“Ah! my lady, we have no time to be sick,” says Aggie; “ailing or hearty the net must be spread, and nine out of ten of the fishermen die the night after weathering a stiff breeze:--it's rare for any of us to lose above one tide between life and death!--And as to being provident, my lady, half the year we have enough to do, with all our tugging and striving, to make both ends meet;--it's hand-to-mouth work with us.” “But then, at other times, Agnes,--in your harvest, as I may say,--you might save something.” “It's aisy talking, my lady,” says Aggie; “and many's the vow we make in the hard season, to scrape a penny or so together the next good time: but when it comes,--my grief I--doesn't half of it slip away before one can look about?--And then it's too late to begin: so it's put off--the hoarding and squeezing time is--till another year. Besides, when it's all plenty galore with us, who thinks of starvation?--It's hard, too,--so it is,--to brake up the day's joy by robbing it of a few keenogues for the morrow. We'd rather be merry--many of us would--one while, and sad another, than divide equally, and so go on, in the same dull way, from year's end to year's end, neither hungry nor full, joyful nor sad,--but just dacent, and half one thing half another. Moreover, when we have the money, away it goes at once;--we make merry, and put to sea again. The citizen may well think of to-morrow, and save,--for he goes to his bed, and, without a chance, tomorrow will be to him another to-day: but the fisherman goes into the waves, and God knows, when his kin wish him 'Goodnight!' whether he'll ever hear their 'Good-morrow!' It's so trying to begin, too:--the hen won't lay in an empty nest, nor is it aisy to put a penny by where there was no penny before. And if we do, where's the good of our throwing aside a groat to-day, a mag to-morrow, and a shilling the next?--At the week's end it's just so little, we despise it; and just so much, that it tempts us to have a spree:--drunkenness follows; and so, after pinching from Monday to Friday, we spind the money, and lose the Saturday's trip into the bargain--so we do. One piece o' good gould in our by-corner would make us add more to it: one shilling to forty, makes forty-one,--a great sum;--but one shilling to forty-pence, makes four-and-four-pence;--just enough for doing harm. 'Tis but a shilling either way, you may say; but there's a difference in the two that one feels and knows, but can't spake about or explain.--I wouldn't wonder but myself saves upon your ladyship's gracious gift: any how, we'll never have to put the platter outside the door at a death, nor want a dacent wedding when the boys marry, while we keep it whole itself.”