, as fine and bold a set of fishermen as any to be found on the British coast. There were from fifteen to twenty families. The largest family was that of old John Hadden. He had eight sons and several daughters: three of his sons were away at sea--two of these were on board men-of-war, and the third was on board a trading-vessel; four followed his calling as fishermen, and formed part of the crew of the lugger of which he was master; the youngest, the eighth--Little Ben as he was always called, the son of his old age--was as yet too young to go regularly to sea. He, however, went with his father and brothers in the summer season, when fine weather was looked for, and he would not probably be exposed to hardships too severe for his tender years.

The fishermen of that coast were long known as rough and careless men, thinking nothing of religion, and utterly ignorant of religious truth. It used to be said of them, that as a rule they lived hard and died hard, caring for nobody, and nobody caring for them. This was too true of many, but not of all. It was not true of John Hadden. His outside was rough enough, and very much so in winter, when he had on his high fishing-boots, broad-flapped sou'-wester, thick woollen comforter, Guernsey frock, with a red flannel shirt above it, and a pea-coat over all. But he had an honest, tender, true, God-loving, and God-fearing heart. As he had been brought up, so he brought up his children in "the way they should go," trusting "that when they were old they would not depart from it."

John Hadden was able to do what many of his friends could not; he could read, having learned early in life. Not that he read very well, but well enough to study the Book of books so as to understand what it teaches. There are many, alas! who _can_ read it far more easily than could John Hadden, but do _not_. How many have the Bible, but do not even look into it, treating it as though it were of less value than any common book! How many would rather read light foolish books than the "Holy Scriptures," though they "are able to make us wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus!"

What does that verse mean? That if we read and study the Scriptures, with faith in Christ Jesus, they will show us how we may, without fail, gain more joy, happiness, wealth, and glory than words can tell; not such as will pass away in a few short years, but such as will last for ever and ever.

John Hadden prized the Bible as the only light which could point out to him the way of eternal life. He read and read, and, more than all, he prayed as he read, till he understood the Bible well, and was able to shape his own course by it, and to point out to his sons how they might shape theirs. When he took up the Bible he humbly prayed, "Lord, teach me that I may read and understand Thy holy Word aright." These words, and the spirit of these words, he taught his children.

John Hadden and his family neglected no means or opportunities of knowing more about the Bible, or of obtaining instruction. He did not say, as some do, "I can read, and I can pray; and so why should I go away from my own home and own fireside to listen to another man?" John Hadden was a real Christian, and therefore he was a humble Christian. The place of public worship was far off, and the road was rough; but John, with his wife and children, never failed when he was on shore, unless hindered by sickness, to go there on the Sunday to hear the Word of God read and explained, and to pray with other Christian people. When John and the boys were at sea, Mrs Hadden and the other children went, and she used to say she dearly loved to do so, because then she could pray with others to the good Lord, and say, "That it may please Thee to preserve all that travel by land or by water." John often also said that when he was away on the ocean, he always felt happy as the hour of public service came round, because he knew that his wife and children, and other Christian friends, would be praying for him and his companions at sea.

Among the precepts which John Hadden found in his Bible was this: "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work." Now John Hadden was a plain man, and he understood things plainly. When, early in life, he first understood this commandment, he determined that he would keep it; and so, while others cast out their nets on Saturday night, as usual, John always kept his in. If he could, he ran into harbour, and worshipped God with his fellow-men on shore; if not, he and his sons and the rest of his crew united in prayer: he also read to them from the Holy Scriptures, and often besides from some religious book likely to feed their souls with spiritual food. John Hadden had acted in this way for years. The masters of other boats had tried in vain to make him give up this practice. They told him he would be ruined; that he had a large family to bring up; that it was foolish, and not required; that such commandments wore for shore-going people, and not for poor fishermen. But John's answer was always the same: "I'll tell you what, mates: God says, 'Do no work on the Sabbath'--don't fish, that means; and I'm very certain that what He says is right. So it is not right to fish more than six days in the week. What I tell you, mates, and what I tell my boys, is this: '_Do right whatever comes of it_.'"

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Note 1. This plant is the round-headed rush, or _Juncus conglomeratus_ of naturalists, and is cultivated with great care, especially on the banks of the sea, in Holland, to prevent the water from washing away the earth; for the roots of these rushes strike very deep in the ground, and mat together near the surface so as to form a hold on the loose soil. These rushes do not grow so strong in England as in the richer soil of Holland.

Note 2. Sailors call the side on which the wind strikes, the weather or windward side, and the opposite to it the lee side. A net is cast out to windward, and the vessel drops slowly down from it till it is all out, when she remains at the lee end. Sometimes the nets are left with only a buoy to mark their position, and the vessel goes to a distance to cast out others. _

Read next: Chapter 2. Ben's Father And His Motto


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