Menhardoc Part 12

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 fis.h.i.+ng-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 fis.h.i.+ng-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 ta.s.sels 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 fis.h.i.+ng."

"I wish you wouldn't call me out of my name before this sort of people,"

said his brother, flus.h.i.+ng 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 gla.s.s 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 fis.h.i.+ng?"

"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? d.i.c.k--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 d.i.c.k 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."