But as he muttered this, and was making up his mind to discontinue further exertions--not a very easy thing to do, when you are about to go into another world--still floating on his back, with his eyes fixed on the starry heavens, thinking, as Smallbones afterwards narrated himself, that there wa'n't much to live for in this here world, and considering what there could be in that 'ere, his head struck against something hard. Smallbones immediately turned round in the water to see what it was, and found that it was one of the large corks which supported a heavy net laid out across the tide for the taking of shoal-fish. The cork was barely sufficient to support his weight, but gave him a certain relief, and time to look about him, as the saying is. The lad ran under the net and cork with his hands until he arrived at the nearest shoal, for it was three or four hundred yards long. When he arrived there, he contrived to bring some of the corks together, until he had quite sufficient for his support, and then Smallbones voted himself pretty comfortable after all, for the water was very warm, and now quite smooth. Smallbones, as the reader may have observed during the narration, was a lad of most indisputable courage and of good principles. Had it been his fortune to have been born among the higher classes, and to have had all the advantages of education, he might have turned out a hero; as it was, he did his duty well in that state of life to which he had been called, and as he said in his speech to the men on the forecastle, he feared God, honoured the king, and was the natural enemy to the devil. The Chevalier Bayard was nothing more, only he had a wider field for his exertions and his talents; but the armed and accoutred Bayard did not show more courage and conduct when leading armies to victory, than did the unarmed Smallbones against Vanslyperken and his dog. We consider that, _in his way_, Smallbones was quite as great a hero as the Chevalier, for no man can do more than his best: indeed, it is unreasonable to expect it. While Smallbones hung on to the corks, he was calculating his chances of being saved. "If so be as how they comes to take up the nets in the morning, why then I think I may hold on; but if so be they waits, why they'll then find me dead as a fish," said Smallbones, who seldom ventured above a monosyllable, and whose language if not considered as pure English, was certainly amazingly Saxon; and then Smallbones began to reflect, whether it was not necessary that he should forgive Mr Vanslyperken before he died, and his pros and cons ended with his thinking he could, for it was his duty; however he would not be in a hurry about it, he thought that was the last thing that he need do; but as for the dog, he wa'n't obliged to forgive him, that was certain--as certain as that his tail was off; and Smallbones, up to his chin in the water, grinned so at the remembrance, that he took in more salt water than was pleasant.