Then he hesitated: the place looked so dark and cold and forbidding, while without it was so light and bright and sunshiny.
“I sha’n’t go,” he muttered. “Let him laugh if he likes, and that Cornish fisher-boy as well. I don’t see why I should go into the nasty old cellar.”
Then he peered in, and thought that he would like to go in just a little way; and stretching out one leg he was about to set his foot down when there was a black shadow cast at his feet, a rushing noise, and something came quite close, uttered a harsh cry, and dashed off.
Arthur Temple bounded back into the broad sunshine with his heart beating painfully; and even when he saw that it was one of the great black fishing-birds that had dipped down and dashed off again he was not much better.
“I wish I were not so nervous!” he muttered; and he looked about hastily.
“I’m glad no one was here, though,” he added. “How Dick would have laughed! Now I’ll follow them in. No, I won’t. I’ll say I wanted to fish;” and snatching at this idea he ran down to the boat, got in, and arranging the line, gave the lead a swing and threw it seaward, so that it should fall in the deep channel among the rocks, where there was not the slightest likelihood of his getting a fish.
But it requires some skill to throw out lead attached to a fishing-line, especially when there are ten or twelve feet of line between the lead and the hook.
Hence it was then that when Arthur Temple swung the lead to and fro, and finally let it go seaward, there was a sharp tug and a splash, the lead falling into the water about a couple of yards from the stern, and the hook sticking tightly in the gunwale of the boat.
“Bother!” exclaimed Arthur angrily as he proceeded to haul the lead in, and then to extricate the hook, whose bait wanted rearranging, while the hook itself was a good deal opened out in drawing it from the wood.
He got all right at last, screwing up his face a good deal at having to replace the bait, and then stopping to wash his hands very carefully and wipe them upon his pocket-handkerchief. This done, he smelt his fingers.