But Bob did not move. He stood there with his hands deep in his pockets and the water up to his knees still, the part where he was being deeper, and he kept on whistling softly to himself.
“Why can’t you look, Bob?” I said. “You can see the fishes quite plain.”
“I don’t want to see ’em,” he replied sulkily. “When are you going home?”
“Oh, not forever so long; not till tea-time. Here comes Big!”
Bob did not look round, but his ears seemed to twitch as the sound of our schoolmates’ heavy tread came over the stones, for he lumbered along at a trot with a big maund, as we called the baskets there, in one hand, a great landing-net in the other. But as Bigley came to the edge of the pool Bob waded out and said in a low quiet voice:
“Shall I carry the basket?”
We both stared, for in an ordinary way Bob would have shouted, “Here, give us hold of the net,” and snatched at it or anything else in his desire to take the lead.
“No, no,” cried Bigley, though. “You two chaps are visitors. You have the first go, Bob, and then let Sep Duncan try. But it’s no use yet.”
He was quite right; there was too much room for the fish to dart about, and so we stood here, and crept there, to watch them as they glided about among the swaying sea-weed, all brown and olive-green, and full of bladder-like pods to hold them up in the water. Sometimes there was a rush, and a swirl in the pool. At another time we could catch sight of the silvery side of some fish as it turned over and glided through the shoal. Then for a few minutes all would be perfectly still and calm—so still that it was hard to imagine that there was a fish left in the place.
And all the time the tide kept on retiring, and the water in the pool lowering, till all at once there was a tremendous rush, a great silvery fish flashed out into the air, and then fell flat upon its side, making the drops fly sparkling in the sun.