Cormorant Crag | Page 9

struck upon side or roof from time to time.
"I say," cried Vince suddenly, "we never tried for a conger along here,
Mike."
"No good," growled Daygo.
"Why?" said Vince, argumentatively. "Looks just the place for them:
it's dark and deep."
"Ay, so it is, boy; and I daresay there arn't so many of they mullet gone
back to sea as come up the hole."
"Then there are congers here?"
"Ay, big uns, too; but the bottom's all covered with rocks, and there's
holes all along for the eels to run in, and when you hook 'em they twist
in, and you only lose your line."
He gave the boat a vigorous shove, and it glided out into the light once
more, a hundred yards from the cliff, but with the rugged pyramid of
granite through which they had passed towering up behind them, and
its many shelves dotted with sea-birds lazily sunning themselves and
stretching out their wings to dry.
A few flew up, uttering peculiar cries, as the boat darted out of the dark
arch beneath them; but, for the most part, they merely looked down and

took no further notice--the boat and its little crew being too familiar an
object to excite their fear, especially as its occupants did not land, and
the egg-time was at an end.
"Now, then, up with the mast, lads!" said the old man; and cleverly
enough the boys stepped the little spar by thrusting its end through a
hole in the forward thwart and down into a socket fixed in the inner
part of the keel. Then the stays were hooked on, hauled taut, and up
went the little lug-sail smartly enough, the patch of brown tanned
canvas filling at once, and sending the boat gliding gently along over
the rocks which showed clearly deep down through the crystal sea.
"Soon know how to manage a boat yourselves," said the old man
grimly, as he thrust an oar over the stern and used it to steer.
"Manage a boat ourselves!" cried Mike. "I should think we could--eh,
Vince?"
"Should think you could!" said the old man laughing. "Ah! you think
you could, but you can't. Why, I hardly know how yet, after trying for
fifty year. Wants some larning, boys, when tide's low, and the rocks are
bobbing up and down ready to make holes in the bottom. Don't you two
be too sure, and don't you never go along here far without me."
The boys said nothing; but they felt the truth of the man's words as he
steered them in and out among the jagged masses of granite, around
which the glassy currents glided, now covering them from sight, now
leaving bare their weed-hung, broken-out fangs; while on their left, as
they steered north toward a huge projection, which ran right out on the
far side of a little bay, the perpendicular cliffs rose up grey and grand,
defended by buttresses formed by masses that had fallen, and pierced
every here and there by caverns, into which the water ran and rushed
with strange, hollow, whispering noises and slaps and gurglings, as if
there were peculiar creatures far up in the darkness resenting being
disturbed.
Every now and then the sea, as it heaved and sank, laid bare some
rounded mass covered with long, hanging sea-weed, which parted on

the top and hung down on either side, giving the stone the appearance
of some strange, long-haired sea monster, which had just thrust its head
above the surface to gaze at the boat, and once this was so near that
Mike shrank from it as it peered over the thwart, the boat almost
grating against the side.
"Wasn't that too close?" said Vince quickly.
"Nay," said the old man quietly: "if you didn't go close to that rock,
you'd go on the sharp rock to starboard. There's only just room to pass."
A minute later, as the two lads, were gazing in at the gloomy portals of
a water-floored cave, in and out of which birds were flying, a dexterous
turn of the oar sent the boat quickly round, head to wind, the sail
flapped over their heads, and Vince seized the boat-hook without being
told, and, reaching over the side, hooked towards him a couple of
good-sized pieces of blackened cork, through which a rope had been
passed and knotted to prevent its return.
This rope Mike seized, hauled upon it, drawing the boat along, till it
was right over something heavy, which, on being dragged to the surface,
proved to be a great beehive-shaped, cage-like basket, weighted with
stones, and provided with a funnel-like entrance at the top.
"Nothing!" cried Mike; and the lobster-pot was allowed to sink back
into the deep water among the rocks as soon as it