Part 22 (1/2)
Adown side by side, resting upon their elbows and kicking up their heels over their backs, what time the newcomer related what had passed down on the pier, and also what he should like to do
The narrative see Je laugh fro the lids very close and then opening thereen and blue bruises became visible
When the newco Jeed in what looked like an i fish, for he stretched himself out flat and threw hiround with his closed legs, and then flopped back again, over and over again, putting ten tiour and exertion into his acts that he had bestowed upon the hoeing, and ending by springing up, stooping to secure his hoe, and then tossing it right away to fall and lie hidden in one of the newly-hoed furrows between the potatoes
”Do, won't it?” cried the new arrival
”Yes,” cried Big Jem, hoarsely ”Sarve 'eoing off at a trot round by the back of the town and ai a very steep bit of ivy-draped and ragwort-dotted cliff they could get down to a row of black sheds used for fish-drying and the storage of nets, which lay snugly upon a shelf of the cliff
The place was quite deserted as the boys let theully, peered about a bit, and then made for one of several boats moored some fifty yards from the sandy shore
More or less salt water was nothing to the Rockabie boys, and after a glance along the shore, followed by a sweeping of the pier, which ran out between them and the harbour, they waded a little way out till the water reached their chests, and then began to swi Jem climbed, to hold out a hand, and the nextaway, to cast loose the rope attached to the buoy, while Big Jean to scull
”Ibney allus leaves one oar in his boat,” said Jeo yet”
”You hold yourJem ”I'll show you You shall see what you shall see Here, lay hold of the rope and make a hitch round that killick See?”
The other boy evidently did see, for he knelt down and began to edge a big oval boulder stone from where it lay in coht forward into the bows, and then lifted it on to the locker, when he took hold of the boat's painter at the end furthest fro-bolt, to which it was secured, and fastened the hempen cord round the boulder with a nautical knot
By the tiht sight of so at the shore end of the pier
”Here comes the sailors back to their boat,” he said ”They'll see us”
”Over with the killick, then--easy Don't splash”
Big Jeress bythe thwarts, and then, as the other boy lifted the stone over the bows into the water, which it kissed without disturbance, it was let go and sank with a wavybubbles, running the rope out fast till botto fro Jem, and the next reat boulder for pillow, quite out of sight, unless their presence had been suspected, when a bit of coarse blue-covered body ht have been seen, but then only to be taken for so with a nap
Hence it was that when Toer swept the pier fro by the steps in the harbour, he saw nothing but the top of the pier, and his eyes fell again upon the sloop's beautifully clean boat, which he again compared with the one he occupied, with such unfavourable effect to the latter that he muttered to himself a little, took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves over his tattooed areneral clean up
Toe from the latter's usually contented hum, just as much satisfied, for his efforts certainly vastly improved the aspect of Aleck's boat; and he was still hard at work swabbing and drying and laying ropes in coils, when a remark from one of the sailors in the adjacent boatup out of a doze in the hot sunshi+ne and give the order to ”Be smart!”
In other words, to be ready to help theirwith their officer, well laden with fresh stores, which soon after were handed down into the boat and stowed Then the ain, while the officers took theirs, the order was given to cast off, there was a thrust or two given by the coxswain, and the boat glided fro theof the past