CHAPTER XII
‘Vous êtes tous les deux ténébreux et discrets:
Homme, nul n’a sondé le fond de tes abîmes,
O mer, nul ne connaît tes richesses intimes,
Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets!’
Seated on the after cabin-top near the wheel, Sam Prawle made known to us the arcana of barging. The comparison with yachting was to the disadvantage of yachting, and we felt that he would not have ventured to take this line had we still owned the Playmate. On the other hand, we were gratified at being treated with frankness as members of his profession.
‘I don’t reckon,’ said Sam Prawle, ‘there ain’t nawthen as good as bargin’, same as on the water, my meanin’ is. Ye see, yaou gets home fairly frequent, yaou ain’t got no long sea-passages to make, yaou can see a bit o’ life in the taowns, and ef yaou’ve got a good little ould barge and freights is anyways good ye can make a tidy bit o’ money.
‘Then agin, in respect o’ livin’, most all barges carries a gun, and there’s some I could name as carries oyster drudges; then there’s a bit o’ fishin’ to be done, and accordin’ to where yaou’re brought up there may be winkles, or mussels, or cockles, and, as I says, chance time a few oysters; so my meanin’ is the livin’ is good.
‘A course that don’t do for it to be knaown ye carries a drudge no more than that do to be seen pickin’ up oysters nit winkles in some places, same as on the Corporation’s graounds in the Maldon River. But outside them graounds that does no detriment. I dessay yaou remember some time back abaout they chaps what was caught pickin’ up winkles in the Maldon River. Well, the judge give it agin them, for a course the Corporation has all the fishin’ rights above them beacons. But the most amusingest part was, they chaps’ lawyer tried to make aout a winkle warn’t a fish, but a wild animal. Yes, yes; they lost right enough.
‘Us allus used to live wonnerful well on the ould Kate, for I had a mate, Bill Summers, who was a masterpiece at shoot’n’. He were suthen strorng, he were, and had masterous great limbs on ’im, but none the more for that he were a wonnerful easy-spoken chap. I’ve knaowed he caught a many times by same as keepers and that, but he allus had some excuse or spoke ’em fair. Leastways, he den’t never git into trouble.