The Lively Poll | Page 2

the grand result, but, turning to a particular smack, we solicit attention to that. She is much like the others in size and rig. Her name is the Lively Poll. Stephen Lockley is her skipper, as fine a young fisherman as one could wish to see--tall, handsome, free, hearty, and powerful. But indeed all deep-sea fishermen possess the last quality. They would be useless if not physically strong. Many a Samson and Hercules is to be found in the North Sea fleets. "No better nursery or training-school in time of war," they say. That may be true, but it is pleasanter to think of them as a training-school for times of peace.
The night was very dark. Black clouds overspread the sky, so that no light save the dim rays of a lantern cheered the men as they went tramp, tramp, round the capstan, slowly coiling in the trawl-warp. Sheets of spray sometimes burst over the side and drenched them, but they cared nothing for that, being pretty well protected by oilskins, sou'-westers, and sea-boots. Straining and striving, sometimes gaining an inch or two, sometimes a yard or so, while the smack plunged and kicked, the contest seemed like a doubtful one between vis inertiae and the human will. Two hours and a half it lasted, until the great trawl-beam came to the surface, and was got up on the vessel's side, after which these indomitable men proceeded to claw up the huge net with their fingers, straining and heaving with might and main.
"Yo, ho!" cried the skipper, "heave her in, boys!"
"Hoy!" growled Peter Jay, the mate, giving a tug that should have torn the net to pieces--but didn't!
"Looks like as if we'd got hold of a lump o' wreck," gasped Bob Lumsden, the smack's boy, who was also the smack's cook.
"No, no, Lumpy," remarked David Duffy, who was no respecter of names or persons, "it ain't a wreck, it's a mermaid. I've bin told they weigh over six ton when young. Look out when she comes aboard--she'll bite."
"I do believe it's old Neptune himself," said Jim Freeman, another of the "hands." "There's his head; an' something like his pitchfork."
"It does feel heavier than I ever knowed it afore," remarked Fred Martin.
"That's all along of your bein' ill, Fred," said the mate.
"It may be so," returned Martin, "for I do feel queer, an' a'most as weak as a baby. Come heave away!"
It was indeed a huge mass of wreck entangled with sea-weed which had rendered the net so heavy on that occasion, but there was also a satisfactory mass of fish in the "cod-end," or bag, at the extremity of the net, for, when, by the aid of the winch, this cod-end was finally got inboard, and the cord fastening the bottom of it was untied, fish of all kinds gushed over the wet decks in a living cataract.
There were a few expressions of satisfaction from the men, but not much conversation, for heavy work had still to be done--done, too, in the dark. Turbot, sole, cod, skate, and all the other treasures of the deep, had to be then and there gutted, cleaned, and packed in square boxes called "trunks," so as to be ready for the steam-carrier next morning. The net also had to be cleared and let down for another catch before daybreak.
Now it is just possible that it may never have occurred to the reader to consider how difficult, not to say dangerous, must be the operation of gutting, cleaning, and packing fish on a dark night with a smack dancing a North Sea hornpipe under one's feet. Among the dangers are two which merit notice. The one is the fisherman's liability, while working among the "ruck," to run a sharp fish-bone into his hand, the other to gash himself with his knife while attempting to operate on the tail of a skate. Either accident may be slight or it may be severe.
A sudden exclamation from one of the men while employed in this cleaning and packing work told that something had happened.
"There goes Martin," growled Joe Stubley; "you can always tell when it's him, 'cause he don't curse an' swear."
Stubley--or Stubby, as his mates called him--did not intend this for a compliment by any means, though it may sound like one. Being an irreligious as well as a stupid man, he held that all who professed religion were hypocritical and silly. Manliness, in poor Jo's mind, consisted of swagger, quiet insolence, cool cursing, and general godlessness. With the exception of Fred Martin, the rest of the crew of the Lively Poll resembled him in his irreligion, but they were very different in character,--Lockley, the skipper being genial; Peter Jay, the mate, very appreciative of humour, though quiet and sedate; Duffy, jovial and funny; Freeman, kindly, though