Chapter Twenty Eight.A Brave Act for a Daring Man may be Heroism in a Gallant Boy.“There she is, Master Dickard, sir,” shouted Josh, as the little party reached the shore down by the pilchard-house, and he pointed out over the foaming sea.“I can see nothing but mist,” said Dick excitedly.“That’s the foam,” said Josh; “but I can see her plain—three-master—quite a big ship.”“Will she get into the harbour, Josh?” said Dick, with his lips to the fisherman’s ear.Josh looked at him solemnly and then shook his head.“One of our luggers couldn’t do it, Master Dick, with a wind like this, let alone a big ship.”“What will happen then?” cried Dick excitedly.“Rocks—go on the Six Pins, I should say. That’s where the current’ll take her—eh, master?”Uncle Abram was holding his long telescope against the corner of the pilchard-house, and gazing attentively through it at the distant ship.“No, Josh, my lad,” he said; “there’s too much water on the Six Pins even for her. She’ll come clear o’ them and right on to Black Point.”“And then?” said Mr Temple anxiously.“We shall do what we can with the rocket-line if the masts hold good for a bit, sir.”“But a boat—a life-boat!”Uncle Abram shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.“Soon as that first gun was heard, sir, there was a man got on a horse and went over the hills to Corntown, where the life-boat lies, and they’ll come over as fast as horses can draw the carriage; but it will take them a long time to get over along the rough road, and when they do get her here, where she’s to be launched I can’t tell.”Mr Temple and his sons looked about the bay at the tremendous breakers that were forming, as it were, a frame of foam. Even the entrance to the harbour was marked by the waves that leaped against the pier.“I can’t see the ship, father,” whispered Dick in an awe-stricken voice, as he handed back the glass, whose bottom was dimmed with spray the moment he put it to his eyes.“There—there,” said Will hoarsely, as he pointed out to sea.“No, I can’t see it,” said Dick again.“Can you see the Bird Rock—the Mew Rock, where we caught the conger?” said Will hastily, and with his lips close to Dick’s face.“Yes.”“Then fix your eyes there, and then look straight from there to the old mine-shaft on the hill.”“Yes—yes,” cried Dick. “I can see a mast all amongst the spray; and it’s coming on this way.”“To destruction,” said Mr Temple to himself, as he too now caught sight of the unfortunate vessel driving towards the rocks slowly and surely, and once more the crew drew attention to their peril by firing a signal-gun.It is one of the most terribly painful positions in which a man can be placed, to see his fellow-creatures slowly drifting into what is almost certain death without being able to stretch out a hand to save.There was no need to warn the crew of their danger; they knew that but too well, for the great grey rocks were in front of them with the breakers at their feet; and as the excitement increased Will caught Dick’s arm.“They’re getting out the rocket-lines,” he said, shouting into Dick’s ear. “Come and see.”The wind and spray were forgotten, as the men, headed by a couple of coastguard, drew a truck along the sands and through the pools of water towards a spot to the left of where they stood, and just beyond the place where the seine was drawn in and the shark captured. To Dick it seemed as if the men were going away, from the place where they were likely to be of any help to the crew of the ship; but the fishermen knew what they were about, and old Mr Marion, who was as excited as any one present, came up to shout out his opinions.“She’ll come ashore on the Black Fin,” he said. “The other side of the buoy. You watch her, and you’ll see.”In spite of the driving foam and the salt rain formed by the spray cut from the tops of the waves, the vessel could now be plainly seen labouring and tossing among the great billows which grew heavier and grander the nearer the unfortunate vessel came to the shore, and Dick began to realise now how a ship could be safer a thousand miles from land in the heaviest hurricane than among the breakers upon our rocky coast.The beating rain and wind then were forgotten as the rocket-cart came up, and Mr Temple and his sons staggered after it, Josh laying hold of one of Dick’s arms, Will of the other, while old Marion and Mr Temple were on either side of Arthur, who wondered how the wind could thunder so heavily in his ears.Dick had a misty sort of idea that a rope would be shot out to the wreck, and that the men would come along it ashore, but how it was to be done he could not tell. Had the storm been twice as heavy, though, he would have gone to see, and he pressed eagerly forward till, with his companions, he was close up to the cart, waiting for the ship to strike.On she came through the foam, closer and closer, every mast standing, but the sails that had been set torn to rags, that streamed out like tattered pennons, and whipped and beat about the yards. Men on the shore ran here and there and shouted to each other to do impossibilities. Some got under the lee of rocks to use their glasses, but only to close them again and hurry to gain their excited companions, who were standing with coils of rope over their shoulders, and one arm through the ring, shouting again with their hands to their mouths, and one who had a speaking-trumpet roared some unintelligible order through it to the wind that cast it back into his face.“Will the life-boat come in time?” said Mr Temple to Josh; but the fisherman did not speak nor turn to the questioner: he only shook his head.All at once every one stood still. The excitement seemed to be at an end. Heads were bent forward, eyes were shaded, and one impulse seemed to have moved the scattered crowd upon the foaming beach, and those who were standing knee-deep amongst the rushing sea-froth that ran up beyond them to the sand.“Look!” shouted Josh, without turning his head; and he pointed with his sound arm out to sea.Dick, Arthur, and Mr Temple strained their eyes to catch signs of what the fisherman meant as they saw the vessel rising and falling, and seeming to glide slowly on, till all at once, in the midst of the dense rain of spray, the vessel rose, as it were, to make a leap, and then charged down a hill of waters, stopped short, and seemed to shiver. Then her tall main-mast fell forward, apparently snapped off close to the deck, carrying with it the fore-mast; while the mizen, that had been sloping slightly backward, now leaned over toward the shore.“Fast on the Black Fin,” cried Josh, with his hands to his mouth, and a shiver of horror ran through Dick and his brother as they realised what all this meant.There was no time lost on the beach now, for in the midst of the crowd the rocket-cart was run down as far as was possible, the tube laid ready, the case with its line placed in position, and then away with a rush, and a stream of dull, almost invisible sparks sped the rocket with its line, whose destination was the far side of the ill-fated ship.There was a cry from the men who were watching the flight of the line-bearer.“Short, short!” And as the boys watched with parted lips, and eyes half-blinded with the spray, they saw the line rapidly hauled in and laid ready for another flight.It took some time, during which those on shore could just make out the crew of the ship clustering about the stern of the vessel and on the mizen-mast.All was ready at last, and once more a rocket was sent flying with the same result, its flight too short to reach the ship.“I knowed it—I knowed it!” roared Josh between his hands. “There’s only one way.”A little crowd collected about Josh, and for a short space there was hurried gesticulation, and old Marion seemed to be declaiming to the men.All at once the boys saw Will back out of the crowd with Josh and wave his hand to them, after which every one set off rapidly round the curve of the bay to where the sands ceased and the shore was piled-up rocks, a reef of which ran right out to the vessel, which was fast on an isolated rock at the end.They were farther from the ship now than before—probably double the distance; but the reef formed a breakwater, and in its lee, though it seemed almost madness, it was just possible that a boat might live.“They’re going to launch a boat and take out a line,” shouted old Marion in Mr Temple’s ear. “It breaks my heart, Master Temple, but he’s light and strong, and a good rower, and Josh won’t go alone.”“Is Will going?” cried Dick excitedly.“Yes—yes,” shouted the old man: “there’s fellow-creatures’ lives at stake; and at such a time a seafaring man can’t say no.”What took place seemed to Dick afterwards like the events in some wild dream; but in the midst of the excitement and confusion he saw a small broad-beamed boat run down a pebbly slope, and that a line was coiled in her. Five men, it seemed, jumped into her as she was thrust off, the men wading out as far as they could to give impetus to the craft before they sprang in. Then the cockle-shell of a boat seemed to be lifted right up to the top of a wave, and then to plunge down out of sight; and as Dick watched for her reappearance, and noted that the line was held by the men ashore, as he had noted that there was some one in the stern of the boat who kept paying out that line, he realised that the boy was Will, and it seemed again more than ever to be a dream.All that followed in the midst of that horrible din of shrieking wind, beating spray, and thundering seemed to be a confused dream, out of which he kept thinking he should wake, as he sheltered his eyes with his hands and tried to see the boat.But no. Once it had plunged down that hill of foamy wave it had disappeared into a mist of spray and froth; and though two or three times he fancied that he caught sight of the boat climbing some wave between where they stood and the wreck, he could not be sure.There was confidence, though, on the part of the men who were holding the line.“He’s paying it out right enough, the lad,” shouted one of them to Uncle Abram; and as time went on signals were exchanged that told of the safety of those in the boat.The distance was not great, and the reef of rocks not only formed a shelter, but produced a kind of eddy, which made the passage of the boat somewhat less perilous; but all the same it was a forlorn hope, and many of the fishermen said to themselves that the next time that they saw Will Marion and Josh it would be beaten and bruised by wave and rock, and cast up upon the shore.But the signals, jerks of the rope, kept coming, and men perched themselves high up among the rocks to watch the progress of the boat with their glasses, but in vain. All they could see was an occasional glimpse of the mizen of the ship, with a dark patch of clustering humanity.The life-saving gear had meanwhile been carried to the spot whence the boat was started; and there was hope yet that a connection might be made between the vessel and the rocks.But time went on—time, confused by the roar of wind and wave, and there was no sign. It had seemed utter madness for that boat to be sent forth into such a chaos of waters; but there are things which some men call mad often adventured by the brave fishers of our coast.All at once Dick started from his father’s side to run to Uncle Abram, who had seated himself slowly upon a block of stone about which the foam floated to and fro on a few inches of water. The old man sank down in a way whose action Dick read at once, for the old fellow let his head go down upon his hands, and these rested upon his knees; and as he saw the air of utter dejection, Dick felt that poor Will must have been lost.It seemed so horrible, so strange, that as Dick reached Abram Marion’s side he sank down on his knees beside the old man, caught at his hands, and literally sobbed out:“Oh! don’t say he’s drowned; don’t say he’s drowned.”There was quite a lull as he spoke; and as the old man felt the touch of the boy’s clinging hands he laid his own upon his head with a strange far-off look in his eyes.“I don’t say so; I won’t say so!” he cried in a hoarse, passionate way. “My brave, true lad! but I oughtn’t to have let him go.”“Hurrah!”A loud cheer from near the water’s edge, and a quick, bustling movement among the men; and then down came the storm again, as if it had been taking breath, and the roar was deafening.But the boat had reached the ship, of course getting under her lee, and her daring little crew had climbed on board. For there was the proof—the life-gear had been attached to the end of the line, and it was being rapidly dragged from the shore out towards the wreck.A long, anxious time ensued, during which, while the sea end was being secured to the wreck, the shore end of the life-cable, was carried high up to the top of a cluster of rocks that formed the end of the reef, a flat place thirty feet above the level of the sea.There were drags at that line, which the men at once knew were given by the waves, but they were mostly sharp twitches, which meant that the daring boatmen, headed by Josh, were making it fast high up somewhere in the vessel’s mizen; and at last there was an unmistakable signal which meant, “Make fast,” and the shore end was hauled tight round a mass of rock.Then as Dick and his brother stood in the crowd, which had climbed up to the top of the rock, they saw the block that ran upon the cable set in motion by a thin line that was alongside the thick rope, and there was a burst of cheers as the cradle—that basket-like contrivance of the rocket apparatus—started off, dragged by those upon the rock, to cross the seething waves, which kept leaping up at it as if to snatch it down.Then came a signal—a twitch of the line, and with a cheer the men on the rock hauled the cradle back—cradle indeed, for it seem to contain a new-born life, saved from inevitable death.It was the pale, wild face of a woman, speechless with dread and exposure, that greeted the men on the rocks as they hauled in the cradle; and in a minute she was lifted out, and almost before the willing hands had lifted the poor woman down from the rock, the cradle was speeding back.It returned quickly with a man half dead, and he, amidst rousing cheers, was lifted out, and borne to a place where he would find warmth, welcome, and shelter.Then four more were dragged ashore over the thundering, roaring waves, as the cradle was merrily hauled to and fro.Then came another man, but not a storm-beaten exhausted seaman. It was the well-known countenance of one of the crew that went out in the boat, and he was full of activity.“Back with the cradle!” he shouted, “haul away. The ship won’t hold together long.”The cradle began to run back over the swinging rope, while the man who had returned said in reply to questions:“Those were all. The rest of the poor souls had been beaten off, and these couldn’t have lasted many minutes longer. You must look alive.”The men waited anxiously for the signal, and then another mate was hauled over the waves, and the cradle sent back, while Dick stood trembling and wanting to ask why Will, who was a boy, had not been sent first.Then came another, and still it was not Will.“This time it must be he,” thought Dick; but when the cradle arrived once more, it was the face of Josh that saluted them.“Haul back quick,” the latter said. “She was shivering under my feet when I come away.”“And you left that boy to drown!” roared Uncle Abram, catching Josh by the throat.Josh did not resent it, but said quietly, in a lull of the storm:“He wouldn’t come first. It was like drowning both him and me to stand gashly arguing at a time like that.”And now every eye was staring wildly, and with an intensity that showed how eagerly all watched for the next freight of the cradle.“It’s hard work for the lad,” said Josh hoarsely; “and I’d give anything to be at his side. But he’ll do it if the ship hangs together long enough. Oh, pull, pull! Haul away, lads, haul!”“He made me come—he made me come,” he cried frantically. “It was keeping the lad back to say I wouldn’t go first. I didn’t want to, lads, I didn’t want to.”“No, no,” came in a sympathetic growl, as once more the wind lulled a little and there were symptoms of the gale being nearly over.Then there was a groan, for Will made no signal.“Hooray!” came from the men, as there was a sudden snatch, and the rope they were giving out was drawn rapidly. “He’s got it, he’s—got—”The man who was joyfully shouting that stopped short as the rope ceased moving, and one, who was trying to use a telescope, shouted:“The mizen’s over!”“Then she’s gone to pieces, lads,” cried another.“No,” cried the man with the glass; “part’s standing yet.”“Hooray!” came again, as Dick stood clinging to Uncle Abram’s arm, the old man having left the stone, and standing close beside the men who hauled the cradle gear.Short as the distance was, not a glimpse of the ship could be seen, for every wave that broke upon the rock rose in a fountain of spray, to mingle with the blinding drift and mist of foam. But all the time their eyes were strained towards the rock upon which the ship had struck, and along the reef that the venturesome boat’s crew had made the shelter which resulted in the saving of some of the poor creatures upon the wreck.All at once, when a horrible feeling of despair had settled upon all present, there was a sharp twitch given to the line, the signal for it to be hauled, just at a time too when Josh had turned away, giving Dick a piteous look, and then gone to lean his head upon his arm against the rock.That cheer which came as the rope was twitched seemed to send life and activity back to Josh, who dashed in among the knot of men at the rope.“Here, let me come,” he shouted; “let me have a hand in bringing him ashore. Hurray! Master Dick, hurray! he’s saved, he’s saved!”Was he?The men hauled as rapidly as was consistent with safety, till the cradle with its occupant was dragged right up on to the rock, where a dozen hands were ready to lift the drooping, insensible figure out, and pour brandy between its lips.Will opened his eyes at this and stared wildly for a few moments; then a knowledge of his position seemed to come to him, and he smiled and raised one hand.At that moment there was a shout and the cable of the cradle gear seemed to hang loose, and the sea end to be moving shoreward, while the man with the glass shouted:“She’s gone to pieces, lads; that last wave lifted her, and then she melted right away.”There was no doubt about it, for the cradle gear was floating free, and the men were able to haul it in. The rest of the crew of that unfortunate ship, with twelve passengers beside, were washed ashore with the battered boat that took the line, and fragments of wreck here and there all round the coast for the next ten days or so, long after Will had well recovered from the shock of his adventure. For he had been for long enough beaten about and half drowned by the waves while striving to get the cradle rope clear of a tangle of rigging that had fallen upon it, and threatened to put an end to its further working, till he had run a most perilous risk, climbed over it, hauled the rope from the other side, and had just strength enough left to get into the cradle and give the signal, as a wave came over the doomed ship, and buried him deep beneath tons of water.He could recollect no more than that he had tried to give the signal to be hauled ashore, and some one had held him up to pour brandy between his teeth.Yes: there was something else he remembered very well, and that was the way in which Dick held on to him, and how Arthur had shaken hands. He recalled that, and with it especially Mr Temple’s manner, for there was a kind, fatherly way in his words and looks as he said to him gently:“Will Marion, I should have felt very proud if one of my boys had done all this.”
“There she is, Master Dickard, sir,” shouted Josh, as the little party reached the shore down by the pilchard-house, and he pointed out over the foaming sea.
“I can see nothing but mist,” said Dick excitedly.
“That’s the foam,” said Josh; “but I can see her plain—three-master—quite a big ship.”
“Will she get into the harbour, Josh?” said Dick, with his lips to the fisherman’s ear.
Josh looked at him solemnly and then shook his head.
“One of our luggers couldn’t do it, Master Dick, with a wind like this, let alone a big ship.”
“What will happen then?” cried Dick excitedly.
“Rocks—go on the Six Pins, I should say. That’s where the current’ll take her—eh, master?”
Uncle Abram was holding his long telescope against the corner of the pilchard-house, and gazing attentively through it at the distant ship.
“No, Josh, my lad,” he said; “there’s too much water on the Six Pins even for her. She’ll come clear o’ them and right on to Black Point.”
“And then?” said Mr Temple anxiously.
“We shall do what we can with the rocket-line if the masts hold good for a bit, sir.”
“But a boat—a life-boat!”
Uncle Abram shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
“Soon as that first gun was heard, sir, there was a man got on a horse and went over the hills to Corntown, where the life-boat lies, and they’ll come over as fast as horses can draw the carriage; but it will take them a long time to get over along the rough road, and when they do get her here, where she’s to be launched I can’t tell.”
Mr Temple and his sons looked about the bay at the tremendous breakers that were forming, as it were, a frame of foam. Even the entrance to the harbour was marked by the waves that leaped against the pier.
“I can’t see the ship, father,” whispered Dick in an awe-stricken voice, as he handed back the glass, whose bottom was dimmed with spray the moment he put it to his eyes.
“There—there,” said Will hoarsely, as he pointed out to sea.
“No, I can’t see it,” said Dick again.
“Can you see the Bird Rock—the Mew Rock, where we caught the conger?” said Will hastily, and with his lips close to Dick’s face.
“Yes.”
“Then fix your eyes there, and then look straight from there to the old mine-shaft on the hill.”
“Yes—yes,” cried Dick. “I can see a mast all amongst the spray; and it’s coming on this way.”
“To destruction,” said Mr Temple to himself, as he too now caught sight of the unfortunate vessel driving towards the rocks slowly and surely, and once more the crew drew attention to their peril by firing a signal-gun.
It is one of the most terribly painful positions in which a man can be placed, to see his fellow-creatures slowly drifting into what is almost certain death without being able to stretch out a hand to save.
There was no need to warn the crew of their danger; they knew that but too well, for the great grey rocks were in front of them with the breakers at their feet; and as the excitement increased Will caught Dick’s arm.
“They’re getting out the rocket-lines,” he said, shouting into Dick’s ear. “Come and see.”
The wind and spray were forgotten, as the men, headed by a couple of coastguard, drew a truck along the sands and through the pools of water towards a spot to the left of where they stood, and just beyond the place where the seine was drawn in and the shark captured. To Dick it seemed as if the men were going away, from the place where they were likely to be of any help to the crew of the ship; but the fishermen knew what they were about, and old Mr Marion, who was as excited as any one present, came up to shout out his opinions.
“She’ll come ashore on the Black Fin,” he said. “The other side of the buoy. You watch her, and you’ll see.”
In spite of the driving foam and the salt rain formed by the spray cut from the tops of the waves, the vessel could now be plainly seen labouring and tossing among the great billows which grew heavier and grander the nearer the unfortunate vessel came to the shore, and Dick began to realise now how a ship could be safer a thousand miles from land in the heaviest hurricane than among the breakers upon our rocky coast.
The beating rain and wind then were forgotten as the rocket-cart came up, and Mr Temple and his sons staggered after it, Josh laying hold of one of Dick’s arms, Will of the other, while old Marion and Mr Temple were on either side of Arthur, who wondered how the wind could thunder so heavily in his ears.
Dick had a misty sort of idea that a rope would be shot out to the wreck, and that the men would come along it ashore, but how it was to be done he could not tell. Had the storm been twice as heavy, though, he would have gone to see, and he pressed eagerly forward till, with his companions, he was close up to the cart, waiting for the ship to strike.
On she came through the foam, closer and closer, every mast standing, but the sails that had been set torn to rags, that streamed out like tattered pennons, and whipped and beat about the yards. Men on the shore ran here and there and shouted to each other to do impossibilities. Some got under the lee of rocks to use their glasses, but only to close them again and hurry to gain their excited companions, who were standing with coils of rope over their shoulders, and one arm through the ring, shouting again with their hands to their mouths, and one who had a speaking-trumpet roared some unintelligible order through it to the wind that cast it back into his face.
“Will the life-boat come in time?” said Mr Temple to Josh; but the fisherman did not speak nor turn to the questioner: he only shook his head.
All at once every one stood still. The excitement seemed to be at an end. Heads were bent forward, eyes were shaded, and one impulse seemed to have moved the scattered crowd upon the foaming beach, and those who were standing knee-deep amongst the rushing sea-froth that ran up beyond them to the sand.
“Look!” shouted Josh, without turning his head; and he pointed with his sound arm out to sea.
Dick, Arthur, and Mr Temple strained their eyes to catch signs of what the fisherman meant as they saw the vessel rising and falling, and seeming to glide slowly on, till all at once, in the midst of the dense rain of spray, the vessel rose, as it were, to make a leap, and then charged down a hill of waters, stopped short, and seemed to shiver. Then her tall main-mast fell forward, apparently snapped off close to the deck, carrying with it the fore-mast; while the mizen, that had been sloping slightly backward, now leaned over toward the shore.
“Fast on the Black Fin,” cried Josh, with his hands to his mouth, and a shiver of horror ran through Dick and his brother as they realised what all this meant.
There was no time lost on the beach now, for in the midst of the crowd the rocket-cart was run down as far as was possible, the tube laid ready, the case with its line placed in position, and then away with a rush, and a stream of dull, almost invisible sparks sped the rocket with its line, whose destination was the far side of the ill-fated ship.
There was a cry from the men who were watching the flight of the line-bearer.
“Short, short!” And as the boys watched with parted lips, and eyes half-blinded with the spray, they saw the line rapidly hauled in and laid ready for another flight.
It took some time, during which those on shore could just make out the crew of the ship clustering about the stern of the vessel and on the mizen-mast.
All was ready at last, and once more a rocket was sent flying with the same result, its flight too short to reach the ship.
“I knowed it—I knowed it!” roared Josh between his hands. “There’s only one way.”
A little crowd collected about Josh, and for a short space there was hurried gesticulation, and old Marion seemed to be declaiming to the men.
All at once the boys saw Will back out of the crowd with Josh and wave his hand to them, after which every one set off rapidly round the curve of the bay to where the sands ceased and the shore was piled-up rocks, a reef of which ran right out to the vessel, which was fast on an isolated rock at the end.
They were farther from the ship now than before—probably double the distance; but the reef formed a breakwater, and in its lee, though it seemed almost madness, it was just possible that a boat might live.
“They’re going to launch a boat and take out a line,” shouted old Marion in Mr Temple’s ear. “It breaks my heart, Master Temple, but he’s light and strong, and a good rower, and Josh won’t go alone.”
“Is Will going?” cried Dick excitedly.
“Yes—yes,” shouted the old man: “there’s fellow-creatures’ lives at stake; and at such a time a seafaring man can’t say no.”
What took place seemed to Dick afterwards like the events in some wild dream; but in the midst of the excitement and confusion he saw a small broad-beamed boat run down a pebbly slope, and that a line was coiled in her. Five men, it seemed, jumped into her as she was thrust off, the men wading out as far as they could to give impetus to the craft before they sprang in. Then the cockle-shell of a boat seemed to be lifted right up to the top of a wave, and then to plunge down out of sight; and as Dick watched for her reappearance, and noted that the line was held by the men ashore, as he had noted that there was some one in the stern of the boat who kept paying out that line, he realised that the boy was Will, and it seemed again more than ever to be a dream.
All that followed in the midst of that horrible din of shrieking wind, beating spray, and thundering seemed to be a confused dream, out of which he kept thinking he should wake, as he sheltered his eyes with his hands and tried to see the boat.
But no. Once it had plunged down that hill of foamy wave it had disappeared into a mist of spray and froth; and though two or three times he fancied that he caught sight of the boat climbing some wave between where they stood and the wreck, he could not be sure.
There was confidence, though, on the part of the men who were holding the line.
“He’s paying it out right enough, the lad,” shouted one of them to Uncle Abram; and as time went on signals were exchanged that told of the safety of those in the boat.
The distance was not great, and the reef of rocks not only formed a shelter, but produced a kind of eddy, which made the passage of the boat somewhat less perilous; but all the same it was a forlorn hope, and many of the fishermen said to themselves that the next time that they saw Will Marion and Josh it would be beaten and bruised by wave and rock, and cast up upon the shore.
But the signals, jerks of the rope, kept coming, and men perched themselves high up among the rocks to watch the progress of the boat with their glasses, but in vain. All they could see was an occasional glimpse of the mizen of the ship, with a dark patch of clustering humanity.
The life-saving gear had meanwhile been carried to the spot whence the boat was started; and there was hope yet that a connection might be made between the vessel and the rocks.
But time went on—time, confused by the roar of wind and wave, and there was no sign. It had seemed utter madness for that boat to be sent forth into such a chaos of waters; but there are things which some men call mad often adventured by the brave fishers of our coast.
All at once Dick started from his father’s side to run to Uncle Abram, who had seated himself slowly upon a block of stone about which the foam floated to and fro on a few inches of water. The old man sank down in a way whose action Dick read at once, for the old fellow let his head go down upon his hands, and these rested upon his knees; and as he saw the air of utter dejection, Dick felt that poor Will must have been lost.
It seemed so horrible, so strange, that as Dick reached Abram Marion’s side he sank down on his knees beside the old man, caught at his hands, and literally sobbed out:
“Oh! don’t say he’s drowned; don’t say he’s drowned.”
There was quite a lull as he spoke; and as the old man felt the touch of the boy’s clinging hands he laid his own upon his head with a strange far-off look in his eyes.
“I don’t say so; I won’t say so!” he cried in a hoarse, passionate way. “My brave, true lad! but I oughtn’t to have let him go.”
“Hurrah!”
A loud cheer from near the water’s edge, and a quick, bustling movement among the men; and then down came the storm again, as if it had been taking breath, and the roar was deafening.
But the boat had reached the ship, of course getting under her lee, and her daring little crew had climbed on board. For there was the proof—the life-gear had been attached to the end of the line, and it was being rapidly dragged from the shore out towards the wreck.
A long, anxious time ensued, during which, while the sea end was being secured to the wreck, the shore end of the life-cable, was carried high up to the top of a cluster of rocks that formed the end of the reef, a flat place thirty feet above the level of the sea.
There were drags at that line, which the men at once knew were given by the waves, but they were mostly sharp twitches, which meant that the daring boatmen, headed by Josh, were making it fast high up somewhere in the vessel’s mizen; and at last there was an unmistakable signal which meant, “Make fast,” and the shore end was hauled tight round a mass of rock.
Then as Dick and his brother stood in the crowd, which had climbed up to the top of the rock, they saw the block that ran upon the cable set in motion by a thin line that was alongside the thick rope, and there was a burst of cheers as the cradle—that basket-like contrivance of the rocket apparatus—started off, dragged by those upon the rock, to cross the seething waves, which kept leaping up at it as if to snatch it down.
Then came a signal—a twitch of the line, and with a cheer the men on the rock hauled the cradle back—cradle indeed, for it seem to contain a new-born life, saved from inevitable death.
It was the pale, wild face of a woman, speechless with dread and exposure, that greeted the men on the rocks as they hauled in the cradle; and in a minute she was lifted out, and almost before the willing hands had lifted the poor woman down from the rock, the cradle was speeding back.
It returned quickly with a man half dead, and he, amidst rousing cheers, was lifted out, and borne to a place where he would find warmth, welcome, and shelter.
Then four more were dragged ashore over the thundering, roaring waves, as the cradle was merrily hauled to and fro.
Then came another man, but not a storm-beaten exhausted seaman. It was the well-known countenance of one of the crew that went out in the boat, and he was full of activity.
“Back with the cradle!” he shouted, “haul away. The ship won’t hold together long.”
The cradle began to run back over the swinging rope, while the man who had returned said in reply to questions:
“Those were all. The rest of the poor souls had been beaten off, and these couldn’t have lasted many minutes longer. You must look alive.”
The men waited anxiously for the signal, and then another mate was hauled over the waves, and the cradle sent back, while Dick stood trembling and wanting to ask why Will, who was a boy, had not been sent first.
Then came another, and still it was not Will.
“This time it must be he,” thought Dick; but when the cradle arrived once more, it was the face of Josh that saluted them.
“Haul back quick,” the latter said. “She was shivering under my feet when I come away.”
“And you left that boy to drown!” roared Uncle Abram, catching Josh by the throat.
Josh did not resent it, but said quietly, in a lull of the storm:
“He wouldn’t come first. It was like drowning both him and me to stand gashly arguing at a time like that.”
And now every eye was staring wildly, and with an intensity that showed how eagerly all watched for the next freight of the cradle.
“It’s hard work for the lad,” said Josh hoarsely; “and I’d give anything to be at his side. But he’ll do it if the ship hangs together long enough. Oh, pull, pull! Haul away, lads, haul!”
“He made me come—he made me come,” he cried frantically. “It was keeping the lad back to say I wouldn’t go first. I didn’t want to, lads, I didn’t want to.”
“No, no,” came in a sympathetic growl, as once more the wind lulled a little and there were symptoms of the gale being nearly over.
Then there was a groan, for Will made no signal.
“Hooray!” came from the men, as there was a sudden snatch, and the rope they were giving out was drawn rapidly. “He’s got it, he’s—got—”
The man who was joyfully shouting that stopped short as the rope ceased moving, and one, who was trying to use a telescope, shouted:
“The mizen’s over!”
“Then she’s gone to pieces, lads,” cried another.
“No,” cried the man with the glass; “part’s standing yet.”
“Hooray!” came again, as Dick stood clinging to Uncle Abram’s arm, the old man having left the stone, and standing close beside the men who hauled the cradle gear.
Short as the distance was, not a glimpse of the ship could be seen, for every wave that broke upon the rock rose in a fountain of spray, to mingle with the blinding drift and mist of foam. But all the time their eyes were strained towards the rock upon which the ship had struck, and along the reef that the venturesome boat’s crew had made the shelter which resulted in the saving of some of the poor creatures upon the wreck.
All at once, when a horrible feeling of despair had settled upon all present, there was a sharp twitch given to the line, the signal for it to be hauled, just at a time too when Josh had turned away, giving Dick a piteous look, and then gone to lean his head upon his arm against the rock.
That cheer which came as the rope was twitched seemed to send life and activity back to Josh, who dashed in among the knot of men at the rope.
“Here, let me come,” he shouted; “let me have a hand in bringing him ashore. Hurray! Master Dick, hurray! he’s saved, he’s saved!”
Was he?
The men hauled as rapidly as was consistent with safety, till the cradle with its occupant was dragged right up on to the rock, where a dozen hands were ready to lift the drooping, insensible figure out, and pour brandy between its lips.
Will opened his eyes at this and stared wildly for a few moments; then a knowledge of his position seemed to come to him, and he smiled and raised one hand.
At that moment there was a shout and the cable of the cradle gear seemed to hang loose, and the sea end to be moving shoreward, while the man with the glass shouted:
“She’s gone to pieces, lads; that last wave lifted her, and then she melted right away.”
There was no doubt about it, for the cradle gear was floating free, and the men were able to haul it in. The rest of the crew of that unfortunate ship, with twelve passengers beside, were washed ashore with the battered boat that took the line, and fragments of wreck here and there all round the coast for the next ten days or so, long after Will had well recovered from the shock of his adventure. For he had been for long enough beaten about and half drowned by the waves while striving to get the cradle rope clear of a tangle of rigging that had fallen upon it, and threatened to put an end to its further working, till he had run a most perilous risk, climbed over it, hauled the rope from the other side, and had just strength enough left to get into the cradle and give the signal, as a wave came over the doomed ship, and buried him deep beneath tons of water.
He could recollect no more than that he had tried to give the signal to be hauled ashore, and some one had held him up to pour brandy between his teeth.
Yes: there was something else he remembered very well, and that was the way in which Dick held on to him, and how Arthur had shaken hands. He recalled that, and with it especially Mr Temple’s manner, for there was a kind, fatherly way in his words and looks as he said to him gently:
“Will Marion, I should have felt very proud if one of my boys had done all this.”
Chapter Twenty Nine.Mr Temple learns more of Will Marion’s Character written in Stones.“Don’t say anything about it, my lad, to Will; he don’t like it known,” said Uncle Abram one day; “and I wouldn’t let out about it to his aunt.”“I won’t tell anybody but Taff and my father,” said Dick.Uncle Abram took his pipe out of his mouth and scratched the side of his nose with it very softly, as he looked out through the window, and its climbing-roses, to sea.Mrs Marion had gone into Corntown marketing; Arthur was up the cliff reading in a snug corner he affected; Mr Temple had gone out alone along the cliff “on an exploring trip,” he had said with a smile; and Will was down with Josh at the lugger “overhauling,” as Josh called it, which meant running over the nets previous to a visit to the pilchard ground.Dick was just going to join them when Uncle Abram, who was fumigating his rose-trees and enjoying his pipe at the same time, made him a signal, as he called it, and asked him if he would like to see Will’s room.“Well,” said the old man, after a good deal of scratching with the red waxed end of his tobacco pipe.“I s’pose you’re right, Master Richard, sir. I say don’t tell Will, because he’s so modest like, and don’t want people to know; and, I say, don’t tell his aunt, because she’s so particular like with him, and if she know’d all, she’d think he was neglecting his regular work, and that if he could find time, you see, for doing this sort of thing, he could be doing more to the boats. But I don’t see why your brother should not know, and I don’t hold with a lad keeping anything from his father.”“And who wants to keep anything from his father?” said Mr Temple, who was just passing the window on his return. “What is it?” he continued, entering the room.“Oh, nothing, sir; only I was going to show Master Richard here our Will’s room, and I was asking him to be a bit secret like for the lad’s sake. Mrs Marion, you see, is a—”“Oh, yes, I understand,” said Mr Temple. “May I come too?”“If you please, sir,” said the old man smiling. “It’s in your way rather, you see, both of you being a bit fond of chip-chopping stones; not that there’s many up there now, for you see his aunt makes the lad clear ’em away now and then. Won’t have the litter, she says. But I’ve got ’em all in a box down in my toolshed, where the boy can have ’em when he likes.”“Let’s go and see his room, then,” said Mr Temple, smiling.“’Tarn’t much of a place, sir, being a garret,” said Uncle Abram apologetically; “but lads as goes to sea has snugger quarters sometimes than our Will’s.”He put his pipe back in his mouth—it was out now—and held it steady as he led the way to a door in a corner at the end of the passage, and up a very steep flight of stairs to a little room with sloping ceiling, over the kitchen.“I had this knocked up for the lad o’ purpose,” said Uncle Abram proudly. “Made it as like a cabin as I could, meaning him to be sea-going, you understand, sir, only he’s drifting away from it like. Why, bless your heart, though, Mr Temple, sir, I never find no fault with him, for there’s stuff enough in him, I think, to make a real lord-mayor. There: there’s our Will’s room.”He stood smiling as the visitors had a good look round the scrupulously clean little cabin-like bed-room with lockers and a swinging shelf of books, and everything arranged with a neatness that was most notable.“Those are his books, sir. Spends a deal of time over ’em.”“Novels and romances, eh?” said Mr Temple, going to the shelf. “Why, hullo! Fowne’sChemistry, Smyth’sMineralogy, Murchison’sGeology. Rather serious reading for him, isn’t it?”“Not it, sir,” cried Uncle Abram. “He loves it, sir; and look here,” he continued, opening one of the lockers; “as full of specimens as can be. All sorts of stones and bits of ore that he gets from the mines. Ah! that’s a new net he’s making; small meshed seine to catch sand-eels, sir, for bait. That’s a new shrimp-net he made for me. Mixes it up like—reads and makes nets together. Once you’ve got your fingers to know how to make a net, they’ll go on while you read.”“What are these?” said Mr Temple, pointing at a series of rough glass bottles and oil flasks.“Oh, that’s his apparatus he made, sir. Does chemistry with them, and there’s a little crucible in my tool-house, where he melts down tin and things sometimes, to see what they’re made of. I always encourage him, I do, just. Can’t do the boy any harm.”“Harm! no,” said Mr Temple quietly, as he glanced through Will’s treasures with a good deal of curiosity, spending most of the time over a small glass case which was full of glittering pieces of ore.“He seems to like the pretty bits best,” said Mr Temple; but Uncle Abram shook his head.“Oh no, sir. Those are what his aunt likes best. She won’t have the bits of tin and rough copper ore; says they’re rubbish, bless her. She don’t know what one bit’s worth more than another, only goes by the eye, you see. I’ve got the rough bits hid away for him when he wants ’em.”Mr Temple seemed unusually thoughtful, so it seemed to Dick, who was delighted with the quaintness of the little attic, and declaring to himself that it was just the place he should like for himself; but he wondered a little bit at his father looking so stern.“Here, quick!” cried Uncle Abram excitedly; “that’s my boy’s step coming in back way. I don’t want him to see us. Looks like spying on him, poor lad, and I want him to enjoy himself when he isn’t at work.”“And quite right too,” said Mr Temple quietly, as he followed the old man down the steep stairs, and they had just reached the parlour when there was a knock at the door.“Beg pardon, sir,” said Will, who was flushed with hurrying; “but you said you would like the young gentlemen to have a sail in the trawler.”“Sail in the trawler!” cried Dick, bounding across the room excitedly.“Yes! Well?” said Mr Temple, smiling.“She’s lying off the harbour, sir. I’ve seen the master, and he says the young gentlemen are welcome, and there’s a fine breeze, sir, and it’s a lovely day.”Dick turned a look upon his father, such as a prisoner might turn upon a judge as he waited for him to speak.“I suppose you would not like to go, Dick?” said Mr Temple dryly. “You would miss your dinner.”“Why, father,” cried Dick in a tone of reproach, “I can have a dinner every day.”“And a sail in a trawler only once perhaps in your life. Then be off.”Dick bounded to the door and then stopped.“May Taff come, father?” he cried.“If he likes; but perhaps he wouldn’t care to go. Make him sea-sick perhaps.”“But he may go, father?”“Yes. But stop. Take something to eat with you in a basket.”“The master of the smack said if the young gentlemen would come in they could have a bit of dinner on board. We could cook some fish, sir.”“Oh!” cried Dick excitedly.“Come, this is tempting,” said Mr Temple. “I’m half disposed to come too.”“Do, father,” cried Dick, catching his hand. “Oh, do come.”“No, my boy, I have some important business on hand. There, go and enjoy yourselves. You’re going, Will?” he said quietly.“Yes, sir, if uncle can spare me, and Josh too.”“That’s right; take care of my boys—that is, if your uncle can spare you.”“Oh yes, oh yes! They can go. They don’t sail for the pilchard ground till sundown.”Arthur was hunted out of his nest, and as soon as he knew of the object in view he displayed plenty of eagerness. The sight of the cutter-rigged smack lying with her bowsprit pointing to the wind, and her white mainsail flapping and quivering in the breeze, which seemed to send mimic waves chasing each other along it from mast to edge, while the jib lay all of a heap waiting to be hoisted, being one that would have roused the most phlegmatic to a desire to have a cruise, and see some of the wonders of the deep dredged up.The master of the trawler gave the boys a hearty reception, his bronzed face expanding into a smile as he held Dick’s hand in his great hard brown heavy paw.“So you’ve come a-trawling, have you, my lad? Well, I’m glad to see you, and you too, sir,” he added, shaking hands with Arthur in turn. “Going to stop aboard, lads?” he said in a kind of chant to Will and Josh.“Ay, we’re going to stop,” said the latter; so the master of the trawler sent one of his own crew ashore with Uncle Abram’s boat, telling the man he could stay.The next minute the master gave the word, and went to the tiller, a couple of men began to haul up the jib, and then Arthur was clinging frantically to Will.“Quick! The boat!” he cried. “The ship’s going over.”Then he turned from deadly pale to scarlet as he saw Will’s smile and look of amusement.“It’s all right, Master Arthur,” said the latter; “it’s the wind taking hold of the mains’l. She only careens a bit.”“But won’t it go over?”“Over! Oh, no!” said Will; “there’s too much ballast. There, you see, now we’re beginning to move.”“But ought the boat to go side wise like this?” whispered Arthur. “The deck’s all of a slope.”“Oh, yes, that’s right enough. When we’re on the other tack she’ll careen over the other side. The stiffer the breeze and the more sail there is, the more she careens. I’ve been in a smack when we’ve been nearly lying down in the water, and it’s washed right over the deck.”“There, young gents, she’s moving now,” said the master, as the gaff was hoisted, and the beautifully-shaped cutter began to rush through the water at a rapid rate, leaving two long lines of foam in an ever-widening wake, while, like some gigantic sword-fish, she ploughed her way through the glittering sea. The sails bellied out tense and stiff, and the wind whistled as it seemed to sweep off the three sails.There was no doubt about it; either the cutter was moving or the pier and shore. To Arthur it seemed as if the latter had suddenly begun to run away from them, and was dancing up and down with joy because it had found the chance.“Dick,” whispered Arthur, after beckoning his brother to his side, where he was holding on by the weather shrouds.“Hullo!” cried Dick, laughing. “Oh, I say, Taff, isn’t it fun? I can’t walk.”“I’m sure it isn’t safe,” whispered Arthur.“Eh? What? Not safe?”“No, I’m sure it isn’t. We shall be blown over.”“Oh, never mind,” said Dick. “They’ll turn her round and blow her up again. I say, Taff; don’t be afraid. We sha’n’t hurt.”“But if we were to be drowned, Dick, what would papa say?”“Don’t know. He wouldn’t like it, though. But we sha’n’t be drowned. Look at Will. He’d know if there was any danger, and he’s as cool as can be. Come, pluck up. Let go of that rope. You’ll soon get used to it.”Arthur turned a ghastly face to him.“I’m trying to master being frightened, Dick,” he said humbly; “but I must go home again; I’m going to be sick.”“Nonsense!” cried Dick, laughing. “There, think about something else. There, look, they’re going to use the net.”To Arthur’s great delight the speed of the smack was checked, and the busy preparations took up his attention, so that the qualm passed off, and he crept to his brother’s side and listened as Josh was explaining the use of the trawl-net, which the men were about to lower over the side.“There you are, you see,” said Josh; “here’s your net, just like a night-cap with a wide end and a little end, as we calls the bunt. There’s pockets to it as well, only you can’t very well see ’em now. When she’s hauled up with fish in you’ll see ’em better then.”“And what’s this big piece of wood?”“Trawl-beam,” said Josh; “thirty-footer, to keep the meshes of the net stretched wide open at the top. Bottom’s free so as to drag over the bottom. And them’s the trawl-irons, to fit on the end of the beam and skate along the sand and keep all down.”“And the rope’s tied to them?” said Dick.“Rope?” said Josh. “You mean the bridle. That’s right, my lad, and down she goes.”Over went the huge, cumbersome apparatus of beam, irons, and net, the weighty irons being so arranged as to take the trawl to the bottom in the right position so that the net with its stout edge rope should scrape over the sand as the cutter sailed.“There you are,” said the master, coming up; “now, then, away we go. There’s a fine wind this morning, and we shall get some fish.”“Does the wind make you get the fish?” said Dick.“To be sure, my lad. If we weren’t sailing fast, as soon as the flat-fish felt the net being dragged over ’em they’d give a flip and a flap and be out of the way in no time; but the trawl’s drawn over ’em so quickly in a brisk breeze like this that they haven’t time to escape. They’re in the net before they know where they are, and then they get into the pockets, and it’s a case of market for them.”“It’s all sand under here, isn’t it?” asked Dick.“You may be sure of that, my lad,” said the master laughing. “When you see a smack trawling, it’s all sand there, says you. ’Cause why? If it was rocks the trawl would catch and be broken before you knowed where you were. Yes; it’s all smooth bottom here.”It was wonderfully interesting to see the great strong beam and the thick net, so different in the make to the filmy cobwebs that were used for seine and drift. This was of stout cord, and its edge of a strong over-bound rope. Of course all was out of sight now, the only thing visible being the bridle-rope, by means of which the trawl was being swiftly dragged astern.“I hope we shall get a good haul or two,” said Will, joining the boys as they stood holding on by the bulwarks, with the great mainsail boom over their heads, everything that looked so small and toy-like from the shore being here big and strong.“What shall we catch?” said Arthur, making an effort to hide the remains of his discomposure.“Get, sir?” cried Will smiling. “Oh! all sorts of things. If we’re lucky, a turbot or two; soles we are sure to have, and some plaice; perhaps a brill; then there’ll be a few dabs and whiting, and maybe a red mullet, and along with them the trawl will bring up a lot of all sorts.”“All sorts?” said Dick.“Yes, sir. Weevers and blennies, and crabs, with oysters and scallops, and sea-weeds of all kinds—a regular mixture if we go over a part that hasn’t been much swept lately.”“Here, I say, when are they going to pull up the net?” said Dick eagerly. “I want to see.”“Oh! not yet awhile,” said Will smiling.“But the fish will get out again.”“Oh no! We’re going too fast for that,” said Will; “and if there are any fish they’ll be in the pockets.”“But has a trawl-net got pockets?” said Arthur curiously.“Oh yes!” said Dick grinning; “two in its trousers, two in its waistcoat, and one in its jacket.”“Don’t you mind what he says, Master Arthur,” said Will smiling. “The pockets are on each side of the net, where it is sewed up a little, so that if the fish, when once in, try to swim towards the mouth they go instead into some of those sewed-up corners and get no farther. There, you see now, we’re going on the other tack so as to sweep back over nearly the same ground again. There are rocks if we go any farther this way.”As he spoke the course of the smack was altered, and the side that had been so low down that at times it was almost possible to touch the water was high up and the other lower down, and the smack rushed through the water, as it seemed, faster than ever.“She can sail, can’t she, young gentlemen?” said the master. “We call her theFoam, and she can make foam too. Well, are you ready for the haul?”“Yes. Are you going to begin?” cried Dick excitedly.“Soon, my lad, soon,” said the master. “Have you got a basket?”Dick shook his head.“Oh! you’ll want a basket, and you must have a bucket of water. There’ll be lots of things you’ll like to look at that we should pitch overboard again.”“You lend me a basket and a bucket then,” said Dick; “you shall have them back.”“Right, my lad. You tell young Will there to get you what you want. We shall have the trawl aboard soon.”It seemed to Dick almost an age, but at last the master turned his brown, good-humoured face to him and gave him a nod. At the same moment he shouted a few short orders, and Dick rushed to take a pull at the rope as he saw Josh and Will stand by.“No, no, my lad; you and your brother look on,” cried the master good-temperedly.Dick drew back and glanced at Arthur, whose face was as eager as his own. In fact, a great deal of his London indifference had disappeared of late, and the boy had been growing as natural as his brother.It was a time of intense excitement though for them, and as they watched they saw a windlass turn, and up came the great trawl-irons and the beam, then, dripping and sparkling in the sun, the foot-rope of the trawl-net, and foot after foot emerged with nothing but dripping water.“Why, they haven’t caught a fish,” cried Dick in a disappointed tone of voice.“You wait till the bunt’s aboard,” growled Josh just then; and the bunt, as the tassel end of the great net night-cap was called, was hauled on board dripping, and containing something splashing, flapping, and full of life.“There’s something for you to look at, my lads,” cried the bluff master smiling. “Let out that draw string, Josh.”The whole of the net was now on the deck, the water streaming from it out at the side; and after Josh had unfastened the string which laced up the small end or bunt, the little crew took hold of the net above the pockets, and by giving it a series of shakes sent the whole of its contents out upon the deck. The net was then drawn away, the bunt fastened up, the end thrown over, and the trawl-beam took all down to scrape once more over the sands and scoop-out the soles and other flat-fish that are so fond of scuffling themselves down in the soft oozy sand, flapping their side-fins about till they are half covered, and very often letting the trawl-rope pass right over their backs.A good many had, however, failed to be successful this time, for there was a great patch of the deck covered with the contents of the net.“I never saw such a sight in my life,” cried Dick; and then he burst into a roar of laughter as his brother tried to pick up a large sole, which seemed to give a spring and a flap, and darted out of his hands.It was a sight, certainly; and the master good-humouredly let the men stand aside for a while so that the boys might have a good inspection of the haul before clearance was made.“Overboard with the rubbish, my lads,” he said, “then you can see better.”But the rubbish, a great deal of it, was what Dick and his brother would have liked to keep, as much of it consisted of pieces of heavy black wood pierced by teredo and covered with barnacles. There were curious stones, too, and pieces of weed, all of which had to go overboard though, and then, as Dick called it, the fun began.It was a good haul. And first and foremost there was a magnificent turbot—a huge round fellow, with his white waistcoat, and mouth awry, apparently, though it was normally placed, and the creature’s eyes, like those of the rest of the flat-fish, were screwed round to one side of its head.Then there was a brill, like the turbot’s small first cousin, and a young turbot that might have been its son. There were a dozen or so of plaice, large and small, and, flipping and flapping and gasping, some five-and-twenty soles, from fine fat fellows fifteen inches long to little tiny slips that were thrown overboard.“Some sends that sort to market,” said the master smiling. “I throw ’em in again to get fat.”Arthur’s adventures with the conger came back to him as he saw one long lithe fish of some four feet eagerly seized and thrust into one of the many stout boxes on the deck; and he said something to his brother.“No,” said Will, who overheard him. “That’s a hake.”There were several whitings, many being of very large size, four times that of the familiar tail-biting gentlemen who are curled up among the parsley upon our tables. No less than a dozen ruddy mullet were there too; and the above-named being the good fish of the haul, the residue was left on deck for the boys to examine and save what they pleased.Will picked out a small brill and a whiting or two, with a good-sized sole that had been left. These were placed in the basket, and then the basket was dipped full of clean water, and the treasures, as Dick called them, were fished out and dropped in.Among these were a lovely jelly-fish and a couple of beroes, looking like little oblong balls of the purest crystal; some pieces of stone, with curious barnacles adhering; and a quaint-looking, large-headed fish with prickly weapons about its head and back.Then Arthur added a baby sole, and Dick an infant turbot, which were entangled amongst the sea-weed that had been dredged up; while everywhere the patch of dredgings upon the deck seemed to be alive with creeping and crawling things, examples of the teeming life of the great ocean.Then came the master to intimate that the deck must be cleared, for they were going to haul the dredge on board again.“What—so soon?” cried Dick.“So soon—eh?” said the master. “Why, you’ve been stirring that up ’bout half an hour.”“Ah! well, we shall have something more to see,” said Dick in a reconciled manner; and he carried his basket astern, while the men swept the remains of the haul—such remains as would have given a naturalist a week’s amusement—overboard.Then once more the ponderous trawl was hauled on board, with its flapping and splashing prisoners, which were nearly as abundant as before; but there was no turbot this time.“Don’t matter,” said Dick; “here’s the sauce.”As he spoke he pointed laughingly to a great lobster which had been out on its travels away from its home amongst the rocks, and had been swept up, to be turned out upon the smack’s deck, to crawl about flapping its tail and opening and closing its pincers, held aloft in the most aggressive way.“Ah!” said the master thoughtfully, “that won’t do. We must have gone a little too near the tail of the rocks when we tacked.”“I thought you was going pretty close,” said Josh, “but I said as you know’d best.”The boxes were dragged forward again, and soles and plaice were thrust in, flapping and springing in their captors’ hands. Then the whiting were sorted into their home, the sundry fish that were worth saving placed in another box, and once more the visitors were allowed to have their turn in the heap, till, amidst such an embarrassment of riches, as the French call it, Dick stopped short with a laughing, puzzled face, to rub his ear.“There’s such a lot,” he cried. “There’s so much to see, I don’t know what to take first, and what to leave.”It resulted in nearly everything going overboard,—tiny fish entangled in sea-weed, curious stones, dog-fish, and skates’ eggs, barnacles, pieces of hard English sponge, bones of cuttle-fish, and scallop and oyster-shells; but one basket was set aside for Mr Temple by Will, who stored in it a fair number of delicious oysters and scallops, whose beautiful shells were bearded with lovely weeds like ferns or plumes of asparagus, while one that gaped open showed his flesh to be of the most brilliant orange scarlet hue.And so it went on hour after hour, the fresh breeze making the trawling most successful, and at every haul there were so many treasures that at last Dick gave up collecting in despair, confiding his opinion to his brother that the happiest life anybody could lead must be that of the master of a trawler.Towards four o’clock they were sent ashore with Josh and Will, loaded with bucket and basket of the treasures they had found, including a handsome lot of fish for Mr Temple, with the master’s compliments.“Why, Taff,” said Dick suddenly, “you were going to be sea-sick, weren’t you, when we started off?”“Yes,” said Arthur uneasily, and then smiling, he added, “I forgot all about it.”“Forgot all about it!” said Dick. “I should think so. Why, it wouldn’t matter how bad a fellow were: a day’s trawling would make him well.”
“Don’t say anything about it, my lad, to Will; he don’t like it known,” said Uncle Abram one day; “and I wouldn’t let out about it to his aunt.”
“I won’t tell anybody but Taff and my father,” said Dick.
Uncle Abram took his pipe out of his mouth and scratched the side of his nose with it very softly, as he looked out through the window, and its climbing-roses, to sea.
Mrs Marion had gone into Corntown marketing; Arthur was up the cliff reading in a snug corner he affected; Mr Temple had gone out alone along the cliff “on an exploring trip,” he had said with a smile; and Will was down with Josh at the lugger “overhauling,” as Josh called it, which meant running over the nets previous to a visit to the pilchard ground.
Dick was just going to join them when Uncle Abram, who was fumigating his rose-trees and enjoying his pipe at the same time, made him a signal, as he called it, and asked him if he would like to see Will’s room.
“Well,” said the old man, after a good deal of scratching with the red waxed end of his tobacco pipe.
“I s’pose you’re right, Master Richard, sir. I say don’t tell Will, because he’s so modest like, and don’t want people to know; and, I say, don’t tell his aunt, because she’s so particular like with him, and if she know’d all, she’d think he was neglecting his regular work, and that if he could find time, you see, for doing this sort of thing, he could be doing more to the boats. But I don’t see why your brother should not know, and I don’t hold with a lad keeping anything from his father.”
“And who wants to keep anything from his father?” said Mr Temple, who was just passing the window on his return. “What is it?” he continued, entering the room.
“Oh, nothing, sir; only I was going to show Master Richard here our Will’s room, and I was asking him to be a bit secret like for the lad’s sake. Mrs Marion, you see, is a—”
“Oh, yes, I understand,” said Mr Temple. “May I come too?”
“If you please, sir,” said the old man smiling. “It’s in your way rather, you see, both of you being a bit fond of chip-chopping stones; not that there’s many up there now, for you see his aunt makes the lad clear ’em away now and then. Won’t have the litter, she says. But I’ve got ’em all in a box down in my toolshed, where the boy can have ’em when he likes.”
“Let’s go and see his room, then,” said Mr Temple, smiling.
“’Tarn’t much of a place, sir, being a garret,” said Uncle Abram apologetically; “but lads as goes to sea has snugger quarters sometimes than our Will’s.”
He put his pipe back in his mouth—it was out now—and held it steady as he led the way to a door in a corner at the end of the passage, and up a very steep flight of stairs to a little room with sloping ceiling, over the kitchen.
“I had this knocked up for the lad o’ purpose,” said Uncle Abram proudly. “Made it as like a cabin as I could, meaning him to be sea-going, you understand, sir, only he’s drifting away from it like. Why, bless your heart, though, Mr Temple, sir, I never find no fault with him, for there’s stuff enough in him, I think, to make a real lord-mayor. There: there’s our Will’s room.”
He stood smiling as the visitors had a good look round the scrupulously clean little cabin-like bed-room with lockers and a swinging shelf of books, and everything arranged with a neatness that was most notable.
“Those are his books, sir. Spends a deal of time over ’em.”
“Novels and romances, eh?” said Mr Temple, going to the shelf. “Why, hullo! Fowne’sChemistry, Smyth’sMineralogy, Murchison’sGeology. Rather serious reading for him, isn’t it?”
“Not it, sir,” cried Uncle Abram. “He loves it, sir; and look here,” he continued, opening one of the lockers; “as full of specimens as can be. All sorts of stones and bits of ore that he gets from the mines. Ah! that’s a new net he’s making; small meshed seine to catch sand-eels, sir, for bait. That’s a new shrimp-net he made for me. Mixes it up like—reads and makes nets together. Once you’ve got your fingers to know how to make a net, they’ll go on while you read.”
“What are these?” said Mr Temple, pointing at a series of rough glass bottles and oil flasks.
“Oh, that’s his apparatus he made, sir. Does chemistry with them, and there’s a little crucible in my tool-house, where he melts down tin and things sometimes, to see what they’re made of. I always encourage him, I do, just. Can’t do the boy any harm.”
“Harm! no,” said Mr Temple quietly, as he glanced through Will’s treasures with a good deal of curiosity, spending most of the time over a small glass case which was full of glittering pieces of ore.
“He seems to like the pretty bits best,” said Mr Temple; but Uncle Abram shook his head.
“Oh no, sir. Those are what his aunt likes best. She won’t have the bits of tin and rough copper ore; says they’re rubbish, bless her. She don’t know what one bit’s worth more than another, only goes by the eye, you see. I’ve got the rough bits hid away for him when he wants ’em.”
Mr Temple seemed unusually thoughtful, so it seemed to Dick, who was delighted with the quaintness of the little attic, and declaring to himself that it was just the place he should like for himself; but he wondered a little bit at his father looking so stern.
“Here, quick!” cried Uncle Abram excitedly; “that’s my boy’s step coming in back way. I don’t want him to see us. Looks like spying on him, poor lad, and I want him to enjoy himself when he isn’t at work.”
“And quite right too,” said Mr Temple quietly, as he followed the old man down the steep stairs, and they had just reached the parlour when there was a knock at the door.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Will, who was flushed with hurrying; “but you said you would like the young gentlemen to have a sail in the trawler.”
“Sail in the trawler!” cried Dick, bounding across the room excitedly.
“Yes! Well?” said Mr Temple, smiling.
“She’s lying off the harbour, sir. I’ve seen the master, and he says the young gentlemen are welcome, and there’s a fine breeze, sir, and it’s a lovely day.”
Dick turned a look upon his father, such as a prisoner might turn upon a judge as he waited for him to speak.
“I suppose you would not like to go, Dick?” said Mr Temple dryly. “You would miss your dinner.”
“Why, father,” cried Dick in a tone of reproach, “I can have a dinner every day.”
“And a sail in a trawler only once perhaps in your life. Then be off.”
Dick bounded to the door and then stopped.
“May Taff come, father?” he cried.
“If he likes; but perhaps he wouldn’t care to go. Make him sea-sick perhaps.”
“But he may go, father?”
“Yes. But stop. Take something to eat with you in a basket.”
“The master of the smack said if the young gentlemen would come in they could have a bit of dinner on board. We could cook some fish, sir.”
“Oh!” cried Dick excitedly.
“Come, this is tempting,” said Mr Temple. “I’m half disposed to come too.”
“Do, father,” cried Dick, catching his hand. “Oh, do come.”
“No, my boy, I have some important business on hand. There, go and enjoy yourselves. You’re going, Will?” he said quietly.
“Yes, sir, if uncle can spare me, and Josh too.”
“That’s right; take care of my boys—that is, if your uncle can spare you.”
“Oh yes, oh yes! They can go. They don’t sail for the pilchard ground till sundown.”
Arthur was hunted out of his nest, and as soon as he knew of the object in view he displayed plenty of eagerness. The sight of the cutter-rigged smack lying with her bowsprit pointing to the wind, and her white mainsail flapping and quivering in the breeze, which seemed to send mimic waves chasing each other along it from mast to edge, while the jib lay all of a heap waiting to be hoisted, being one that would have roused the most phlegmatic to a desire to have a cruise, and see some of the wonders of the deep dredged up.
The master of the trawler gave the boys a hearty reception, his bronzed face expanding into a smile as he held Dick’s hand in his great hard brown heavy paw.
“So you’ve come a-trawling, have you, my lad? Well, I’m glad to see you, and you too, sir,” he added, shaking hands with Arthur in turn. “Going to stop aboard, lads?” he said in a kind of chant to Will and Josh.
“Ay, we’re going to stop,” said the latter; so the master of the trawler sent one of his own crew ashore with Uncle Abram’s boat, telling the man he could stay.
The next minute the master gave the word, and went to the tiller, a couple of men began to haul up the jib, and then Arthur was clinging frantically to Will.
“Quick! The boat!” he cried. “The ship’s going over.”
Then he turned from deadly pale to scarlet as he saw Will’s smile and look of amusement.
“It’s all right, Master Arthur,” said the latter; “it’s the wind taking hold of the mains’l. She only careens a bit.”
“But won’t it go over?”
“Over! Oh, no!” said Will; “there’s too much ballast. There, you see, now we’re beginning to move.”
“But ought the boat to go side wise like this?” whispered Arthur. “The deck’s all of a slope.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right enough. When we’re on the other tack she’ll careen over the other side. The stiffer the breeze and the more sail there is, the more she careens. I’ve been in a smack when we’ve been nearly lying down in the water, and it’s washed right over the deck.”
“There, young gents, she’s moving now,” said the master, as the gaff was hoisted, and the beautifully-shaped cutter began to rush through the water at a rapid rate, leaving two long lines of foam in an ever-widening wake, while, like some gigantic sword-fish, she ploughed her way through the glittering sea. The sails bellied out tense and stiff, and the wind whistled as it seemed to sweep off the three sails.
There was no doubt about it; either the cutter was moving or the pier and shore. To Arthur it seemed as if the latter had suddenly begun to run away from them, and was dancing up and down with joy because it had found the chance.
“Dick,” whispered Arthur, after beckoning his brother to his side, where he was holding on by the weather shrouds.
“Hullo!” cried Dick, laughing. “Oh, I say, Taff, isn’t it fun? I can’t walk.”
“I’m sure it isn’t safe,” whispered Arthur.
“Eh? What? Not safe?”
“No, I’m sure it isn’t. We shall be blown over.”
“Oh, never mind,” said Dick. “They’ll turn her round and blow her up again. I say, Taff; don’t be afraid. We sha’n’t hurt.”
“But if we were to be drowned, Dick, what would papa say?”
“Don’t know. He wouldn’t like it, though. But we sha’n’t be drowned. Look at Will. He’d know if there was any danger, and he’s as cool as can be. Come, pluck up. Let go of that rope. You’ll soon get used to it.”
Arthur turned a ghastly face to him.
“I’m trying to master being frightened, Dick,” he said humbly; “but I must go home again; I’m going to be sick.”
“Nonsense!” cried Dick, laughing. “There, think about something else. There, look, they’re going to use the net.”
To Arthur’s great delight the speed of the smack was checked, and the busy preparations took up his attention, so that the qualm passed off, and he crept to his brother’s side and listened as Josh was explaining the use of the trawl-net, which the men were about to lower over the side.
“There you are, you see,” said Josh; “here’s your net, just like a night-cap with a wide end and a little end, as we calls the bunt. There’s pockets to it as well, only you can’t very well see ’em now. When she’s hauled up with fish in you’ll see ’em better then.”
“And what’s this big piece of wood?”
“Trawl-beam,” said Josh; “thirty-footer, to keep the meshes of the net stretched wide open at the top. Bottom’s free so as to drag over the bottom. And them’s the trawl-irons, to fit on the end of the beam and skate along the sand and keep all down.”
“And the rope’s tied to them?” said Dick.
“Rope?” said Josh. “You mean the bridle. That’s right, my lad, and down she goes.”
Over went the huge, cumbersome apparatus of beam, irons, and net, the weighty irons being so arranged as to take the trawl to the bottom in the right position so that the net with its stout edge rope should scrape over the sand as the cutter sailed.
“There you are,” said the master, coming up; “now, then, away we go. There’s a fine wind this morning, and we shall get some fish.”
“Does the wind make you get the fish?” said Dick.
“To be sure, my lad. If we weren’t sailing fast, as soon as the flat-fish felt the net being dragged over ’em they’d give a flip and a flap and be out of the way in no time; but the trawl’s drawn over ’em so quickly in a brisk breeze like this that they haven’t time to escape. They’re in the net before they know where they are, and then they get into the pockets, and it’s a case of market for them.”
“It’s all sand under here, isn’t it?” asked Dick.
“You may be sure of that, my lad,” said the master laughing. “When you see a smack trawling, it’s all sand there, says you. ’Cause why? If it was rocks the trawl would catch and be broken before you knowed where you were. Yes; it’s all smooth bottom here.”
It was wonderfully interesting to see the great strong beam and the thick net, so different in the make to the filmy cobwebs that were used for seine and drift. This was of stout cord, and its edge of a strong over-bound rope. Of course all was out of sight now, the only thing visible being the bridle-rope, by means of which the trawl was being swiftly dragged astern.
“I hope we shall get a good haul or two,” said Will, joining the boys as they stood holding on by the bulwarks, with the great mainsail boom over their heads, everything that looked so small and toy-like from the shore being here big and strong.
“What shall we catch?” said Arthur, making an effort to hide the remains of his discomposure.
“Get, sir?” cried Will smiling. “Oh! all sorts of things. If we’re lucky, a turbot or two; soles we are sure to have, and some plaice; perhaps a brill; then there’ll be a few dabs and whiting, and maybe a red mullet, and along with them the trawl will bring up a lot of all sorts.”
“All sorts?” said Dick.
“Yes, sir. Weevers and blennies, and crabs, with oysters and scallops, and sea-weeds of all kinds—a regular mixture if we go over a part that hasn’t been much swept lately.”
“Here, I say, when are they going to pull up the net?” said Dick eagerly. “I want to see.”
“Oh! not yet awhile,” said Will smiling.
“But the fish will get out again.”
“Oh no! We’re going too fast for that,” said Will; “and if there are any fish they’ll be in the pockets.”
“But has a trawl-net got pockets?” said Arthur curiously.
“Oh yes!” said Dick grinning; “two in its trousers, two in its waistcoat, and one in its jacket.”
“Don’t you mind what he says, Master Arthur,” said Will smiling. “The pockets are on each side of the net, where it is sewed up a little, so that if the fish, when once in, try to swim towards the mouth they go instead into some of those sewed-up corners and get no farther. There, you see now, we’re going on the other tack so as to sweep back over nearly the same ground again. There are rocks if we go any farther this way.”
As he spoke the course of the smack was altered, and the side that had been so low down that at times it was almost possible to touch the water was high up and the other lower down, and the smack rushed through the water, as it seemed, faster than ever.
“She can sail, can’t she, young gentlemen?” said the master. “We call her theFoam, and she can make foam too. Well, are you ready for the haul?”
“Yes. Are you going to begin?” cried Dick excitedly.
“Soon, my lad, soon,” said the master. “Have you got a basket?”
Dick shook his head.
“Oh! you’ll want a basket, and you must have a bucket of water. There’ll be lots of things you’ll like to look at that we should pitch overboard again.”
“You lend me a basket and a bucket then,” said Dick; “you shall have them back.”
“Right, my lad. You tell young Will there to get you what you want. We shall have the trawl aboard soon.”
It seemed to Dick almost an age, but at last the master turned his brown, good-humoured face to him and gave him a nod. At the same moment he shouted a few short orders, and Dick rushed to take a pull at the rope as he saw Josh and Will stand by.
“No, no, my lad; you and your brother look on,” cried the master good-temperedly.
Dick drew back and glanced at Arthur, whose face was as eager as his own. In fact, a great deal of his London indifference had disappeared of late, and the boy had been growing as natural as his brother.
It was a time of intense excitement though for them, and as they watched they saw a windlass turn, and up came the great trawl-irons and the beam, then, dripping and sparkling in the sun, the foot-rope of the trawl-net, and foot after foot emerged with nothing but dripping water.
“Why, they haven’t caught a fish,” cried Dick in a disappointed tone of voice.
“You wait till the bunt’s aboard,” growled Josh just then; and the bunt, as the tassel end of the great net night-cap was called, was hauled on board dripping, and containing something splashing, flapping, and full of life.
“There’s something for you to look at, my lads,” cried the bluff master smiling. “Let out that draw string, Josh.”
The whole of the net was now on the deck, the water streaming from it out at the side; and after Josh had unfastened the string which laced up the small end or bunt, the little crew took hold of the net above the pockets, and by giving it a series of shakes sent the whole of its contents out upon the deck. The net was then drawn away, the bunt fastened up, the end thrown over, and the trawl-beam took all down to scrape once more over the sands and scoop-out the soles and other flat-fish that are so fond of scuffling themselves down in the soft oozy sand, flapping their side-fins about till they are half covered, and very often letting the trawl-rope pass right over their backs.
A good many had, however, failed to be successful this time, for there was a great patch of the deck covered with the contents of the net.
“I never saw such a sight in my life,” cried Dick; and then he burst into a roar of laughter as his brother tried to pick up a large sole, which seemed to give a spring and a flap, and darted out of his hands.
It was a sight, certainly; and the master good-humouredly let the men stand aside for a while so that the boys might have a good inspection of the haul before clearance was made.
“Overboard with the rubbish, my lads,” he said, “then you can see better.”
But the rubbish, a great deal of it, was what Dick and his brother would have liked to keep, as much of it consisted of pieces of heavy black wood pierced by teredo and covered with barnacles. There were curious stones, too, and pieces of weed, all of which had to go overboard though, and then, as Dick called it, the fun began.
It was a good haul. And first and foremost there was a magnificent turbot—a huge round fellow, with his white waistcoat, and mouth awry, apparently, though it was normally placed, and the creature’s eyes, like those of the rest of the flat-fish, were screwed round to one side of its head.
Then there was a brill, like the turbot’s small first cousin, and a young turbot that might have been its son. There were a dozen or so of plaice, large and small, and, flipping and flapping and gasping, some five-and-twenty soles, from fine fat fellows fifteen inches long to little tiny slips that were thrown overboard.
“Some sends that sort to market,” said the master smiling. “I throw ’em in again to get fat.”
Arthur’s adventures with the conger came back to him as he saw one long lithe fish of some four feet eagerly seized and thrust into one of the many stout boxes on the deck; and he said something to his brother.
“No,” said Will, who overheard him. “That’s a hake.”
There were several whitings, many being of very large size, four times that of the familiar tail-biting gentlemen who are curled up among the parsley upon our tables. No less than a dozen ruddy mullet were there too; and the above-named being the good fish of the haul, the residue was left on deck for the boys to examine and save what they pleased.
Will picked out a small brill and a whiting or two, with a good-sized sole that had been left. These were placed in the basket, and then the basket was dipped full of clean water, and the treasures, as Dick called them, were fished out and dropped in.
Among these were a lovely jelly-fish and a couple of beroes, looking like little oblong balls of the purest crystal; some pieces of stone, with curious barnacles adhering; and a quaint-looking, large-headed fish with prickly weapons about its head and back.
Then Arthur added a baby sole, and Dick an infant turbot, which were entangled amongst the sea-weed that had been dredged up; while everywhere the patch of dredgings upon the deck seemed to be alive with creeping and crawling things, examples of the teeming life of the great ocean.
Then came the master to intimate that the deck must be cleared, for they were going to haul the dredge on board again.
“What—so soon?” cried Dick.
“So soon—eh?” said the master. “Why, you’ve been stirring that up ’bout half an hour.”
“Ah! well, we shall have something more to see,” said Dick in a reconciled manner; and he carried his basket astern, while the men swept the remains of the haul—such remains as would have given a naturalist a week’s amusement—overboard.
Then once more the ponderous trawl was hauled on board, with its flapping and splashing prisoners, which were nearly as abundant as before; but there was no turbot this time.
“Don’t matter,” said Dick; “here’s the sauce.”
As he spoke he pointed laughingly to a great lobster which had been out on its travels away from its home amongst the rocks, and had been swept up, to be turned out upon the smack’s deck, to crawl about flapping its tail and opening and closing its pincers, held aloft in the most aggressive way.
“Ah!” said the master thoughtfully, “that won’t do. We must have gone a little too near the tail of the rocks when we tacked.”
“I thought you was going pretty close,” said Josh, “but I said as you know’d best.”
The boxes were dragged forward again, and soles and plaice were thrust in, flapping and springing in their captors’ hands. Then the whiting were sorted into their home, the sundry fish that were worth saving placed in another box, and once more the visitors were allowed to have their turn in the heap, till, amidst such an embarrassment of riches, as the French call it, Dick stopped short with a laughing, puzzled face, to rub his ear.
“There’s such a lot,” he cried. “There’s so much to see, I don’t know what to take first, and what to leave.”
It resulted in nearly everything going overboard,—tiny fish entangled in sea-weed, curious stones, dog-fish, and skates’ eggs, barnacles, pieces of hard English sponge, bones of cuttle-fish, and scallop and oyster-shells; but one basket was set aside for Mr Temple by Will, who stored in it a fair number of delicious oysters and scallops, whose beautiful shells were bearded with lovely weeds like ferns or plumes of asparagus, while one that gaped open showed his flesh to be of the most brilliant orange scarlet hue.
And so it went on hour after hour, the fresh breeze making the trawling most successful, and at every haul there were so many treasures that at last Dick gave up collecting in despair, confiding his opinion to his brother that the happiest life anybody could lead must be that of the master of a trawler.
Towards four o’clock they were sent ashore with Josh and Will, loaded with bucket and basket of the treasures they had found, including a handsome lot of fish for Mr Temple, with the master’s compliments.
“Why, Taff,” said Dick suddenly, “you were going to be sea-sick, weren’t you, when we started off?”
“Yes,” said Arthur uneasily, and then smiling, he added, “I forgot all about it.”
“Forgot all about it!” said Dick. “I should think so. Why, it wouldn’t matter how bad a fellow were: a day’s trawling would make him well.”
Chapter Thirty.Taff objects to Early Rising and being treated as a Seal.It wanted a perfectly calm day for the visit to the seal-cave, and this was long in coming. There were plenty of fine days when the sun shone brightly and the sea was as clear as crystal; but there was generally a pleasant breeze, and the pleasant breeze that only seemed to ripple the water was sufficient twice over to raise good-sized waves amongst the rocks, and to send a rush of broken water enough to upset a boat, foaming and dashing in at the mouth of the cave.Failing the success of this enterprise, Mr Temple, who was with them, made Will and Josh row on to the rift in the cliff where the vein of white spar had been found by Will; and leaving all in the boat, Dick’s father went up by himself and stayed for long enough, while his sons were rowed to and fro fishing with more or less success.One morning, though, as Dick was dreaming of being in the green-house at home when the hail was pattering down, there seemed to come three or four such sharp cracks that he awoke and jumped out of bed. The next moment he was at the window pulling up the blind and looking out, to see Will on the rugged pathway waiting for him to open the window.“Seal-cave to-day,” he said. “Look out to sea.”Dick looked out to sea, where there was a dense mist that seemed to wrap everything in its folds. The luggers appeared dim—those that were near shore—while others were completely hidden. Overhead the sky was clear, and the sun was shining brightly, while where its light fell upon the mist it became rosily transparent, and the masts of some of the luggers looked double their usual size.“Seals, Taff, seals!” cried Dick, shaking his brother’s shoulder, with the effect of making him hurriedly scramble out of bed, yawning terribly, and gazing in an ill-used way at his brother, as he sat down and began to rub his feet one over the other.“Don’t sit down, Taff; dress yourself. I’m going to call father.”“Shut that window first,” cried Arthur; “it’s so horribly cold.”“Cold! Ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Dick. “What a chap you are, Taff! Here, Will, he says it’s cold. Go to the pump for a pail of cold water to warm him.”“He had better not,” cried Arthur, hurriedly scuffling into his trousers. “If he did I would never forgive him.”“I’m not going to get any water, Master Arthur,” cried Will; “but make haste down, it’s such a glorious morning!”“’Tisn’t,” said Arthur, whose eyes were swelled up with sleepiness. “It’s all misty and thick, and the window-sill’s wet, and the roses outside look drenched. Heigh, ho, ha, hum!” he yawned. “I shall go to bed for half an hour longer—till the sun comes out.”“No, you sha’n’t,” cried Dick, seizing the pillow for a weapon of offence. “If you do, I’ll bang you out of bed again.”“If you dare to touch me,” cried Arthur furiously, “I shall complain to papa.”“And he’ll laugh at you,” said Dick; “and serve you right.”Arthur snatched off his lower garment with the obstinacy of a half-asleep individual, and scrambled into bed again, dragging the clothes up over his chest, and scowling defiantly at his brother, as if saying, “Touch me if you dare.”“There’s a stupid, obstinate, lazy old pig,” cried Dick, throwing the pillow at him and standing rubbing one ear. “Here—hi, Will!” he said, going to the window, “come round and upstairs. Here’s a seal in his cave asleep. Come and let’s tug him out.”“He had better not dare to come into my bed-room,” cried Arthur, punching the pillow thrown at him viciously, and settling down in his place; not that he wanted more rest, but out of dislike to being disturbed, and from a fit of morning ill-temperedness getting the upper hand.Just then Dick was leaning out of the window half-dressed, and with his braces hanging down as if they were straps to haul him back in case he leaned too far.Arthur glanced at his brother for a moment and then shouted:“Here, Dick, shut that window!”Dick evidently did not hear him, and a low giggling laugh reached his ears.“They had better not try to play any tricks with me,” said Arthur to himself, as he lay frowning and feeling very much dissatisfied, as he thought, with Dick, but really with himself.Then he heard more laughing, the sound of steps in the garden, and something thump against the wall of the house.There was no mistake now about Arthur’s wakefulness, as he lay with the clothes drawn right above his nose; one eye glanced at the window, and he breathed quickly with indignation as Dick drew a little on one side to make room for Will, who had obtained the short ladder used by his uncle to nail up his creepers, and placed it against the wall, and he was now on the top with his jersey-covered arms resting on the window-sill, and his sun-browned face above them looking in.“Good-morning, sir!” he said merrily. “Want anybody to help you dress?”“How dare you!” cried Arthur indignantly. “Go away, and shut that window directly. It’s disgraceful. We had no business to come to such a place as this,” he continued, forgetting all his good resolves, and giving rein to his anger.“Why, hullo! what’s all this?” said Mr Temple, entering the room, dressed for going out.“I’m glad you’ve come, papa,” cried Arthur, whose face was scarlet with anger. “These boys have—”“Oh, I say, Taff, don’t be disagreeable,” cried Dick. “It was all my doing, father. Taff wouldn’t get up, and Will here had come to call us, and I told him to get up the ladder and look in, pretending that therewasa seal in a cave, and Taff turned cross about it.”“Get up directly, Arthur,” said Mr Temple quietly, “and make haste down. How would to-day do to visit the seal-cave?” continued Mr Temple, turning to Will.“I came to tell the young gentlemen it was just the morning, sir,” said Will, who was feeling very uncomfortable. “It is as still as can be, and the tide will suit. I should go, sir, directly after breakfast.”“And so we will,” said Mr Temple. “There, finish dressing, Dick,” he said, as Will slid down the ladder and took it away. “I thought there was to be no more of this petty anger, Arthur. You are old enough to know better, and yet you behave like a fractious child. Don’t tease him, Dick; he can’t bear it, I suppose.”Mr Temple left the room, and Dick went on hurriedly dressing, while Arthur, flushed and uncomfortable, sat in his trousers on the edge of the bed, his hair touzled and the pillow creases marked like a map on his right cheek.“Here, I say, get dressed, Taff,” cried Dick, “and let’s go down and collect some sea-anemones before breakfast.”“I don’t want to dress,” said Arthur. “I’m always wrong. I’m a miserable wretch, and nobody understands me. I sha’n’t go to the seal-cave to-day.”“Yes, you will,” cried Dick, who was very sympathetic but very busy, for he had suddenly awakened to the fact that he had put too much pomatum on his hair. The result was that it looked shiny and greasy, and there was nothing for it but to give it a good rub over with the sponge and then towel it, which he was doing by holding the cloth over his head, and sawing it vigorously to and fro.“No, I shall not go,” said Arthur despondently. “I shall stop at home.”“So shall I then,” said Dick panting, and out of breath from his exertions. “It’s all right, Taff, I tell you. Get dressed. You’ll feel as different as can be when you’ve had your breakfast. That’s what’s the matter with you. It makes you feel cross sometimes when you are so precious hungry.”Arthur sat unmoved, making no effort to dress, and Dick, who was nearly complete, wanting only his jacket, turned to him once more.“Come on, Taff,” he cried. “Get dressed, and let’s find some anemones, and put in a tub of salt-water. We can feed ’em on shrimps.”“I wish we were back in london,” said Arthur bitterly.“What! to have the fellows shouting ‘sweep!’ and the girls beating the mats and knocking their brooms against the area railings as you’re dressing. No, thank you. I like being here. Oh, I say, how lovely old Mr Marion’s flowers smell! Here’s a lugger! Hi, Will, what boat’s that?”“TheGrey Gull, Thomson’s boat,” came up from the garden. “Been out all night for pilchards. I’ll go down and get some for bait.”“I never saw a pilchard,” said Arthur, suddenly beginning to dress.“Look sharp, then, and we’ll go down and have a look. Here, I shall go now. You can come on.”“That’s always the way,” said Arthur bitterly. “You never will wait for me.”“I will now, then,” cried Dick. “Look sharp;” and he went and leaned his elbows on the window, to gaze out at the lovely opalescent mist through which, looking huge in proportion, a brown-sailed lugger came creeping over the steely sea, which shone and glanced wherever the sun passed through the heavy mist. The men on the lugger looked huge, and it was evident from the shouts from the pier and the responses that there was some little excitement going on about the new arrival, but what it was Dick was too distant to hear.“Oh, do make haste, Taff!” he cried, glancing back to see with satisfaction that his brother was now making good speed; “there’s no end of fun going on. I’ve never seen a pilchard yet. There’s Will Marion down there, and—oh, I say, what a shame to go down without us! There goes father!”Arthur’s toilet proceeded by big strides now, and it was not long before, looking a good deal more amiable, he declared himself ready, and was in fact so ready that he raced with his brother down to the cliff—rather a breakneck proceeding, considering the steepness of the way; but they got down to the harbour in safety, and to Dick’s delight he found that the lugger was not yet in, the progress by means of her sweeps having been very slow, and now for the first time he noticed that she was extremely deep in the water.“A be glad you’ve come, Master Diehard,” said a voice behind them; and there stood Josh. “Grey Gull’scoming in with ’bout the gashliest take o’ pilchards as never was. Say they could have filled the lugger twice over.”The little pier was pretty well crowded, and the men were in an unwonted state of excitement, but place was made for the boys, and they were soon after standing gazing down into the hold of the lugger, which seemed to be filled with silver whose dust had been scattered all over deck, bulwarks, combings, buoys, ropes, nets, for everything was specked and spangled with silvery scales.“Here, boys,” said Mr Temple, “this is a fresh sight for you. What do you think of these?”Mr Temple was standing beside Will, who had been on board the lugger and returned with a little basket containing a dozen or two of the little oily fish, which looked like small large-scaled herrings, but richer and fatter and of tenderer skin.“Wonderful bait,” said Will. “We can catch no end to-night with these.”They waited to see the business begin—the said business being the rapid unloading of the pilchards, which were borne along the pier to one of the long low pilchard-houses to be regularly stacked somewhat after the fashion of drying bricks, and salted ready for packing in barrels and sending to the Mediterranean ports.But after the first inspection the sight of baskets full of silvery pilchard began to grow monotonous, and Dick exclaimed:“I say, father, it must be breakfast time now.”Breakfast time it was, and after arranging to be back at the pier in an hour, they sought the old purser’s cottage, from whose open window the extremely fragrant odour of broiled ham was floating out, ready to act like a magnet upon the sensations of a couple of hungry lads.
It wanted a perfectly calm day for the visit to the seal-cave, and this was long in coming. There were plenty of fine days when the sun shone brightly and the sea was as clear as crystal; but there was generally a pleasant breeze, and the pleasant breeze that only seemed to ripple the water was sufficient twice over to raise good-sized waves amongst the rocks, and to send a rush of broken water enough to upset a boat, foaming and dashing in at the mouth of the cave.
Failing the success of this enterprise, Mr Temple, who was with them, made Will and Josh row on to the rift in the cliff where the vein of white spar had been found by Will; and leaving all in the boat, Dick’s father went up by himself and stayed for long enough, while his sons were rowed to and fro fishing with more or less success.
One morning, though, as Dick was dreaming of being in the green-house at home when the hail was pattering down, there seemed to come three or four such sharp cracks that he awoke and jumped out of bed. The next moment he was at the window pulling up the blind and looking out, to see Will on the rugged pathway waiting for him to open the window.
“Seal-cave to-day,” he said. “Look out to sea.”
Dick looked out to sea, where there was a dense mist that seemed to wrap everything in its folds. The luggers appeared dim—those that were near shore—while others were completely hidden. Overhead the sky was clear, and the sun was shining brightly, while where its light fell upon the mist it became rosily transparent, and the masts of some of the luggers looked double their usual size.
“Seals, Taff, seals!” cried Dick, shaking his brother’s shoulder, with the effect of making him hurriedly scramble out of bed, yawning terribly, and gazing in an ill-used way at his brother, as he sat down and began to rub his feet one over the other.
“Don’t sit down, Taff; dress yourself. I’m going to call father.”
“Shut that window first,” cried Arthur; “it’s so horribly cold.”
“Cold! Ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Dick. “What a chap you are, Taff! Here, Will, he says it’s cold. Go to the pump for a pail of cold water to warm him.”
“He had better not,” cried Arthur, hurriedly scuffling into his trousers. “If he did I would never forgive him.”
“I’m not going to get any water, Master Arthur,” cried Will; “but make haste down, it’s such a glorious morning!”
“’Tisn’t,” said Arthur, whose eyes were swelled up with sleepiness. “It’s all misty and thick, and the window-sill’s wet, and the roses outside look drenched. Heigh, ho, ha, hum!” he yawned. “I shall go to bed for half an hour longer—till the sun comes out.”
“No, you sha’n’t,” cried Dick, seizing the pillow for a weapon of offence. “If you do, I’ll bang you out of bed again.”
“If you dare to touch me,” cried Arthur furiously, “I shall complain to papa.”
“And he’ll laugh at you,” said Dick; “and serve you right.”
Arthur snatched off his lower garment with the obstinacy of a half-asleep individual, and scrambled into bed again, dragging the clothes up over his chest, and scowling defiantly at his brother, as if saying, “Touch me if you dare.”
“There’s a stupid, obstinate, lazy old pig,” cried Dick, throwing the pillow at him and standing rubbing one ear. “Here—hi, Will!” he said, going to the window, “come round and upstairs. Here’s a seal in his cave asleep. Come and let’s tug him out.”
“He had better not dare to come into my bed-room,” cried Arthur, punching the pillow thrown at him viciously, and settling down in his place; not that he wanted more rest, but out of dislike to being disturbed, and from a fit of morning ill-temperedness getting the upper hand.
Just then Dick was leaning out of the window half-dressed, and with his braces hanging down as if they were straps to haul him back in case he leaned too far.
Arthur glanced at his brother for a moment and then shouted:
“Here, Dick, shut that window!”
Dick evidently did not hear him, and a low giggling laugh reached his ears.
“They had better not try to play any tricks with me,” said Arthur to himself, as he lay frowning and feeling very much dissatisfied, as he thought, with Dick, but really with himself.
Then he heard more laughing, the sound of steps in the garden, and something thump against the wall of the house.
There was no mistake now about Arthur’s wakefulness, as he lay with the clothes drawn right above his nose; one eye glanced at the window, and he breathed quickly with indignation as Dick drew a little on one side to make room for Will, who had obtained the short ladder used by his uncle to nail up his creepers, and placed it against the wall, and he was now on the top with his jersey-covered arms resting on the window-sill, and his sun-browned face above them looking in.
“Good-morning, sir!” he said merrily. “Want anybody to help you dress?”
“How dare you!” cried Arthur indignantly. “Go away, and shut that window directly. It’s disgraceful. We had no business to come to such a place as this,” he continued, forgetting all his good resolves, and giving rein to his anger.
“Why, hullo! what’s all this?” said Mr Temple, entering the room, dressed for going out.
“I’m glad you’ve come, papa,” cried Arthur, whose face was scarlet with anger. “These boys have—”
“Oh, I say, Taff, don’t be disagreeable,” cried Dick. “It was all my doing, father. Taff wouldn’t get up, and Will here had come to call us, and I told him to get up the ladder and look in, pretending that therewasa seal in a cave, and Taff turned cross about it.”
“Get up directly, Arthur,” said Mr Temple quietly, “and make haste down. How would to-day do to visit the seal-cave?” continued Mr Temple, turning to Will.
“I came to tell the young gentlemen it was just the morning, sir,” said Will, who was feeling very uncomfortable. “It is as still as can be, and the tide will suit. I should go, sir, directly after breakfast.”
“And so we will,” said Mr Temple. “There, finish dressing, Dick,” he said, as Will slid down the ladder and took it away. “I thought there was to be no more of this petty anger, Arthur. You are old enough to know better, and yet you behave like a fractious child. Don’t tease him, Dick; he can’t bear it, I suppose.”
Mr Temple left the room, and Dick went on hurriedly dressing, while Arthur, flushed and uncomfortable, sat in his trousers on the edge of the bed, his hair touzled and the pillow creases marked like a map on his right cheek.
“Here, I say, get dressed, Taff,” cried Dick, “and let’s go down and collect some sea-anemones before breakfast.”
“I don’t want to dress,” said Arthur. “I’m always wrong. I’m a miserable wretch, and nobody understands me. I sha’n’t go to the seal-cave to-day.”
“Yes, you will,” cried Dick, who was very sympathetic but very busy, for he had suddenly awakened to the fact that he had put too much pomatum on his hair. The result was that it looked shiny and greasy, and there was nothing for it but to give it a good rub over with the sponge and then towel it, which he was doing by holding the cloth over his head, and sawing it vigorously to and fro.
“No, I shall not go,” said Arthur despondently. “I shall stop at home.”
“So shall I then,” said Dick panting, and out of breath from his exertions. “It’s all right, Taff, I tell you. Get dressed. You’ll feel as different as can be when you’ve had your breakfast. That’s what’s the matter with you. It makes you feel cross sometimes when you are so precious hungry.”
Arthur sat unmoved, making no effort to dress, and Dick, who was nearly complete, wanting only his jacket, turned to him once more.
“Come on, Taff,” he cried. “Get dressed, and let’s find some anemones, and put in a tub of salt-water. We can feed ’em on shrimps.”
“I wish we were back in london,” said Arthur bitterly.
“What! to have the fellows shouting ‘sweep!’ and the girls beating the mats and knocking their brooms against the area railings as you’re dressing. No, thank you. I like being here. Oh, I say, how lovely old Mr Marion’s flowers smell! Here’s a lugger! Hi, Will, what boat’s that?”
“TheGrey Gull, Thomson’s boat,” came up from the garden. “Been out all night for pilchards. I’ll go down and get some for bait.”
“I never saw a pilchard,” said Arthur, suddenly beginning to dress.
“Look sharp, then, and we’ll go down and have a look. Here, I shall go now. You can come on.”
“That’s always the way,” said Arthur bitterly. “You never will wait for me.”
“I will now, then,” cried Dick. “Look sharp;” and he went and leaned his elbows on the window, to gaze out at the lovely opalescent mist through which, looking huge in proportion, a brown-sailed lugger came creeping over the steely sea, which shone and glanced wherever the sun passed through the heavy mist. The men on the lugger looked huge, and it was evident from the shouts from the pier and the responses that there was some little excitement going on about the new arrival, but what it was Dick was too distant to hear.
“Oh, do make haste, Taff!” he cried, glancing back to see with satisfaction that his brother was now making good speed; “there’s no end of fun going on. I’ve never seen a pilchard yet. There’s Will Marion down there, and—oh, I say, what a shame to go down without us! There goes father!”
Arthur’s toilet proceeded by big strides now, and it was not long before, looking a good deal more amiable, he declared himself ready, and was in fact so ready that he raced with his brother down to the cliff—rather a breakneck proceeding, considering the steepness of the way; but they got down to the harbour in safety, and to Dick’s delight he found that the lugger was not yet in, the progress by means of her sweeps having been very slow, and now for the first time he noticed that she was extremely deep in the water.
“A be glad you’ve come, Master Diehard,” said a voice behind them; and there stood Josh. “Grey Gull’scoming in with ’bout the gashliest take o’ pilchards as never was. Say they could have filled the lugger twice over.”
The little pier was pretty well crowded, and the men were in an unwonted state of excitement, but place was made for the boys, and they were soon after standing gazing down into the hold of the lugger, which seemed to be filled with silver whose dust had been scattered all over deck, bulwarks, combings, buoys, ropes, nets, for everything was specked and spangled with silvery scales.
“Here, boys,” said Mr Temple, “this is a fresh sight for you. What do you think of these?”
Mr Temple was standing beside Will, who had been on board the lugger and returned with a little basket containing a dozen or two of the little oily fish, which looked like small large-scaled herrings, but richer and fatter and of tenderer skin.
“Wonderful bait,” said Will. “We can catch no end to-night with these.”
They waited to see the business begin—the said business being the rapid unloading of the pilchards, which were borne along the pier to one of the long low pilchard-houses to be regularly stacked somewhat after the fashion of drying bricks, and salted ready for packing in barrels and sending to the Mediterranean ports.
But after the first inspection the sight of baskets full of silvery pilchard began to grow monotonous, and Dick exclaimed:
“I say, father, it must be breakfast time now.”
Breakfast time it was, and after arranging to be back at the pier in an hour, they sought the old purser’s cottage, from whose open window the extremely fragrant odour of broiled ham was floating out, ready to act like a magnet upon the sensations of a couple of hungry lads.