"All aboard!"
The red boy gave a "leg up" to d.i.c.ky and me and clambered up himself.
Then the two men gave the last shoves to the boat, already cradled almost entirely on the bosom of the deep, and as the very end of the keel grated off the pebbles into the water, they leaped for the gunwale and hung on it with their high sea-boots waving in the evening air.
By the time they had brought their legs on board and coiled a rope or two, we chanced to look back, and already the beach seemed quite a long way off.
We were really afloat. Our smuggling expedition was no longer a dream, but a real realness. Oswald felt almost too excited at first to be able to enjoy himself. I hope you will understand this and not think the author is trying to express, by roundabout means, that the sea did not agree with Oswald. This is not the case. He was perfectly well the whole time. It was d.i.c.ky who was not. But he said it was the smell of the cabin, and not the sea, and I am sure he thought what he said was true.
In fact, that cabin was a bit stiff altogether, and was almost the means of upsetting even Oswald.
It was about six feet square, with bunks and an oil stove, and heaps of old coats and tarpaulins and sou"-westers and things, and it smelt of tar, and fish, and paraffin-smoke, and machinery oil, and of rooms where no one ever opens the window.
Oswald just put his nose in, and that was all. He had to go down later, when some fish was cooked and eaten, but by that time he had got what they call your sea-legs; but Oswald felt more as if he had got a sea-waistcoat, rather as if he had got rid of a land-waistcoat that was too heavy and too tight.
I will not weary the reader by telling about how the nets are paid out and dragged in, or about the tumbling, shining heaps of fish that come up all alive over the side of the boat, and it tips up with their weight till you think it is going over. It was a very good catch that night, and Oswald is glad he saw it, for it was very glorious. d.i.c.ky was asleep in the cabin at the time and missed it. It was deemed best not to rouse him to fresh sufferings.
It was getting latish, and Oswald, though thrilled in every marrow, was getting rather sleepy, when old Benenden said, "There she is!"
Oswald could see nothing at first, but presently he saw a dark form on the smooth sea. It turned out to be another boat.
She crept quietly up till she was alongside ours, and then a keg was hastily hoisted from her to us.
A few words in low voices were exchanged. Oswald only heard--
"Sure you ain"t give us the wrong un?"
And several people laughed hoa.r.s.ely.
On first going on board Oswald and d.i.c.ky had mentioned kegs, and had been ordered to "Stow that!" so that Oswald had begun to fear that after all it _was_ only a night"s fishing, and that his glorious idea had been abandoned.
But now he saw the keg his trembling heart was rea.s.sured.
It got colder and colder. d.i.c.ky, in the cabin, was covered with several coats richly scented with fish, and Oswald was glad to accept an oilskin and sou"-wester, and to sit down on some spare nets.
Until you are out on the sea at night you can never have any idea how big the world really is. The sky looks higher up, and the stars look further off, and even if you know it is only the English Channel, yet it is just as good for feeling small on as the most trackless Atlantic or Pacific. Even the fish help to show the largeness of the world, because you think of the deep deepness of the dark sea they come up out of in such rich profusion. The hold was full of fish after the second haul.
Oswald sat leaning against the precious keg, and perhaps the bigness and quietness of everything had really rendered him unconscious. But he did not know he was asleep until the Viking man woke him up by kindly shaking him and saying--
"Here, look alive! Was ye thinking to beach her with that there precious keg of yours all above board, and crying out to be broached?"
So then Oswald roused himself, and the keg was rolled on to the fish where they lay filling the hold, and armfuls of fish thrown over it.
"Is it _really_ only water?" asked Oswald. "There"s an awfully odd smell." And indeed, in spite of the many different smells that are natural to a fishing-boat, Oswald began to notice a strong scent of railway refreshment-rooms.
"In course it"s only water," said the Viking. "What else would it be likely to be?" and Oswald thinks he winked in the dark.
Perhaps Oswald fell asleep again after this. It was either that or deep thought. Any way, he was aroused from it by a b.u.mp, and a soft grating sound, and he thought at first the boat was being wrecked on a coral reef or something.
But almost directly he knew that the boat had merely come ash.o.r.e in the proper manner, so he jumped up.
You cannot push a boat out of the water like you push it in. It has to be hauled up by a capstan. If you don"t know what that is the author is unable to explain, but there is a picture of one.
When the boat was hauled up we got out, and it was very odd to stretch your legs on land again. It felt shakier than being on sea. The red-haired boy went off to get a cart to take the shining fish to market, and Oswald decided to face the mixed-up smells of that cabin and wake d.i.c.ky.
d.i.c.ky was not grateful to Oswald for his thoughtful kindness in letting him sleep through the perils of the deep and his own uncomfortableness.
He said, "I do think you might have waked a chap. I"ve simply been out of everything."
Oswald did not answer back. His is a proud and self-restraining nature.
He just said--
"Well, hurry up, now, and see them cart the fish away."
So we hurried up, and as Oswald came out of the cabin he heard strange voices, and his heart leaped up like the persons who "behold a rainbow in the sky," for one of the voices was the voice of that inferior and unsailorlike coastguard from Longbeach, who had gone out of his way to be disagreeable to Oswald and his brothers and sisters on at least two occasions. And now Oswald felt almost sure that his disagreeablenesses, though not exactly curses, were coming home to roost just as though they had been.
"You"re missing your beauty sleep, Stokes," we heard our Viking remark.
"I"m not missing anything else, though," replied the coastguard.
"Like half a dozen mackerel for your breakfast?" inquired Mr. Benenden in kindly accents.
"I"ve no stomach for fish, thank you all the same," replied Mr. Stokes coldly.
He walked up and down on the beach, clapping his arms to keep himself warm.
"Going to see us unload her?" asked Mr. Benenden.
"If it"s all the same to you," answered the disagreeable coastguard.
He had to wait a long time, for the cart did not come, and did not come, and kept on not coming for ages and ages. When it did the men unloaded the boat, carrying the fish by basketfuls to the cart.
Every one played up jolly well. They took the fish from the side of the hold where the keg wasn"t till there was quite a deep hole there, and the other side, where the keg really was, looked like a mountain in comparison.
This could be plainly seen by the detested coastguard, and by three of his companions who had now joined him.
It was beginning to be light, not daylight, but a sort of ghost-light that you could hardly believe was the beginning of sunshine, and the sky being blue again instead of black.
The hated coastguard got impatient. He said--
"You"d best own up. It"ll be the better for you. It"s bound to come out, along of the fish. I know it"s there. We"ve had private information up at the station. The game"s up this time, so don"t you make no mistake."
Mr. Benenden and the Viking and the boy looked at each other.
"An" what might your precious private information have been about?"
asked Mr. Benenden.
"Brandy," replied the coastguard Stokes, and he went and got on to the gunwale. "And what"s more, I can smell it from here."
Oswald and d.i.c.ky drew near, and the refreshment-room smell was stronger than ever. And a brown corner of the keg was peeping out.