A Terrible Coward | Page 4

and you'd do it like a shot."
"I daresay I could," replied the young man; "but why should I?"
"Why should you!" sneered the man with his hands in his pockets; "why, 'cause every one does."
"Because everyone goes and risks his life just for the sake of gratifying his vanity," replied Harry Paul, "I don't see why I should go and do the same."
"Ah, now you're beginning to talk fine," growled the old fisherman, "and a-shoving your book-larning at us. Look here, young 'un; a lad as can't swim ain't--'cordin' to my ideas--hardly worth the snuff of a candle."
"I don't go so far as you do, Tom," said the young man, smiling; "but I do hold that every young fellow should be able to swim well, and so I learned."
"Yes, but you can't do the dive," said the man with his hands in his pockets mockingly.
"Oh, he's going to do it," said the old fisherman. "The water's just right, Master Harry. You go. Take my advice: you go. Just wait till the wave's coming well up, then fall into her, and out you come, and the current'll carry you out through the Shangles."
"And what the better shall I be if I do?" said the young man warmly.
"What the better, my lad!" said the old fellow, looking aghast. "Why, you'll ha' made quite a man o' yourself."
"But I shall have done no good whatever."
"Oh, yes, you would; oh, yes, you would," said the party, sagely shaking their heads and looking at one another.
"I don't see it," said Harry Paul. "If it was to do any one good, or to be of any benefit, perhaps I might try it; but I cannot see the common-sense of risking my life just because you people have made it a custom to jump off Carn Du."
As he spoke he ran down over the boulders, and plunged off a rock into the clear sea, his white figure being traceable against the olive brown sea-wrack waving far below, as he swam for some distance below the surface, and then rose, shook the water from his eyes, and struck out for the lugger lying becalmed in the offing.
The party of fishermen on shore stood growling together, and making unpleasant remarks about Harry Paul, whom they declared to be a terrible coward--all but old Tom Genna, who angrily took his part.
"He's not a bad 'un at heart, and I believe he's no coward," growled the old fellow.
"Then why don't he show as he ar'n't?" said the man with his hands in his pockets, places they never seemed to leave.
"Ah, that's what no one can't say!" growled old Tom, and sooner than hear his favourite swimming pupil condemned, he walked away, muttering that, "he'd give a half-crown silver piece any day to see Mas'r Harry do that theer dive better than Mark Penelly."
Meanwhile the latter had swum right out to the fishing lugger, where he was taken on board, and it being one of his father's boats, he was soon furnished with a blue jersey and a pair of rough flannel trousers, for he did not care about swimming back. Then seating himself on the side, he began talking and chatting to the men, who were shaking mackerel out of their dark-brown nets, where they hung caught by the gills, which acted like the barbs to their arrow-like flight through the sea against the drift-net, and prevented their return.
They were in no hurry to get in, for there was no means of sending their fish off till morning, hence they took matters coolly enough.
"Did you do the dive to-night, Master Mark?" said the master of the boat.
"Yes, to be sure," said Mark conceitedly. "Bah! it's mere child's play."
"And yet Mas'r Harry Paul never does it," said another, in the sing-song tone peculiar to the district.
"He! a miserable coward!" cried Penelly, contemptuously. "He hasn't the spirit of a fly. Such a fellow ought to be hounded out of the place. Why, I could pick out a dozen boys of twelve who would do it."
"Yes," said the master of the lugger maliciously, "but he's a beautiful swimmer."
"Tchah! I'd swim twice as far," said Penelly. "He's a wretched coward, and I hate him."
"What! because he can swim better than you, sir?" said the master.
"I tell you I'm the better swimmer," said Penelly sharply.
"Then it must be because he thrashed you for behaving ill to poor old Tom Genna?"
"He thrash me!" cried Penelly contemptuously. "I should like to see him do it."
"Here's your chance, then," said the master maliciously. "He's swimming straight for the boat."
Mark Penelly's face grew a shade more sallow, but he said nothing, only knelt down by a pile of loose net, and watched the young man, whom he looked upon as his rival, till Harry, swimming gracefully and well, came right up