What particular law of etymology has been evoked to produce the queer word standing at the head of this paper I am unable to imagine. Like Topsy, I “’spects it growed,” but my own private opinion is that it is the Kentish coast way of pronouncing the word “hovering,” since the hovellers are certainly more often occupied in hovering than in doing anything more satisfactory to themselves.

However strange the word may sound in a landsman’s ears, it is one of the most familiar to British seamen, especially among our coasters, although the particular form of bread-winning that it is used to designate is practically confined to the Kent and Sussex shores of the English Channel, having its headquarters at Deal. Briefly, a “hoveller” is a boatman who follows none of the steady orthodox lines of boatmanship, such as fishing, plying for passengers, etc., but hovers around the Channel, a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, a pilot, a wrecker, or if a ghost of a chance presents itself, a smuggler.

Naturally, the poor hoveller does not bear the best of characters. The easy unconventional fit of his calling settles that for him as conclusively as the cryptic term “general dealer,” so often seen in police-court reports, does a man’s status ashore, but with far less reason. It must be admitted that he is not over-scrupulous or prone to regard too rigidly the laws of meum and tuum. The portable property which occasionally finds its way into his boat is, however, usually ownerless except for the lien held by the Crown upon all flotsam, jetsam, and ligan; which rights, all unjust as he in common with most seafarers consider them to be, he can hardly be blamed for ignoring.

But when the worst that can be alleged against the character of the hoveller has been said, a very large margin of good remains to his credit, good of which the general public never hears, or hearing of it, bestows the praise elsewhere.

They are the finest boatmen in the world. Doubtless this seems a large claim to make on their behalf, but it is one that will be heartily endorsed by all who know anything of the condition of the English Channel in winter, and are at the same time in a position to make comparisons. And it must also be remembered that the harvest of the hoveller is gathered when the wintry weather is at its worst, when the long, hungry snare of the Goodwins is snarling and howling for more and more of man’s handiwork to fill its for ever unsatisfied maw, when the whole width of the strait is like a seething cauldron, and the atmosphere is one weltering whirl of hissing spindrift; while the hooting syrens, shrieking whistles, and clanging bells from the benighted and groping crowd of unseen vessels blend their discord with the tigerish roar of the storm in one bewildering chaos of indescribable tumult.

Then, when the fishermen have all run for shelter, and even the hardy tugboats hug some sheltering spit or seaward-stretching point, the hoveller in his undecked clinker-built lugger, some thirty-five feet long and ten feet beam, square-sterned and sturdy-looking like himself, may be seen through the writhing drifts of fog and spray climbing from steep to steep of the foaming billows like a bat hawking along some jagged cliff.

She shows just a tiny patch of brown sail, a mere shred, but sufficient to keep her manageable with her head within five or six points of the wind and her stub-bow steadily pointed to the onrush of the toppling seas. Every other wave sends a solid sheet of spray right over her, hiding her momentarily from view, but the row of squat figures sitting motionless along the weather gunwale heed it no more than as if they were graven images. And thus they cruise, hungry and thirsty, their eyeballs burning with sleeplessness, throughout the weary hours of night and day, with every sense acutely strained and every moment balanced upon the very scythe-edge of death. Long practice makes them keen of sight as the wailing gulls overhead, and small indeed must be the floating object that escapes their unremitting scrutiny.

Homeward-bound sailing ships from oversea ports are what they principally lust after. The skippers of these vessels after their long absence from home usually feel more or less anxious as they near the narrows. The Trinity pilots in their trim cutters have their cruising ground definitely fixed for them by authority, extending no further west than Dungeness. But long before that well-known point, with its dazzling spear of electric radiance reflected from the gloomy pall of cloud above, is reached, the homeward-bound skipper’s anxiety becomes almost unbearable if the weather be thick and he has as yet made no landfall to verify his position. Then the sudden appearance of a hoveller emerging from the mirk around, and his cheery hail, “D’ye want a pilot, sir?” is heavenly in its relief. For these men, although regarded with no small contempt and disfavour by the aristocracy of pilotage licensed by the Trinity Brethren, know the Channel as a man knows the house he has lived in for years, know it at all times, whether in calm or storm, the blackness of winter midnight, the brilliance of summer noon, or the horrible uncertainty of enshrouding fog.

The hoveller can hardly be blamed if he take full advantage of the foulness of the weather to drive as hard a bargain as he can with the skipper of a hesitating homeward-bounder for the hire of his invaluable local knowledge. Full well he knows that when the skies are serene and the wind is favourable he may tender his services in vain, even at the lowest price. No master, in these days of fierce competition, dare make an entry of a hoveller’s fee in his bill of expenses, except under pressure of bad weather, on pain of being considered unfit for his post, and finding himself compelled to pay the charge out of his own scanty salary.

So that fine weather to the hoveller spells empty pocket and hungry belly. The long, bright days of summer bring to him no joy, though thoughtless passengers lounging at their ease upon the promenade deck of some palatial steamship may think his lot a lazy, lotus-eating way of drowsing through the sunny hours. Neither would they imagine from his wooden immobility of pose and the unbending appearance of his rig what fiery energy he is capable of displaying when opportunity arises.

On one occasion, when I was a lad of eighteen, we were homeward bound from Luzon to London. We sighted Corvo dimly through the driving mist of a fierce westerly gale, before which we bowled along at the rate of 300 miles a day. For nearly five days we fled thus for home, seeing nothing except an occasional dim shape of some vessel flitting silently past. Not a glimpse of the heavenly bodies was vouchsafed us whereby to fix our position, nor did we haul up once for a cast of the deep-sea lead. At last by “dead reckoning,” we were well up Channel, but the steady thrust of the gale never wavered in force or direction. The mist grew denser, the darkness more profound. By the various sounds of foghorns and whistles we knew that many vessels surrounded us, and that it was scarcely less dangerous to heave-to than to run. Presently, by the narrowest of shaves, we missed running down a light outward-bound barque, the incident leaving us with yards swinging every way and a general feeling of uncertainty as to what would happen next. Suddenly out of the gloom to leeward came the hoarse cry, “Want a pilot, sir?” It was the sweetest music imaginable. All eyes were strained in the direction of the voice. In a minute or two the well-known shape of a hovelling lugger became visible, under a double reefed lug, rushing towards us. He rounded to by our lee quarter, and in reply to our skipper’s query, “How much will you take me up to the Ness for?” came the prompt answer; “Ten pounds.” “Ten devils!” yelled our skipper; “why, you adjective hovelling pirate, it’s only about ten minutes’ walk.” “Better get out ’n walk it then, cap’n,” said the boatman; “can’t take you up for no less to-night.” The usual haggling began, but was cut short by the hoveller, who shouted, “So long, cap’n, time’s precious,” giving at the same time a pull at his tiller which sent the boat striding a cable’s length to leeward. “All right,” roared the old man, “come aboard, and be dam’d t’you,” and at the word the lugger was back alongside again. Launching his dinghy was out of the question in such a sea, for at one moment the boat was level with our shearpoles, the next she seemed groping under our keel. “Heave us a line, cap’n,” shouted he, and the mate hurled a coil of the lee main-brace at him. Quick as a wink he had cast a bowline round his waist with the end. “Haul away aboard,” he cried, and as his boat rose on the crest of a big sea he sprang at the ship and missed her. But he had hardly time to disappear in the smother of foam, before he was being dragged up the side like a bale of rags, and almost instantly tumbled on deck. Springing to his feet, he dashed the water out of his eyes, and as calmly as if nothing unusual had happened, said to the man at the wheel, “Put your hellum up, m’lad, square away the main-yard, haul aft the mainsheet,” and as if by magic the weather seemed to fine down and a great peace reigned. “Steady as she goes, m’lad,” said he to the helmsman, with a peep at the compass; and then turning to the skipper, in a wheedling voice, “You couldn’t spare my mates a bit o’ grub, I s’pose, sir, and a plug of terbacker?” “Oh yes,” replied the captain with alacrity. “Stooard! get a couple o’ pieces of beef out o’ the harness cask, and some bread in a bag, for the boatmen. I’ll go down and get them some tobacco.” Already the lugger was closing in on us again, and by the time the longed-for provisions were at hand, she was near enough for them to be hove on board. A further plea for a drop of rum could not be entertained, as we had none, but well pleased with the result of their visit the rovers sheered off and were swallowed up in the encircling darkness. Exactly three-quarters of an hour later we rounded the Ness and hove-to for the pilot, the lugger popping up under our lee again as if she had been towing astern, and receiving back the lucky hoveller with his fat fee in his pocket.

Years after, in a much larger ship, of which I was second mate, we were bound right round the coast to Dundee, and got befogged somewhere off Beachy Head. As on the previous occasion, the wind was strong, and blowing right up Channel. A hoveller came alongside and made a bargain to take us up to Dungeness for ten pounds. By the time he had scrambled on board, our captain began to wonder whether he might be available to pilot us right round to Dundee, not feeling very confident in his own knowledge of the navigation of the East coast. So he put the question to our visitor, who replied that he himself was not qualified, and indeed would not be allowed to take us if he were. But he could arrange to have a North Sea pilot out in Deal Roads awaiting us on our arrival there. This was too much for our skipper’s power of belief. That cockle-shell of a lugger able to outstrip his 1400-ton ship, with this breeze behind her, so much in forty miles! It couldn’t be done. “Never mind, sir,” said the hoveller, “you make my money thirteen pound for the whole job, and if you have to wait in the Downs for your pilot, you needn’t pay me more than ten.” “It’s a go,” answered the captain, fully satisfied.

Hailing his boat, the Dealman gave his instructions. Crowding on all sail, away she went, sheering in for the shore, and soon was lost to sight in the mist. Meanwhile we also set all the sail she could carry, and made a fairly rapid run to the Downs. Sure enough, there was a galley punt awaiting us, the men lying on their oars, and the pilot with his bag lounging in the stern. The skipper said not a word as he handed our hoveller his full money, but he looked like a man who had been badly beaten in a contest of wits.

But if one would see the hoveller at his best, it is when some hapless vessel has met her fate on the Goodwins during a gale. The silent suck of those never-resting sands makes the time of her remaining above water very short, without the certainty of her rapid breaking up under the terrible battering of the mighty seas. Gathering around the doomed fabric, like jackals round a carcass, the hardy beachmen perform prodigies of labour. The work which they will do, wrenching out cargo and fittings, and transferring them to their boats, while the straining, groaning hull threatens every moment to collapse beneath their eager feet, and the bitter tempest fills the air with salt spray, to say nothing of an occasional breaker which buries wreck and wreckers alike beneath its incalculable mass of foaming water, cannot be adequately described—it must be seen to be realised. As if mad with desire, they tear and strain and heave like Titans, apparently insensible to fatigue. For they know that at any moment their prize may vanish from beneath them, and with her all their hopes of gain. Weather has for them no terrors. Let but the cry of “wreck” go up, and though even the lifeboat be beaten back, the hoveller will get there somehow, not under any pretence of philanthropy, but in the hope of earning something, though it may be gratefully recorded that they never shirk the most terrible risks when there is a hope of saving life.

Such sudden and violent transitions from utter idleness to the most tremendous exertion as they continually experience do not seem to harm these toughened amphibia. Plenty of them do of course “go under,” in more or less distressing circumstances, but though their own tiny circle laments their loss, their tragic fate makes no more disturbance than the drop of a pebble outside of it. There are plenty to take their place. For even in so precarious a calling as hovelling there are grades. The poor possessors of only a four-oared galley hope to rise to the dignity of a lugger, so that they may quit scrabbling along the shores and get out to where, if the dangers are indefinitely increased, the chances of a good haul now and then are proportionately greater.

Another phase of their calling is the rescue of vessels who from various causes are drifting to destruction. Many a craft reaches port in safety with a couple of Dealmen on board, that but for their timely help would never have been heard of again. I know of one case where a large French chasse-marÉe, with a cargo of wine, lost her foremast off the Varne shoal. In its fall it crippled the skipper and one of the crew. Another one was frost-bitten, and the remaining two, both boys, were so paralysed with fright that they were quite useless. So in the grey of the New Year’s dawn, with a pitiless snowstorm raging from the N.W., she was drifting helplessly along the edge of the sand. Two hovellers saw her plight at the same time, and each strained every nerve to get up to her first, for she was a prize well worth the winning. At last they drew so near to her that it was anybody’s race. But the head man of the foremost lugger tore off his oilskins, sea-boots, and fear-nought jacket, and plunging into the boiling sea actually battled his way to her side, climbing on board triumphantly, and so making good his claim. It is satisfactory to be able to add that the dauntless rascal was completely successful in bringing the Trois FrÈres into Dover, and shared with his four mates £120 for salvage services. Not a bad twenty-four hours’ work, but for nearly two months before they had earned less than five shillings per man per week, and they all had wives and families dependent upon them.

Yet with all their hardships, they are free. No man is their master, for they always sail on shares, varied a little according to each individual’s monetary stake in the boat. And doubtless the wild life has a certain charm of its own, which goes far to counterbalance its severity and danger. “An’ anyhow,” as one of them said to me not long ago, “ourn’s a bizness the bloomin’ Germans ain’t likely to do us out of. There ain’t many left like that, is ther?”