"I say, how cruel to the poor things!" said d.i.c.k laughingly; but Josh took it in the most serious way.

"Well, I have thought that 'bout the gashly conger, Master d.i.c.k, sir,"

said Josh; "but I don't know as it be. You see, they're caught, and it puts 'em out of their misery, like, at once."

"But it's cruel to catch them," said d.i.c.k.

Josh scratched his head.

"A mussy me, Master d.i.c.k, sir! that's a thing as has puzzled me lots o'

times when I've been hooking and killing fish; but then, you see, it's for victuals, and everybody's got to live."

"So have the fish," laughed d.i.c.k.

"So they have, sir; but you see here, I catches and kills a conger, or a pollack, or a gurnet, or a ba.s.s. Suppose I hadn't killed it--what then?"

"Why, it would be swimming about in the sea as happy as could be."

"Yes, Master d.i.c.k, sir; but what else would it be doing?"

"Basking in the sunshine, Josh."

"P'r'aps so, sir; but, a mussy me! he'd be chasing and hunting and eating hundreds of little fish every day; so you see if I catches one big one, I saves hundreds of little ones' lives."

"I never thought of that," said d.i.c.k.

"Josh and I have often talked about it," said Will seriously. "It seems cruel to catch and kill things; but they are always catching and killing others, and every bird and fish you see here is as cruel as can be.

There goes a cormorant; he'll be swimming and diving all day long catching fish, so will the s.h.a.gs; and all those beautiful grey-and-white gulls you can see on the rock there, live upon the fish they catch on the surface of the water."

"Then if we keep the congers from catching and killing other fishes and eating them, why, it's being very kind, and isn't cruel at all," said d.i.c.k merrily; and then he sent a cold chill down his brother's spine by saying, "Let's look sharp and catch all the big ones we can."

"Now, you two take a rest," said Josh, "and I'll put her along a bit;"

and changing places with the rowers, Josh handled the oars with such effect that in about half an hour they were approaching a tall ma.s.s of rock that had seemed at a distance to be part of the cliff-line, but which the visitors could now see to be quite a quarter of a mile from where the waves were beating the sh.o.r.e.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

d.i.c.k CATCHES HIS FIRST CONGER.

"Why, Will," cried d.i.c.k, "it is quite an island. Oh, Taff, look at the birds!"

"We don't call a rock like that an island," said Will quietly, as the boys watched a cloud of gulls that had been disturbed by their approach, and new screaming and uttering peevish querulous cries above their heads. The top of the rock, which was sixty or seventy feet above the water, was quite white with guano, and every ledge of the perpendicular ma.s.s seemed to be the home of the sea-birds which had been perched there in rows, looking almost like pigeons till the near approach of the boat had sent them off.

"How long would it take to row round?" said Arthur, who, in the novelty of the scene, forgot all about the conger.

"Two minutes if you could go close in," said Josh; "ten minutes, because you have to dodge in and out among the rocks which lie out all round."

"And from the Mew Rock to the sh.o.r.e yonder," added Will.

"Yes," said Josh; "it's all rock about here, just a fathom or two under water, and a bad place for boots."

"Then why did you come in your boat?" cried Arthur excitedly.

"I don't mean little boots in fine weather, sir, I mean big boots in foul," replied Josh, rowing steadily away. "This here's the place where we wanted to come, and I'm going to take you to a hole like with rocks all round it, a hole as goes down seven or eight fathom, and the congers swarm in the holes all about here, as you'll see."

Arthur's hand tightened on the boat, and his dread made him feel almost ill; but he struggled with the nervous feeling manfully, though he dared not trust himself to speak.

And all the while Josh rowed steadily on till he was skirting round the edge of the perpendicular ma.s.s of rock about whose base the waves foamed and fretted, as if weary with their efforts at trying to wash it down.

The birds squealed and hissed, and now and then one uttered a doleful wail as it swept here and there, showing its pearly grey breast and the delicate white feathers beneath its wings.

"Do you ever shoot these birds, Will?" said d.i.c.k, lying back so as to stare up at the gulls as they floated so easily by.

"Shoot them! Oh, no! The fishermen here never harm them; they're such good friends."

"Why?" said Arthur.

"They show us where the fish are," replied Will. "We can see them with the gla.s.s miles away, flapping about over a shoal of little ones, and darting down and feeding on them; and where they are feeding, big fish are sure to be feeding on the shoal as well."

"Then I shouldn't like to be a shoal of little fish," cried d.i.c.k. "Why, as the clown said in the pantomime, 'it would be dangerous to be safe.'

I wonder there are any small fish left."

"There are so many of them," said Will laughing; "thousands and millions of them; so many sometimes in a shoal that they could not be counted, and--"

"Stand by with the killick, m'lad," cried Josh, as he paddled slowly now, with his eyes fixed first on one landmark, then on another.

"Ready," said Will, clearing the line, and raising a great stone, to which the rope was fast, on to the edge of the boat.

"Drop her atop of the little rock as I say when," growled Josh.

"Right," answered back Will.

Josh backed the boat a few yards; and as d.i.c.k and his brother gazed over the stem they were looking down into black water one moment and then they glided over a pale-green rock flecked with brown waving weeds.

"When!" cried Josh.

_Plash_!

The big stone went over the side on to the rock, which seemed pretty level, and then as the line ran over the stern Josh began to row once more, and the boat glided over the sharp edge of the rock and into black water once more that seemed of tremendous depth.

"Now, forrard, my lad," said Josh; and Will pa.s.sed him and took his place right in the bows.

Here a similar process was gone through.

After rowing slowly about thirty yards Josh stopped.

"That ought to do it," he said. "She won't come no further. Over with it."

Will was standing up now in the bows swinging a grapnel to and fro, and after letting it sway three or four times he launched it from him, and it fell with a splash a score of yards away, taking with it another line, upon which when d.i.c.k hauled he found that the grapnel was fast in a rugged ma.s.s of rock like that which they had just left; and with grapnel and killick at either end of the boat, they were anch.o.r.ed, as Josh pointed out, right in the middle of the deep hole.