Rudyard Kipling : The Complete Novels and Stories. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

dory as it came down, pulled out the footboards, and laid them in the bottom of the boat.

      ‘He’s caught on good,’ said the scarred man, who was Tom Platt, watching him critically. ‘There are two ways o’ doin’ everything. One’s fisher-fashion—any end first an’ a slippery hitch over all—an’ the other’s——’

      ‘What we did on the old Ohio!’ Dan interrupted, brushing into the knot of men with a long board on legs. ‘Git out o’ here, Tom Platt, an’ leave me fix the tables.’

      He jammed one end of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks, kicked out the leg, and ducked just in time to avoid a swinging blow from the man-o’-war’s man.

      ‘An’ they did that on the Ohio, too, Danny. See?’ said Tom Platt, laughing.

      ‘Guess they was swivel-eyed, then, fer it didn’t git home, and I know who’ll find his boots on the main-truck ef he don’t leave us alone. Haul ahead! I’m busy, can’t ye see?’

      ‘Danny, ye lie on the cable an’ sleep all day,’ said Long Jack. ‘You’re the hoight av impidence, an’ I’m persuaded ye’ll corrupt our supercargo in a week.’

      ‘His name’s Harvey,’ said Dan, waving two strangely-shaped knives, ‘an’ he’ll be worth five of any Sou’ Boston clam-digger ’fore long.’ He laid the knives tastefully on the table, cocked his head on one side, and admired the effect.

      ‘I think it’s forty-two,’ said a small voice over-side, and there was a roar of laughter as another voice answered, ‘Then my luck’s turned fer onct, ’caze I’m forty-five, though I be stung outer all shape.’

      ‘Forty-two or forty-five. I’ve lost count,’ the small voice said.

      ‘It’s Penn an’ Uncle Salters caountin’ catch. This beats the circus any day,’ said Dan. ‘Jest look at ’em!’

      ‘Come in—come in!’ roared Long Jack. ‘It’s wet out yondher, children.’

      ‘Forty-two, ye said.’ This was Uncle Salters.

      ‘I’ll count again, then,’ the voice replied meekly.

      The two dories swung together and bunted into the schooner’s side.

      ‘Patience o’ Jerusalem!’ snapped Uncle Salters, backing water with a splash. ‘What possest a farmer like you to set foot in a boat beats me. You’ve nigh stove me all up.’

      ‘I am sorry, Mr. Salters. I came to sea on account of nervous dyspepsia. You advised me, I think.’

      ‘You an’ your nervis dyspepsy be drowned in the Whale-hole,’ roared Uncle Salters, a fat and tubly little man. ‘You’re comin’ down on me agin. Did ye say forty-two or forty-five?’

      ‘I’ve forgotten, Mr. Salters. Let’s count.’

      ‘Don’t see as it could be forty-five. I’m forty-five,’ said Uncle Salters. ‘You count keerful, Penn.’

      Disko Troop came out of the cabin. ‘Salters, you pitch your fish in naow at once,’ he said in the tone of authority.

      ‘Don’t spile the catch, dad,’ Dan murmured. ‘Them two are on’y jest beginnin’.’

      ‘Mother av delight! He’s forkin’ them wan by wan,’ howled Long Jack, as Uncle Salters got to work laboriously; the little man in the other dory counting a line of notches on the gunwale.

      ‘That was last week’s catch,’ he said, looking up plaintively, his forefinger where he had left off.

      Manuel nudged Dan, who darted to the aftertackle, and, leaning far overside, slipped the hook into the stern rope as Manuel made her fast forward. The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat in—man, fish, and all.

      ‘One, two, four—nine,’ said Tom Platt, counting with a practised eye. ‘Forty-seven. Penn, you’re it!’ Dan let the aftertackle run and slid him out of the stern on to the deck amid a torrent of his own fish.

      ‘Hold on!’ roared Uncle Salters, bobbing by the waist. ‘Hold on, I’m a bit mixed in my caount.’

      He had no time to protest, but was hove inboard and treated like ‘Pennsylvania.’

      ‘Forty-one,’ said Tom Platt. ‘Beat by a farmer, Salters. An’ you sech a sailor, too!’

      ‘’Twern’t fair caount,’ said he, stumbling out of the pen; ‘an’ I’m stung up all to pieces.’

      His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white.

      ‘Some folks will find strawberry-bottom,’ said Dan, addressing the newly-risen moon, ‘ef they hev to dive fer it, seems to me.’

      ‘An’ others,’ said Uncle Salters, ‘eats the fat o’ the land in sloth, an’ mocks their own blood-kin.’

      ‘Seat ye! seat ye!’ a voice Harvey had not heard called from the foc’sle. Disko Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salters went forward on the word. Little Penn bent above his square deep-sea reel, and the tangled cod-lines. Manuel lay down full length on the deck, and Dan dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him banging casks with a hammer.

      ‘Salt,’ he said, returning. ‘Soon as we’re through supper we git to dressing-down. You’ll pitch to dad. Tom Platt an’ dad they stow together, an’ you’ll hear ’em arguin’. We’re second ha’af, you an’ me an’ Manuel an’ Penn—the youth an’ beauty o’ the boat.’

      ‘What’s the good of that?’ said Harvey. ‘I’m hungry.’

      ‘They’ll be through in a minute. Snff! She smells good to-night. Dad ships a good cook ef he do suffer with his brother. It’s a full catch to-day, ain’t it?’ He pointed at the pens piled high with cod. ‘What water did ye hev, Manuel?’

      ‘Twenty-fife father,’ said the Portuguese sleepily. ‘They strike on good an’ queek. Some day I show you, Harvey.’

      The moon was beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder men came aft. The cook had no need to cry ‘second half.’ Dan and Manuel were down the hatch and at table ere Tom Platt, last and most deliberate of the elders, had finished wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Harvey followed Penn, and sat down before a tin pan of cods’ tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and fried potato, a loaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful coffee. Hungry as they were, they waited while ‘Pennsylvania’ solemnly asked a blessing. Then they stoked in silence till Dan drew breath over his tin cup and demanded of Harvey how he felt.

      ‘Most full, but there’s just room for another piece.’

      The cook was a huge jet-black negro, and, unlike all the negroes Harvey had met, did not talk, contenting himself with smiles and dumb-show invitations to eat more.

      ‘See, Harvey,’ said Dan, rapping with his fork on the table, ‘it’s jest as I said. The young an’ handsome men—like me an’ Pennsy an’ you an’ Manuel—we’re second ha’af, an’ we eats when the first ha’af are through. They’re the old fish; and they’re mean an’ humpy, an’ their stummicks has to be humoured; so they come first, which they don’t deserve. Ain’t that so, doctor?’

      The cook nodded.

      ‘Can’t he talk?’ said Harvey in a whisper.

      ‘’Nough to git along. Not much o’ anything we know. His natural tongue’s kinder curious. Comes from the innards of Cape Breton, he does, where the farmers speak home-made Scotch. Cape Breton’s full o’ niggers whose folk run in there durin’ aour war, an’ they talk like the farmers—all huffy-chuffy.’

      ‘That is not Scotch,’ said ‘Pennsylvania.’ ‘That is Gaelic. So I read in a book.’

      ‘Penn