"Father," cried Dick, bursting into the room where Mr Temple was busy
with weights, scales, test-tubes, a lamp, and blow-pipe, trying the
quality of some metals--"father, here's Will Marion and Mr Marion's man
Josh come to see if we'd like to go with them to-night conger-fishing."
"To-night?"
"Yes; they won't bite very well of a day. He knows a place where--"
"Who is _he_?" said Mr Temple.
"I mean Will, father; he knows of a place where the congers are
plentiful, and Josh says he'll take the greatest care of us."
"Whom do you mean by us?" said Mr Temple.
"Arthur and me, father. Taff wants to go very badly."
"I hardly know what to say, Dick," said Mr Temple thoughtfully. "Last
time you came to grief, and had a narrow escape."
"Oh, but that isn't likely to occur again, father!" said Dick. "It
would be such a treat, too."
"Humph! what am I to do, my boy--coddle you up, and keep you always
under my eye; or give you a little latitude, and trust to your
discretion to take care of yourself and your brother?"
"Give me a little latitude, father--and longitude too," added Dick with
a laugh in his eye.
"Well, I will, Dick; but you must be very careful, my lad, especially of
Arthur."
"Oh, but Taff is such a solemn old gentleman with his stick-up collar
and his cane that he ought to take care of me, father!"
"Perhaps he ought," said Mr Temple; "but I tell you to take care of
him."
"All right, father! I will."
"By the way, Dick, that lad Marion seems a very decent fellow."
"Decent, father! Why, he's a splendid chap. He has rough hands and
wears fisherman's clothes and does hard work, but he has been to a big
grammar-school in Devonshire somewhere, and he knows a deal more Greek
than I do, and quite as much Latin."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, that he does. It made Arthur stare, for he was coming the great
man over Will Marion, and being very condescending."
"Yes, it is a way Master Arthur has," muttered Mr Temple frowning.
"I said to Taff that he ought not to, but he would. I like Will Marion.
Josh says he'll be owner of a lot of fishing-boats and nets some day
when his uncle dies; but he says Will thinks he would like to make his
own way in the world, and that it is very foolish of him."
"Oh, that's what Josh thinks, is it?"
"Yes, father."
"And what do you think?"
"That a lad ought to be independent and try and fight his own way in the
world. I mean to."
"That's right, my boy. Keep to that text and you will succeed. You may
have a good many downfalls first, but sooner or later you will get on.
There, go away now. I'm busy testing ere."
"Can I help you, father?"
"No, my lad, no. Not now. There, be off, and don't get into any
mischief."
"No, father. And about the conger-fishing?"
"If you will take great care you may go."
"Hooray!"
"But stop. Tell that man Josh that I hold him responsible for taking
care of you."
"Yes, father," cried Dick. "Hooray!" he whispered as he darted out of
the room, and came so suddenly upon Arthur that he sent him backwards
into a sitting position.
Arthur sat looking petrified with pain and astonishment, cane in one
hand, a book in the other. Then starting up as Dick offered him his
hand laughingly, saying, "I'm very sorry, Taff!" Arthur raised his cane
and struck his brother viciously across the shoulder a regular stinging
cut, while, smarting with the pain, Dick struck back at him, and gave
him so severe a blow in the cheek that Arthur this time measured his
length on the floor.
"Quiet, you boys, quiet!" said Mr Temple angrily, as he opened his
door. "Go and play down on the shore."
Dick's anger evaporated on the instant, and was succeeded by a feeling
of mingled shame and sorrow.
"Oh, I am sorry, Taff!" he said, helping his brother to rise. "You
shouldn't have hit me, though. If anybody hurts me like that I'm sure
to hit out again."
Arthur did not answer till they were outside, and then he turned
viciously upon his brother.
"You're a regular coward," he cried, "to strike a blow like that."
"I didn't say you were a coward for beginning it," said Dick sharply.
"You struck the first blow. Never mind, let's shake hands. It's all
over now."
Arthur turned his back and went away, switching his cane as he walked
towards the upper part of the village, while, after stopping to gaze
after him for a few minutes, Dick sighed, and strolled down to his
favourite post, the pier, to tell Will Marion that he had obtained leave
for the fishing, and to ask what time they were to start.
"I wish I hadn't hit Taff," he said to himself dolefully; "but he knows
how savage it makes me if I'm hurt. I wish I hadn't hit him, though,
all the same."
The regret was vain: he could not take back the blow, and his forehead
wrinkled up and his spirit felt depressed as he went on.
"Poor old Taff!" he said to himself. "I don't think he's so strong as I
am, and that makes him ill-tempered. And I'd been promising father that
I'd take care of him; and then I've got such a brutal temper that I go
and begin knocking him about.--Oh, I wish I wasn't so hot and peppery!
It's too bad, that it is.
"I suppose we sha'n't go conger-fishing now," he said gloomily. "Taff
won't care to go.
"Yes, he will," he said after a few minutes' pause. "I'll tell him at
dinner-time I'm very sorry; and then we shall make it up, and it will be
all right! Why, hallo! there he is going down to the boats. He must
have been round the other way. I'll bet a penny he heard what I said to
father about the fishing, or else he has seen Will."
The latter was the more correct surmise, though Arthur had also heard
his father give his consent.
"Hi! Taff!" shouted Dick; but his brother did not turn his head,
stalking straight down to the pier and getting to where Will and Josh
were at work preparing their tackle for the night's fishing.
"I'm very sorry, Taff," said Dick humbly. "I hope I did not hurt you
much."
Arthur made no reply, but began to speak to Will.
"Papa has given me leave to go with you," he said; "but I don't think I
should care about being out so late."
"Better come, sir," said Josh. "It will be rare sport. I know about
the best place along our bay, and it hasn't been fished for six months,
has it, Will?"
"Nine months, quite," said Will. "Yes, you had better come, sir."
"He's hoping I won't go," said Arthur to himself; "and Dick hopes I
won't go; but I will go just out of spite, to let them see that I'm not
going to let them have all their own way."
"Oh, he'll come," said Dick, "and you'll give him some good sport, won't
you? He hasn't had any fishing since we've been down here. And I say,
Josh, my father says he shall hold you responsible. No getting us run
down this time."
"Not I," said Josh. "I'll have a lantern hoisted as we row back, and no
boats will come where we are fishing; it's too rocky."
"Let's see the lines," said Dick eagerly. "Oh, I say, what a hook!
It's too big."
"Not it," said Will. "Congers have big mouths, and they're very
strong."
"What time shall we get back?"
"'Bout ten, sir," said Josh, "and start at half-past five. We'll have
everything ready."
Arthur turned to go directly after; and though Dick was anxious to stay
he was more eager to make friends with his brother, and he followed him,
to have his apology accepted at last, but not in the most amiable of
ways.
The fact is Arthur would have held out longer, but he could not do so
without jeopardising the evening trip, upon which he had set his mind.
His was a singular state of mind, for although filled with an intense
longing, this was balanced by a curious sensation of dread, consequent
upon his somewhat nervous temperament, which is a roundabout way of
saying that he was afraid.
The idea of going right away, as it seemed to him, at night over the
dark water to fish by the light of a lanthorn was startling, and sent a
curious shiver through him; but at the same time it attracted him with a
strange fascination that forced him to keep to his determination of
being one of the party, as often as his old timidity made him disposed
to say he would stay at home.
"And if I did, Dick would laugh at me. But he shall not this time."
So he kept up a distant manner towards his brother for the rest of the
day, playing grand and pardoning him, as he said to himself, by degrees,
so that after an early tea, when they had started together they were
pretty good friends.
"I am glad you are going, Taff," said Dick in his buoyant way. "I shall
ask Josh to take special care of you."
"I beg that you will do nothing of the sort," said Arthur haughtily. "I
daresay I can take care of myself."
Arthur drew himself up as he said this, and stalked along rather
grandly; and of course he might dare to say that he could take care of
himself: but saying and doing are two very different things, and the
probabilities are that if he had known what conger-fishing meant, he
would not have gone.