Читать книгу The Master of the Ceremonies - George Manville Fenn - Страница 31

“What—”

“Hush! Who are you? What are you doing here? Why, Morton Denville!”

“Richard Linnell! Is it you? Oh, I say, you did give me a scare. I thought it was that chap come again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, the fellow who did that, you know,” said the lad with a nod upwards.

“But why have you stolen down like this, sir?”

“Don’t talk so loud; you’ll wake the old man. Only going fishing.”

“Fishing? Now?”

“Yes. Fisherman Dick’s waiting for me on the pier.”

“Is this true?” asked Linnell sternly. “True! What do you mean?” said the lad haughtily. “Did you ever know a Denville tell a lie?”

“No, of course not. But it looks bad, young fellow, to see you stealing out of the house like this, and after that ghastly affair.”

“Hush, don’t talk about it,” said the lad with a shudder. “But, I say, how came you here?”

“I—I—” stammered Linnell. “Oh, I was walking along the cliff and I saw the window open. I thought something was wrong, and I crossed to see.”

“Did you think some one had come to run away with my sister, Mr Linnell?” said the lad with a sneering laugh. “Ah, well, you needn’t have been alarmed, and if they had it would have been no business of yours.”

Richard Linnell drew his breath with a faint hiss.

“That’s rather a sneering remark, young gentleman,” he said coldly; “but there, I don’t want to quarrel with you.”

“All the same to me if you did, only if you will take a bit of good advice, stop at home, and don’t be hanging about gentlemen’s houses at this time of night. It looks bad. There, now you can knock at the door and ring them up and tell them I’ve gone fishing. I don’t care.”

He thrust his hands in his pockets and strutted away, trying to appear very manly and independent, but nature would not permit him to look like anything but a big, overgrown boy.

Richard Linnell drew his breath again with the same low hiss, and stood watching the retiring figure, after which he followed the boy along the cliff till he saw him reach the pier, where a gruff voice greeted him; and, satisfied that the truth had been spoken, he turned off and went home.

“Thought you wasn’t coming, lad,” said Fisherman Dick. “Here, just you ketch hold o’ yon basket, and let’s get to work.”

Morton seized the basket of bait, and together they walked to the very end of the pier, at one corner of which was a gangway and some steps, down which they went to a platform of open beams, moist with spray, and only about a foot above the water now the tide was high, the promenade forming the ceiling above their heads.

It was very dark, and the damp, salt smell of the weed that hung to the piles was floating around, while the misty spray every now and then moistened their hands and faces. On all sides huge square wooden piles rose up, looking grim and strange in the gloom, and before them the star-spangled sea heaved and sank, and heaved and sighed and whispered in amongst the woodwork, every now and then seeming to give a hungry smack as if the waves were the lips of some monstrous mouth, trying to seize upon the two fishers for its prey.

“Didn’t I tell you?” said Dick Miggles: “Sea’s just right, and the fish’ll bite like anything. We ought to get ten shillings’ worth to-night. There you are; go ahead.”

Dick had been busy unwinding a line, whose hooks he had already baited; and then, for the next quarter of an hour they were busy catching and hauling in whiting and large dabs, and every now and then a small conger, the basket filling rapidly.

Then, all at once, the fish ceased biting, and they sat waiting and feeling the lines, trying to detect a touch.

“Some one coming,” said Dick suddenly, in a low whisper. “What’s he want to-night?”

“Sh!” whispered back Morton. “Don’t speak, or I shall be found out.”

“Right,” answered Dick in the same low tone; and as they sat there in the darkness with the water lapping just beneath them, and a wave coming in among the piles every now and then with a hiss and a splash, they could hear the slow, firm tread of some one coming down the pier, right to the end, to stand there as if listening, quite still above their heads.

All at once the night-breeze wafted to them the scent of a good cigar, and they knew that whoever it was must be smoking.

At the same moment, Morton felt a tug at his line, and he knew a fish had hooked itself.

It was all he could do to keep from dragging it in; but he was, in spite of his boasting, afraid of his nocturnal expedition coming to his father’s ears, and he remained still.

Fisherman Dick had moved so silently that Morton had not heard him; but all at once the planks overhead seemed veined with light, and the figure of the fisherman could be seen dimly, with his face close up to a hole in the planking. The light died out as quickly as it shone, and the odour of tobacco diffused itself again, while the man overhead began to walk slowly up and down.

Tug-tug-tug! How that fish—a big one, too—did pull! But Morton resisted the temptation, and waited, till all at once it seemed to him that the smoker must have heard them, and was about to come down, for he was evidently listening.

Then there was a shuffling of feet, a curious expiration of the breath, and a sort of grunt, followed by utter silence; and then, some fifty yards away, right in front of where Morton sat, there was a faint golden splash in the sea, and the noise of, as it were, a falling stone or piece of wood.

Almost at the same moment Morton noticed that his line had become phosphorescent, and he could see it for some distance down as the fish he had hooked dragged it here and there.

Then there was a sigh overhead as of relief, and the steps were heard again, gradually going back along the pier, and dying slowly away.

Simultaneously, Morton Denville and the fisherman began hauling in their lines, the former listening the while, to make sure that the promenader did not return; and then, as all was silent, their captives were drawn on to the open planking, to break the silence with flapping and beating and tangling the lines.

“What light was that, Dick?” said Morton, as he threw his fish into the basket.

“Dunno, zackly. Some way o’ lighting another cigar.”

“Who was it—could you see?”

“How’s it likely I could see, squintin’ through a hole like that? Some ’un or ’nother stretching his legs, ’cause he ain’t got no work to do, I s’pose.”

“But couldn’t you see his face?”

“See his face? Is it likely? Just you get up and look through that hole. Why, I had to look straight up, then sidewise, and then straight up again, and that bends your sight about so as you couldn’t even do anything with a spyglass.”

“I believe you could see who it was, and won’t tell me.”

“Hear that, now! Why shouldn’t I want to tell? Says you, I’m out on the sly, and nobody mustn’t know I’m here.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Morton shortly.

“Well, lad, not in words you didn’t; but that’s how it seemed to be, so I kep’ as quiet as I could, and whoever it was didn’t hear us.”

“What did he throw into the water?”

“Stone, I s’pose. Some o’ them dandy jacks, as looks as if they couldn’t move in their clothes, once they gets alone, nothing they likes better than throwing stones in the water. If it wasn’t that the waves washes ’em up again, they’d have throwed all Saltinville into the sea years ago.”

Two hours later, after a very successful night’s sport, Morton parted from Fisherman Dick at the shore end of the pier, and ran home, while the owner of the lines and the heavy basket sat down on the lid, and rubbed the back of his head.

“Yes, I did see his face, as plain as I ever see one, but I warn’t going to tell you so, Master Morton, my lad. What did he chuck inter the sea, and what did he chuck it there for?”

Fisherman Dick sat thinking for a few minutes, and shaking his head, before saying aloud:

“No; it didn’t sound like a stone.”

After which he had another think, and then he got up, shouldered his basket, and went homeward, saying:

“I shall have to find out what that there was.”