"Bless your heart, missie!" said an old fisherman whom Esther knew, because he often brought them fish and lobsters in his basket fresh from the sea, "they won't come to no harm. Bless you! boys allers will be boys, and 'tisn't no good fur to try and hold them back. Them's not the kind that hurts. You sit here and watch them comfortable like. They're as happy as kings, they are."
The old man spoke in the soft, broad way which Esther was getting to understand now, but which puzzled her at first, as it would puzzle little people if I were to write it down the way the old man spoke it. She rather liked the funny words and turns of expression now, and she enjoyed sitting by old Master Pollard, as she called him, watching the boys and listening to his tales, which he was always ready to tell when he had a listener.
The boys had a glorious morning, paddling and shrimping with some of the fisher lads of the place. They only returned to Esther when they were growing ravenous for their dinner.
She was glad to get them home quickly, driven by the pangs of hunger; and she told them that Master Pollard had said he would take them out fishing one of these days, and show them how the lobster-pots were set, and various other mysteries.
Esther knew something about lobster-pots, having been with the old man to visit his sometimes; so she rose in the estimation of her cousins, especially as some of the lads had told them that "old Pollard were once a smuggler himself, longago, when he was a lad," though this Esther was disposed indignantly to deny.
"Well, I hope he was, anyhow," said Puck; "I shall ask him to tell us all about it. I wonder if he knows all about the cave, and whether they pickled corpses up there in his time."
The boys would have gone down to the shore again after their early dinner, but their aunt had another suggestion to make.
"Mrs. Polperran has been in, and wants you all to go to the rectory for the afternoon, and have tea in the garden. I said I would send you all, so that you can make friends with your little playfellows."
"Who is Mrs. Poll-parrot?" asked Pickles, with a sly look in his eyes.
"Polperran, dear. Mr. Polperran is our clergyman, and his children are Esther's little friends, and will be your friends too."