The Northern Iron. George A. Birmingham
“Come back, Maurice,” cried Una. “Come back and let us get out of this. I’m frightened. I cannot bear it any longer.”
“You shall have all the four wings of my birds to trim your hats with, Brown-Eyes,” said Maurice, as he clambered dripping into the boat. “Neal will stuff his bird for you and perch him on a stone. You shall have him to set on the top of your new bureau, the one Aunt Estelle sent you when she escaped from Paris without having her head chopped off.”
They pushed the boat cautiously back along the channel, travelling stern first, for there was little room to turn, and even in calm weather men do not willingly lay a boat across the sea in such a place.
“Now for Rackle Roy and a basketful of glashins and lithe,” said Maurice.
East a little and out seawards from the mouth of the cave lies a long, flat rock, dry at low water, and even at flood tide in calm weather, swept with desolating surf when the Atlantic swell rolls in or the wind lashes the nearer sea to fury. Right out of the centre of the rock the waves have fashioned a deep bay, curved like a horse-shoe. This is a famous fishing-place. As the tide rises, lithe and glashin, brazers, gurnet, rock codling, and crowds of cuddings come here to feed, and the fisherman, on those rare days, when he can land at all, may count on bringing home with him great bunches of fish strung through the gills.
The rock lay far enough from the cliff to be clear of the shadow. The sun shone on its brown weed-clad sides, glistened on black clusters of mussels, glowed on the red seams of the rock where the iron cropped out, and baked the black basalt of the upper surface. The spirits of the party revived when they landed. Una’s gaiety returned to her.
“Have you forgotten the bait, Maurice? I’m sure you have. It would be like you to come for a day’s fishing without bait.”
“No, then, I haven’t. There are three large crabs in the boat, and even if there wasn’t one at all we could do nicely with limpets. There’s worse bait than a good limpet.”
“Well, and if you have the crabs I expect you’ve forgotten the sheep’s wool. What do you think, Neal? Yesterday we were fishing cuddings off the Black Rock and Maurice ran out of wool. The fish simply sucked the bait off our hooks and laughed at us. What did Maurice do but take my hairs. He pulled them out one by one as he wanted them, and wrapped the bait on with them.”
“Your wool, Brown-Eyes, doesn’t come up to that of the sheep. It’s not soft enough. But I shan’t want it to-day. I’ve got my pockets half full of the proper sort.”
Neal laughed, but he felt that to use Una’s hair as a wrap for the red pulp of a crab’s back or the soft, black belly of a limpet was a kind of profanation. He was a keen fisherman, but he would rather have missed the chance of catching the largest lithe that ever swam than lure it with a bait fastened with Una’s glossy hair.
They fished till noon, and the tide rose slowly round their rock. Then Una’s luncheon basket was fetched from the boat, the mooring rope was made secure above high water mark, and the three sat down on the sun-baked rock and ate with keen appetites. Maurice stared seawards.
“That brig,” he said, “is lying very close inshore. Look at her, Neal.”
“I saw her pass the point of the Skerries an hour ago.” said Neal. “She must have hauled her wind since then to fetch in so close with the tide running against her.”
“I wonder why she’s doing it,” said Maurice. “She’ll have to run off again to clear Benmore.”
“She looks a big ship,” said Una.
“Maybe she’s 250 tons,” said Neal. “She’s about the size of the brig that sailed from Portrush for Boston last summer year with two hundred emigrants in her.”
“She’s fetching closer in yet,” said Maurice. “See, she’s hoisted some flag or other, two flags, no, three, from the peak of her spanker. It’s a signal. I wonder what they want. Now they’ve laid her to. She must want a boat out from the shore. Come on, Neal, come on, Brown-Eyes. We’ll go out to her. We’ll be first. There’s no other boat nearer than those at the Port, and we’ve got a long start of them. Never mind the fish. Or wait. Fling them in. I dare say the men on the brig will be glad of them. She must be an American.”
In a few minutes the boat was pulled clear of the little bay and out of the shelter of Rackle Roy. The mast was stepped and the sail set. The sheet was slacked out and the boat sped seawards before the wind. Maurice was all impatience. He got out his oar.
“It’s no use,” said Neal, “the breeze has freshened since morning. She’ll sail quicker than we could row.”
The brig lay little more than a mile from the shore. The boat soon reached her.
“Boat, ahoy,” yelled a voice from the deck. “Lower your sail, and come up under my lee.”
Maurice and Neal obeyed. The sea was rougher than it had been near the shore. The boat, when Maurice had made fast the rope flung to him, plunged up and down beside the brig, and needed careful handling to prevent her being damaged.
The crew looked over the side with eager curiosity.
“Say, boys,” said the captain, “what will you take for your fish? I’ll trade with you.”
“I don’t want to sell them,” said Maurice. “I’ll give them to you.”
His voice and accent, his refusal to barter, betrayed the fact that he was a gentleman.
“I guess,” said the captain, “that you’re an aristocrat, a British aristocrat, too proud to take the money of the men who whipped you in the States. That’s so.”
“I’m an Irish gentleman,” said Maurice.
“Well, Mr. Irish Gentleman, if you’re too darned aristocratic to trade, I’ll give you a present of a case of good Virginia, and you may give me a present of your fish. I’d call it a swap, but if that turns your stomach I’ll let you call it a mutual present, an expression of international goodwill.”
“Fling him up the fish, Neal,” said Maurice.
Then another man appeared beside the captain on the quarter-deck. He was not a seafaring man. He was lean and yellow, and had keen grey eyes. His face seemed in some way familiar to Neal, though he could not recollect having ever seen the man before.
“Yon are the Causeway cliffs,” he said, “and yon’s Pleaskin Head, and the islands we passed are the Skerries?”
“You know this coast,” said Neal.
“I knew this coast, young man, before your mother had the dandling of you. I know it now, though it’s five and twenty years since I set foot on it. But that’s not the question. What I want to know is this. Can you put me ashore? I could do well if you land me at the Causeway. I’d make shift with my bag if you put me out at Port Ballin-trae. I don’t want to be going on to Glasgow just for the pleasure of coming back again.”
“I’ll land you at the Black Rock under Run-kerry,” said Maurice, “if you can pull an oar. The wind’s rising, and I’ve no mind to carry idle passengers.”
“I can pull an oar,” said the stranger.
“I guess he can pull enough to break your back, young man,” said the captain. “He’s an American citizen, and he’s been engaged in whipping your British army. I guess an American citizen can lick a darned aristocrat at pulling an oar same as he did at shooting off guns.”
“Shut your damned mouth,” said Maurice, suddenly angry, “or I’ll leave you to land your passenger yourself and see how you like beating the bottom out of your brig against our rocks. You’ll find an Irish rock harder than your Yankee wood.”
The passenger fetched a small hand-bag and lowered it into the boat. Under a shower of jibes from the captain, Maurice and Neal pushed