Cormorant Crag | Page 8

there isn't another nose in the island
a bit like it."

"Tell him he'd better leave my nose alone. But he is right there: there
arn't a nose like it--they're all round or stunted, or turn t'other way up."
"Then he says your name Daygo's only a corruption of Diego, which is
Spanish for James."
"Yah! It's Daygo--Joe Daygo--and not James at all. He's thinking about
Jemmy Carnach."
"And he says he feels sure your people came over with the Spanish
Armada, and you're descended from some sailor, named Diego, who
was wrecked."
"You tell your father to mix his physic," grumbled the man
sourly.--"Here, are you two going to stop here talking all day?"
"No," cried Mike, springing up, his example being followed by Vince,
who was riding on the breech of the other gun.
"Then come on," growled the man, who made off now at a tremendous
rate. Away over furze, and up and down over sunny slopes, where the
fallow-chats rose, showing their white tail coverts; in and out among
bare patches of granite, which rose above the great clumps of gorse;
and still on, till all before them was sea. Then he began to rapidly
descend a gully, where everything that was green was left behind, and
they were between two vast walls of rock, almost shut-in by a natural
breakwater stretching across, half covered by the sea and sand. Below
them, in a natural pool, lay a boat which might have been built and
launched to sail upon the tiny dock of stone; for there was apparently
no communication with the sea, so well was it shut off from where, as
the bare and worn masses of grey rock showed, the waves must come
thundering in when the west wind blew.
Old Daygo went clumping down in his heavy boots, and the boys
followed, soon to reach where stones as big as cheeses lay in a long
slope, whither they had been hurled by the storms, and were rolled over
till they were smooth and roughly round as the pebbles in a stream.
Next they had to mount a great barrier, which now hid the boat, and

then descended to its side, where it lay in the pool, only about twice as
big as itself, but which proved now to be the widening out of a huge
crack in the granite rocks, and zigzagged along to the sea, full of clear
water at all times, and forming a sheltered canal to the tiny dock.
"Some on 'em 'd like to have that bit o' harbour," said the man, with a
grin which showed his great white teeth; "but it's mine, and always will
be. Jump in."
The boys obeyed, and the man fetched a boat-hook with a very sharp,
keen point, from where it hung, in company with some well-tarred
ropes, nets, and other fishing-gear, in a sheltered nook amongst the
rocks, and then joined them, and began to push the boat along the
narrow waterway.
At the first wave sent rippling outward by the movement of the boat,
there was a rush and splash a dozen yards in front, as a shoal of
good-sized fish darted seaward, some in their hurry leaping right out of
the water, to fall in again with a plunge, which scared the rest in their
flight.
The boys sprang up excitedly, and Daygo nodded.
"Ay," he said, "if we'd knowed they was there, we might ha' crep along
the rocks and dropped a net acrost, and then caught the lot."
"Mullet, weren't they?" said Vince.
"Yes: grey ones," said Mike, shading his eyes, and following the wave
made by the retiring shoal.
"Ay--grey mullet, come up to see if there was anything to eat. Smelt
where I'd been cleaning fish and throwing it into the water."
The boat went on after the shoal of fish, in and out along the great
jagged rift leading seaward, their way seeming to be barred by a
towering pyramid of rock partly detached from the main island, while
the sides of the fault grew higher and higher till they closed in overhead,

forming a roughly-arched tunnel, nearly dark; but as soon as they were
well in, the light shining through the end and displaying a framed
picture of lustrous sea glittering in the sunlight, of which enough was
reflected to show that the sides of the tunnel-like cavern were dotted
with limpets, and the soft, knob-shaped, contracted forms of sea
anemones that, below the surface, would have displayed tentacles of
every tint, studded, as it were, with gems.
The roof a few feet above their heads echoed, and every word spoken
went whispering along, while the iron point and hook of the implement
old Daygo used gave forth a loud, hollow, sounding click as it was