Courtship is a very unpoetic affair with them. No one ever heard a fisher use such a word as "love:" he would not consider himself a man if he once learned such a fragment of "Massingem." If by any chance the village grows crowded and some of the young men have to go southward to the seaports, then those who return may bring sailor-like ways with them; but the natives always remain hard and undemonstrative.
It is difficult to say when the fisher-lad is considered to have reached man's estate. A good deal depends on his physical development. The work to be done at sea is so very heavy that only a very powerful fellow can perform it. It sometimes happens that a very strong lad of eighteen can do a "man's turn;" but usually a fisherman must be thoroughly "set" before he is counted as one of the elect. He then begins to think of marriage, and his long Sunday evening journeys become frequent. He must marry a fisher-girl; for if he chooses a hind's daughter he is as badly off as a one-armed man. The work done by the fisher-women needs long and special training: the baiting of lines is a delicate and subtle operation, while the business of seeking bait is one which no country-woman ever learns properly. Moreover, a country girl who has been used to wearing long dresses and shoes can never take kindly to bare feet and brief petticoats: the cold and exposure are too much for her. A fisherman who marries a girl from inland is considered to have wrecked his chances in life, and the gossips bewail his fate. He is shut off from social intercourse; for his wife, even though she may have lived within two miles of the sea, cannot meet the clannish fishers on equal terms. If, however, the fisherman marries according to natural law, he and his wife begin their partnership without any of the frivolities of wedding trips and such like. The girl settles down quickly; and in a week she is baiting lines in the stone-floored kitchen, or tramping inland with her great fish basket slung round her forehead. She bows her strong figure under her burden, and the great pad which prevents the rope from cutting her brow looks like a strange head-dress. Her husband is too secretive to exhibit any pride, but he is satisfied with his helpmate.