At last the lunch or dinner was ended, and then there was plenty more to do and see. There was the old man sitting in his donkey-cart, very stupidly as Fred thought, driving it along in the shallow water; but when they came nearer they could see there were a couple of ropes dragging behind; and just as they came up, out drove the old man very slowly, and the two ropes at the tail of the cart dragged forth a long shrimping-net, in which, for the first time, Fred saw hundreds upon hundreds of the curious-looking crustaceans crawling about, black and ugly, and in company with numbers of little silvery fish, which the old man threw out, whereupon they shuffled their little bodies down out of sight in the wet sand. Fred was about to rake them out again, but a word of warning restrained him, for they were the little sticklebacks of the sea, only their prickles made wounds of a poisonous nature that were a long time getting well.
Mr Inglis bought a basketful of the shrimps, although Fred said they were black ones and not good; but he changed his mind when they came up for tea, hot and red, and steaming from cook’s saucepan.
Then the old man drove in again to his shrimping, and our party stopped to examine the jelly-fish, like glass paper-weights, which were left upon the sand, while Mr Inglis pointed out two or three which had been left by the morning tide, and were now dried up to a thin, filmy skin. There was plenty to see. On the cliffs there was samphire in abundance, which they could easily gather, without hanging half-way down like Shakespeare’s samphire-gatherer. They picked a good bunch for cook to pickle; and collected so many things of all sorts and kinds that Papa at last cried, “Hold, enough!” for poor Tom would never be able to get everything home. Pockets, baskets, handkerchiefs, even thing was full. There were perforated stones; shells of all kinds; sea-weeds; dry star-fish; pieces of jet; bright pebbles; smooth pearly pieces of oyster-shell; tiny pebbles bright and glistening; in short, such a collection of treasures that Mr Inglis looked at his watch and declared it was time to go, for they would have to travel slowly on account of the live specimens. One thing remained to do, and that was to fill the great stone bottle, brought on purpose, with water for the new aquarium.
“Gluggle, gluggle—blob, blob,” went the big bottle as the air rushed out, displaced by the salt-water, till the great thing was full, securely corked, and deposited in the car. Tom’s nose-bag was taken off, his bit replaced, the boys mounted, for they were too tired to walk along the sands, and they began their noiseless journey homewards, where they arrived just as the sun was beginning to sink behind the hills, and turning everything to burnished gold.
Chapter Seven.
Lost in the Woods.
“Whoo-oo-oo-oop!” sang out Philip Inglis.
“Hoop—hoop—hoop!” shouted Fred as loud as he could.