"Here!"
This was said in a loud, imperious tone by a well-dressed boy--at least
if it is being well-dressed at the sea-side to be wearing a very tight
Eton jacket and vest, an uncomfortably stiff lie-down collar, and a tall
glossy black hat, of the kind called by some people chimney-pot, by the
Americans stove-pipe.
He was a good-looking lad of fifteen or sixteen, with rather aquiline
features and dark eyes, closely-cut hair, that sat well on a shapely
head; but there was a sickly whiteness of complexion and thinness of
cheek that gave him the look of a plant that had been forced in a place
where there was not enough light.
He was standing on the pier at Peter Churchtown intently watching what
was going on beneath him on the deck of the _Pretty Ruth_, where our
friend Will was busy at work over a brown fishing-line contained in two
baskets, in one of which, coiled round and round, was the line with a
hook at every six feet distance, and each hook stuck in the edge of the
basket; in the other the line was being carefully coiled; but as Will
took a hook from the edge of one basket, he deftly baited it with a bit
of curiously tough gelatinous-looking half transparent gristle, and laid
it in the other basket, so that all the baits were in regular sequence,
and there was no chance of the hooks being caught.
Close by Will sat Josh, busy at work upon an instrument or weapon which
consisted of a large hook about as big as that used for meat; and this
he had inserted in a strong staff of wood some four feet long, while, to
secure it more tightly, he was binding the staff just below the hook
most neatly with fine copper wire.
Sailors and fishermen generally do things neatly, from the fact that
they pay great attention to their work, and do it in a very slow,
deliberate fashion, the fashion in which Josh on that sunny afternoon
was working, with one end of the copper wire made fast to a bolt, to
keep it straight while he slowly turned the staff round and round.
No one paid any heed to the imperious "Here!" so the lad shouted again:
"Hi! Here! You, sir!"
Josh looked up very deliberately, saw that the eyes of the stranger were
fixed upon Will, and looked down again.
"He's hailing o' you, my lad," he said in a gruff voice, just as the
stranger shouted again:
"Hi! Do you hear?"
Will looked up, took in the new-comer's appearance at a glance, and
said:
"Well, what is it?"
The new-comer frowned at this cool reply from a lad in canvas trousers
and blue jersey, which glittered with scales. The fisher-boy ought to
have said "Yes, sir," and touched his straw hat. Consequently his voice
was a little more imperious of tone as he said sharply:
"What are you doing?"
Will looked amused, and there was a slight depression at each corner of
his mouth as he said quietly:
"Baiting the line."
No "sir" this time, but the new-comer's curiosity was aroused, and he
said eagerly:
"Where's your rod?"
"Rod!" said Will, looking up once more, half puzzled. "Rod! Oh, you
mean fishing-rod, do you?"
"Of course--" _stupid_ the stranger was about to say, but he refrained.
"You don't suppose I mean birch rod, do you?"
"No," said Will, and he went on baiting his hooks. "We don't use
fishing-rods."
"Why don't you?"
"Why don't we!" said Will, with the dimples getting a little deeper on
either side of his mouth. "Why, because this line's about quarter of a
mile long, and it would want a rod as long, and we couldn't use it."
"Hor--hor--hor!" laughed Josh, letting his head go down between his
knees, and so disgusting the stranger that he turned sharply upon his
heel and strutted off, swinging a black cane with a silver top and silk
tassels to and fro, and then stopping in a very nonchalant manner to
take out a silver hunting watch and look at the time, at the same moment
taking care that Will should have a good view of the watch, and feel
envious if enviously inclined.
He walked along the pier to the very end, and Josh went on slowly
turning the staff, while Will kept baiting his hooks.
The next minute the boy was back, looking on in an extremely
supercilious way, but all the while his eyes were bright with interest;
and at last he spoke again in a consequential manner:
"What's that nasty stuff?"
"What nasty stuff?" replied Will, looking up again.
"That!" cried the stranger, pointing with his cane at the small box
containing Will's bait.
Before the latter could answer there was a shout at the end of the pier.
"Ahoy! Ar--thur! Taff!" and a boy of the age and height of the first
stranger came tearing along the stones panting loudly, and pulling up
short to give Will's questioner a hearty slap on the back.
"Here, I've had a job to find you, Taff. I've been looking everywhere."
"I wish you would not be so rough, Richard," said the one addressed,
divine his shoulders a hitch, and frowning angrily as he saw that Will
was watching them intently. "There's no need to be so boisterous."
"No, my lord. Beg pardon, my lord," said the other boy with mock
humility; and then, with his eyes twinkling mirthfully, he thrust his
stiff straw hat on to the back of his head, and plumped himself down in
a sitting position on the edge of the pier, with his legs dangling down
towards the bulwark of the lugger, and his heels softly drubbing the
stone wall.
For though to a certainty twin brother of the first stranger, he was
very differently dressed, having on a suit of white boating flannels and
a loose blue handkerchief knotted about his neck.
"Why, Taff," he cried, "this chap's going fishing."
"I wish you wouldn't call me out of my name before this sort of people,"
said his brother, flushing and speaking in a low voice.
"All right, old chap, I won't, if you'll go back to the inn and take off
those old brush-me-ups. You look as if you'd come out of a glass case."
The other was about to retort angrily and walk away, but his curiosity
got the better of him, for just then the boy in the flannels exclaimed
in a brisk way:
"I say: going fishing?"
"Yes," said Will, looking up, with the smile at the corner of his lips
deepening; and as the eyes of the two lads met they seemed to approve of
each other at once.
"May I come aboard?"
"Yes, if you like," said Will; and the boy leaped down in an instant,
greatly to his brother's disgust, for he wanted to go on board as well,
but held aloof, and whisked his cane about viciously, listening to all
that was going on.
"How are you?" said the second lad, nodding in a friendly way to Josh.
"Hearty, thanky," said the latter in his sing-song way; "and how may you
be?"
"Hearty," said the boy, laughing. "I'm always all right. He isn't," he
added, with a backward nod of his head, which nearly made him lose his
straw hat; but he caught it as it fell, clapped it on the back of his
head again, and laughingly gave his trousers a hitch up in front and
another behind, about the waist, kicking out one leg as he did so.
"That's salt-water sort, isn't it? I say," he added quickly, "are you
the skipper?"
"Me!" cried Josh, showing two rows of beautifully white teeth. "Nay, my
lad, I'm the crew. Who may you be?"
"What? my name? Dick--Richard Temple. This is my brother Arthur.
We've come down to stay."
"Have you, though?" said Josh, looking from one to the other as if it
was an announcement full of interest, while the lad on the pier frowned
a little at his brother's free-and-easy way.
"Yes, we've come down," said Dick dreamily, for he was watching Will's
busy fingers as he baited hook after hook. "I say," he cried, "what's
that stuff--those bits?"
"These?" said Will. "Squid."
"Squid? What's squid?"
Josh ceased winding the wire round his staff.
"Here's a lad as don't know what squid is," he said in a tone of
wondering pity.
"Well, how should I know? Just you be always shut-up in London and
school and see if you would."
"What? Don't they teach you at school what squid is?" said Josh
sharply.
"No," cried the boy.
"A mussy me!" said Josh in tones of disgust. "Then they ought to be
ashamed of themselves."
"But they don't know," said the boy impatiently. "I say, what is it?"
"Cuttle-fish," said Will.
"Cut-tle-fish!" cried Dick. "Oh! I know what that is--all long legs
and suckers, and got an ink-bag and a pen in its body."
"Yes, that's it," said Will, laughing. "We call it squid. It makes a
good tough bait, that don't come off, and the fish like it."
"Well, it is rum stuff," cried Dick, picking up a piece and turning it
over in his fingers. "Here, Taff, look!"
His brother screwed up his face with an aspect of disgust, and declined
to touch the fishes' _bonne-bouche_; but he looked at it eagerly all the
same.
"I say, what do you catch?" said Dick, seating himself tailor-fashion on
the deck opposite Will.
"What? on this line? Nothing sometimes."
"Oh! of course. I often go fishing up the river when we're at home, and
catch nothing. But what do you catch when you have any luck?"
"Lots o' things," said Josh; "skates, rays, plaice, brill, soles,
john-dories, gurnets--lots of 'em--small conger, and when we're very
lucky p'r'aps a turbot."
"Oh! I say," cried the boy, with his eyes sparkling, "shouldn't I like
to see conger too! They're whopping great chaps, arn't they, like
cod-fish pulled out long?"
"Well, no," said Will, "they're more like long ling; but we can't catch
big ones on a line like this--only small."
"But there are big ones here, arn't there?"
"Oh, yes!" said Will; "off there among the rocks sometimes, six and
seven foot long."
"But why don't you catch big ones on a line like that?"
"Line like that!" broke in Josh; "why, a conger would put his teeth
through it in a moment. You're obliged to have a single line for a
conger, with a wire-snooded hook and swivels, big hooks bound with wire,
something like this here."
As he spoke he held out the hook, just finished as to its binding on.
"And what's that for?" cried the boy, taking the hook.
"Gaffing of 'em," said Josh; but he pronounced it "_gahfin'_ of 'em."
"Oh, I do want to go fishing!" cried the boy eagerly. "What are you
going to do with that long-line?"
"Lay it out in the bay," said Will, "with a creeper at each end."
"A what?"
"A creeper."
"What's a creeper?"
"I say, young gentleman, where do you go to school?" said Josh in
indignant tones.
"London University," said the boy quickly. "Why?"
"And you don't know what a creeper is?"
"No," said the boy, laughing. "What is it?"
"Oh! we call a small kind of grapnel, or four-armed anchor, a creeper,"
said Will.
"Oh!"
"Then when we've let down the line with one creeper we pay out the
rest."
"Pay out the rest?"
"A mussy me!" said Josh to himself.
"Well, run it out over the side of the boat we're in, and row away till
we've got all the line with the baited hooks in."
"Yes," said the boy eagerly; "and then you put down the other anchor. I
see."
"That's her," said Josh approvingly.
"Well," said the boy excitedly, "and how do you know when you've got a
bite?"
"Oh! we don't know."
"Then how do you catch your fish?"
"They catch themselves," said Will. "We row then to the other end of
the line and draw it up."
"How do you know where it is?"
"Why, by the buoy, of course," said Josh. "We always have a buoy, and
you think that's a boy like you, I know."
"Oh no! I don't," said Dick, shaking his head and laughing. "Come, I'm
not such a Cockney as not to know what a b-u-o-y is. But, I say, what
do you do then?"
"Why, we get up the end of the line, and put fresh baits on when they're
taken off, and take the fish into the boat when there are any."
"Oh, I say, what fun! Here, when are you going to put in that line?"
"Sundown," said Josh.
"Here, I want to go," said our friend on the pier. "I'll give you a
shilling if you'll take me."
"No; we can't take you," said Josh grimly. "We should make you in such
a mess you'd have to be washed."
"There, Taff, I told you so," cried Dick. "Why don't you put on your
flannels. I hate being dressed up at the sea-side!" he added to himself
as his brother stalked impatiently away.
"There, now, he's chuffy," said Dick, half to himself. "Oh! I do wish
he wasn't so soon upset! Hi, Taff, old man, don't go, I'm coming soon.
He had a bad illness once, you know," he said confidentially to Will;
but his brother did not stop, walking slowly away along the pier, to be
met by a tall, dark, keen-looking man of about forty who was coming from
the inn.
"I say," said Dick, who did not see the encounter at the shore end of
the pier, "I _should_ like to come with you to-night."
"Why, you'd be sea-sick," said Josh, laughing.
"Oh, no! I shouldn't. I've been across the Channel eight times and not
ill. I say, you'll let me come?"
Will looked at Josh, who was turning the new wire binding of the
gaff-hook into a file for the gentle rubbing of his nose.
"Shall we take him, Josh?" said Will.
"I don't mind," replied that worthy, "only he'll get in a gashly mess."
"I don't mind," said Dick. "Flannels will wash. I'll put on my old
ones, and--"
"Why, Dick, what are you doing there?" cried the keen-looking man, who
had come down the pier.
"Talking to the fishermen, father," cried the boy, starting up. "I say,
they're going out to lay this line. May I go with them?"
His father hesitated a moment and glanced quickly to seaward before
turning to Josh.
"Weather going to be fine?" he said in a quick way that indicated
business more than command, though there was enough of the latter in his
speech to make Josh answer readily:
"Going to be fine for a week;" and then confidentially, "We'll take care
on him."
The stranger smiled.
"Yes, you can go, Dick; but take care of yourself. It does not take you
long to make friends, young man. Come, Arthur, I'm going for a walk
along the beach."
"Can't I go with Dick, papa?" said the boy addressed, in an ill-used
tone.
"No; I should think three will be enough in a small boat; and besides--"
He said no more, but glanced in a half-amused way at his son's costume,
being himself in a loose suit of tweeds.
Arthur coloured and tightened his lips, walking off with his father, too
much hurt to say more to his brother, whom he left talking to Will.
"There," said the latter, impaling the last bit of squid on a hook and
then laying it in its place, "that's ready. Now you'd better do as I
do: go home and get some tea and then come back."
"But it's too soon," replied Dick, "I can't get tea yet--"
"Come home and have some with me then," said Will.
"All right!" said Dick. "I say, does he live with you? Is he your
brother?"
"Hor--hor--hor--hor!" laughed Josh. "That is a good one. Me his
brother! Hor--hor--hor!"
"Well, I didn't know," said Dick colouring. "I only thought he might
be, you know."
"Oh, no, youngster! I ain't no brother o' him," said Josh, shaking his
head. "There, don't you mind," he continued, clapping his strong hand
on the boy's shoulder, and then catching hold of him with his short
deformed limb, an act that looked so startling and strange that the boy
leaped back and stared at him.
Josh's deformity was his weakest as well as his strongest point, and he
looked reproachfully, half angrily, at the boy and then turned away.
With the quick instinct of a frank, generous nature, Dick saw the wound
he had inflicted upon the rough fisherman, and glanced first at Will,
who was also touched on his companion's account. Then stepping quickly
up to Josh he touched him on the arm and held out his hand.
"I--I beg your pardon," he said. "I didn't know. I was surprised. I'm
very sorry--"
Josh's weather-tanned face lit up directly with a pleasant smile, and
grasping the boy's hand he wrung it so hard that Dick had hard work to
keep from wincing.
"It's all right, my lad," he said. "Of course you didn't know! It be
gashly ugly, bean't it? Fell off the cliff when I was quite a babby,
you know, and soft. Fifty foot. Yonder, you know;" and he pointed to
the steep cliff and its thin iron railing at the end of the village.
"How shocking!" said Dick.
"Oh! I dunno," said Josh cheerily. "I was such a little un, soft as
one of our bladder buoys, you see, and I never knowed anything about it.
Bent it like, and stopped it from growing; but thank the Lord, it grew
strong, and I never mind. There, you be off along o' Will there and get
your tea, and we'll have such a night's fishing, see if we don't!"