"Oh, bother the old books!"  
And as if to bother them, though more likely to break their backs, Lance Penwith closed two with a sharp clap, rose from his seat at the table, and then, holding one flat in each hand, he walked round behind his cousin, who was bent over another, with his elbows on the study-table, a finger in each ear, and his eyes shut as if to keep in the passage he was committing to memory. But the next moment he had started up, hurting his knees, and stood glaring angrily at Lance, who was roaring with laughter.
 
For the hearty-looking sunburned boy had passed behind his fellow-student's chair with the intention of putting his books on one of the shelves, but seeing his opportunity, a grin of enjoyment lit up his face, and taking a step back, he stood just at his cousin's back, and brought the two books he carried together, cymbal fashion, but with all his might, and so close to the reader's head that the air was stirred and the sharp crack made him spring up in alarm.
 
"What did you do that for?"
 
"To wake you up, Alfy. There, put 'em away now, and let's go down to the cliff."
 
"And leave my lessons half done?—Don't you do that again. You won't be happy till I've given you a sound thrashing."
 
"Shouldn't be happy then," said Lance, with a laugh; "and besides, you couldn't do it, Alfy, my lad, without I lay down to let you."
 
"What! I couldn't?"
 
"Not you. Haven't got strength enough. Jolly old molly-coddle, why don't you come out and bathe and climb and fish?"
 
"And hang about the dirty old pilchard houses and among the drying hake, and mix with the rough old smugglers and wreckers."
 
"How do you know they're smugglers and wreckers?"
 
"Everybody says they are, and uncle would be terribly angry if I told him all I know about your goings on."
 
"Tell him, then: I don't care. Father doesn't want me to spend all my time with my nose in a book, my eyes shut, and my ears corked up with fingers."
 
"Uncle wants you to know what Mr. Grimston teaches us."
 
"Course he does. Well, I know my bits."
 
"You don't: you can't. You haven't been at work an hour."
 
"Yes, I have; we sat down at ten, and it's a quarter past eleven, and I know everything by heart. Now, then, you listen."
 
"Go on, then," cried the other.
 
"Not likely. I've done. Come on and let's do something. The rain's all gone off and it's lovely out."
 
"There, I knew you didn't," cried the other. "You can't have learned it all. And look here, if you do that again I shall certainly report it to uncle."
 
"Very well, report away, sneaky. Now then, will you come? We'll get Old Poltree's boat and make Hezz come and row."
 
 
The student reseated himself, frowning, and bent over his book again.
 
"Look here," cried his cousin, "I'll give you one more chance. Will you come?"
 
No answer.
 
"One more chance. Will you come?"
 
"Will you leave off interrupting me?" cried the other furiously.
 
"Certainly, sir. Very sorry, sir. Hope you will enjoy yourself, sir. Poor old Alf! He'll want specs soon."
 
Then pretending great alarm, the speaker darted out into the hall, and thrust his head through a door on the right, which he half opened, and stood looking in at a slightly grey-haired lady who was bending over her work.
 
"Going out, mother," he said.
 
The lady looked up and smiled pleasantly.
 
"Don't be late for dinner, my dear. Two o'clock punctually, mind."
 
"Oh, I shall be back," said the boy, laughing.
 
"And don't do anything risky by the cliff."
 
"Oh no, I'll mind."
 
The boy closed the door and crossed the hall, just as a shadow darkened the porch, and a tall, bluff-looking man entered.
 
"Hullo, you, sir!" he cried; "how is it you are not at your studies?—Going out?"
 
"Yes, father; down to the shore a bit. Done lessons."
 
"Why don't you take your cousin with you?"
 
"Won't come, father. I did try."
 
It was only about half a mile to the cliff, where a few fishermen's cottages stood on shelves of the mighty granite walls which looked as if they had been built up of blocks by the old Cornish ogres, weeded out by the celebrated Jack the Giant-killer; and here Lance made his way to where in front of one long whitewashed granite cot, perched a hundred feet above the shore, there was a long protecting rail formed of old spars planted close to the edge of the cliff, just where a tiny river discharged itself into the sea. This opened sufficiently to form a little harbour for half-a-dozen fishing luggers, the rocks running out sufficiently to act as a breakwater and keep off the huge billows which at times came rolling in from the south-west, so that on one side of the cliffs lay piled up a slope of wave-washed and rounded boulders, many as big as great Cheshire cheeses, while on the other, where the luggers lay, there were pebbles and sand.
 
Upon this rail four men were leaning with folded arms, apparently doing nothing but stare out at the bright, clear sea; but every eye was keenly on the look-out for one of those dark-cloud, shadow-like appearances on the surface which to them meant money and provisions.
 
But there was no sign of fish breaking the surface of the water, and as Lance approached he had a good view of four immense pairs of very thick flannel trousers, whose bottoms were tucked into as many huge boots, which, instead of being drawn well up their owners' thighs, hung in folds about their ankles, and glittered in the sunshine, where they were well specked with bright fish scales.
 
Higher up Lance looked upon four pairs of very short braces, hitched over big bone buttons, and holding the aforesaid trousers close up under their wearers' armpits. The rest of the costume consisted of caps, home-made, and of fur formerly worn by unfortunate seals which had come too near a boat instead of seeking safety in one of the wave-washed caves round the point.
 
"Hi! Old Poltree!" shouted Lance, as he drew near, "where's Hezz?"
 
The broadest man present raised his head a little, screwed it round, and unfolding his arms, set one at liberty to give three thrusts downward of a hand which was of the same colour as all that could be seen of a very hairy face—mahogany.
 
"Thankye," shouted Lance, turning off to the left, and the big man folded his arms again and looked seaward, the others not having stirred.
 
Lance's turn to the left led him to a steep descent all zigzag—a way to the shore that a stranger would have attacked like a bear and gone down backwards; but Lance was no stranger, and the precipitous nature of the way did not deter him, for he descended in a series of jumps from stone to stone, till he finished with a drop of about ten or a dozen feet into a bed of sand lying at the mouth of a wave-scooped hollow, from which came strange moans and squeaks, the latter painfully shrill, the former deepening at times into a roar.
 
The said stranger would have imagined that a person had fallen from the cliff and was lying somewhere below, badly broken and wanting help; but there was nothing the matter. It was only Hezz, or more commonly "Hezzerer," in three syllables, and he had been busy at work putting a patch on the bottom of a clumsy upturned boat which, as he put it, "lived in the cave," and he was now daubing his new patch with hot tar from a little three-legged iron kettle held in his left hand.
 
But this does not account for the groans and squeaks.
 
These were produced from the youth's throat. In fact, Hezz was singing over his work, though it did not sound very musical at the time, for something was broken; but it was only Hezz's voice, and it was only the previous night that Old Poltree, his father, had said to Billy Poltree, another of the big fisherman's offspring, "Yo' never know wheer to have him now, my son: one minute he's hoarse as squire's Devon bull, and next he's letting go like the pig at feeding time."
 
At the sound of the dull thuds made by Lance's feet in the sand, Hezz Poltree whisked himself round and held his tar-kettle and brush out like a pair of balances to make him turn, and showed a good-looking young mahogany face—that is to say, it was paler than his father's, and not so ruddy and polished.
 
"Hullo, Master—Lance," he said, widening his mouth and showing his white teeth, joining in the laughter as the visitor threw himself down on the sand and roared.
 
"Whisked himself round and held his tar-kettle and brush out like a pair of balances."
"I can't help it, Master—Lance."
 
"Try again," cried the new-comer, wiping the tears from his eyes.
 
"I do try," growled the boy, beginning once more in a deep bass, and then ending in a treble squeak. "There's somethin' got loose in my voice. 'Tarn't my fault. S'pose it's a sort o' cold."
 
"Never mind, gruff un. But I didn't know the boat was being mended. I wanted to go out fishing, and the pitch isn't dry."
 
"That don't matter," growled Hezz, setting down his kettle and brush, and catching up a couple of handfuls of dry sand, which he dashed over the shiny tar. "Come on."
 
Lance came on in the way of helping to turn the clumsy boat over on its keel; then it was spun round so as to present its bows to the sea; a block was placed underneath, another a little way off, and the two boys skilfully ran it down the steep sandy slope till it was half afloat, when they left it while they went back to the natural boat-house for the oars, hitcher, and tackle.
 
"Got any bait?" said Lance.
 
"Heaps," came in a growl. Then in a squeak—"Thought you'd come down, so I got some wums—lugs and rags, and there's four broken pilchards in the maund, and a couple o' dozen sand-eels in the coorge out yonder by the buoy."
 
"Are there any bass off the point?"
 
"Few. Billy saw some playing there 'smorning, but p'raps they won't take."
 
"Never mind; let's try," said Lance eagerly. "Look sharp; I must be back in time for dinner."
 
"Lots o' time," growled Hezz, as he loaded himself up with the big basket, into which he had tumbled the coarse brown lines and receptacles of bait, including a scaly piece of board with four damaged pilchards laid upon it and a sharp knife stuck in the middle. "You carry the oars and boat-hook," came in a squeak.
 
They hurried down to the boat, and were brought back to the knowledge that four pairs of eyes were watching them from a hundred feet overhead, by Old Poltree roaring out as if addressing some one a mile at sea—
 
"You stopped that gashly leak proper, my son?"
 
"Iss, father," cried Hezz, in a shrill squeak, as he dumped down his load.
 
 
Lance thrust in the oars and hitcher and sprang in, after giving the boat a thrust; and as a little wave came in and floated her, Hezz ran her out a bit farther and sprang in too, thrust an oar over the stern, and sculled the craft out, fish-tail fashion, to where a black keg did duty for a buoy. Here he kept the boat's head while Lance leaned over the side to unhitch a piece of line and draw a spindle-shaped wicker basket along the side to the stern, where he made it fast to a ring bolt, the movement sending a score or so of eely-looking silvery fish gliding over one another and flashing by the thin osiers of which the basket was formed.
 
Then each seized an oar and pulled right away to get round the rocky buttress which was continued outward in a few detached rocks, that stood up boldly, to grow smaller farther out, and farther, till only showing as submerged reefs over which the sea just creamed and foamed.
 
It was out here that the tide ran swiftly, a favourite spot for the bass to play, and as they approached the familiar spot Lance handed his oar to his sturdy companion, while he took one of the lines, laid the hook and lead ready, and then drew the coorge in, opened a wicker trap-door in the top, inserted his hand, closed the lid again, and with deft fingers hooked the silvery writhing fish, popped it overboard, and let the line run out with the tide, while Hezz kept the boat carefully, as nearly as he could, in one place.
 
"There they are, Master Lance," he cried. "Be on the look-out; they'll take that bait pretty sharp perhaps."
 
The lad was quite right, for hardly five minutes had elapsed before there was a snatch at the line, and something was hooked.
 
"Got him!" cried Lance, whose face was glowing with excitement. "Oh, why didn't Alfy come? I say, Hezz, he's a whopper. He does pull. Shall I let him run?"
 
 
"Gahn! no. Haul him in fast as you can, 'fore he gets off."
 
The tackle was coarse and strong, and there was no scientific playing attempted. It was plain, straightforward pully-hauly work, and in a very short time the transparent water astern seemed to be cut into flashing streaks by something silvery which was drawn in hand over hand, till, just as Lance was leaning over to get his fingers close to the end of the snood where the hook was tied, the water was splashed up into his face, and he sat up with a cry of disappointment, seeing only a streak of silver flashing in the sunshine, for the fish had gone.
 
"Never mind: bait again," squeaked Hezz.
 
"Bait again," cried Lance, imitating him. "What! with that hook? Look at it. Nearly straightened out. I wish you wouldn't have such nasty soft-roed things. Why, that was a fifteen pounder."
 
"Take another hook, Master Lance. Look sharp; look at 'em playing."
 
Lance put on a fresh hook, baited again, and sent the sand-eel gliding off along the rushing tide, which played among the rocks like a mill-stream, and waited excitedly for another snatch, but waited in vain.
 
"Don't pull," he said at last; "let the boat run out a bit."
 <............