A Fight

And then I own I clean lost my temper, and, leaving my work, I went to him and dealt him a blow that sent him and his stool to the ground. Whereupon he sprang to his feet, and came at me tooth and nail, as you may say, butting me with his head, and grappling me, seeking to throw me by main force. He was very muscular, as I have said, and he came very near to effecting his purpose with me; but I shook him off, and being longer in the arms than he, and possessor of a little more science, I contrived to ward off his blows until he was pretty tired, and then dealt him a stroke which fairly knocked the wind out of him. He sat on the ground for some time looking about him in a dazed and stupid way, and presently, when he was somewhat collected, he said, "You give me a rare good 'un that time, master," and went on cheerfully: "You do look comical with your nose a-swelling."

I was already aware that something was amiss with that very prominent feature, and I might have felt aggrieved at this allusion to it but for the good-tempered manner in which Billy spoke. It was plain that he had quite lost his ill-humour, and bore me no malice for the beating I had given him; indeed, he appeared to think of me all the more highly because of it. But I was exceeding vexed with myself for losing my temper over such a trifle, and when we were sitting together by and by, bathing our wounds, I spoke very solemnly about it, saying that it was nothing less than sinful, after the mercies that had been vouchsafed to us, our preservation from manifold dangers by land and sea, to give way to our angry passions and fight each other with hate in our hearts. Billy heard me patiently for a while, and subdued his naturally jocund countenance to a decent solemnity; but presently he burst forth with a laugh, and said, "Lor, master, how you do talk! What's a round of fisticuffs and a black eye or two? I got a walloping and deserved it, and you and me will be all the better friends," which I believe we were.

Fishing

Now that our heavy labours in building our hut and securing our supply of food were over, we had leisure to indulge ourselves in lighter and more sportive avocations. We practised diligently with our arrows at the running man, and greatly improved ourselves in shooting: and we also began to consider whether we could not catch some of the fish which came about the coast sometimes in great numbers, particularly where the water was deep and big rocks lay near the surface. We usually had intimation of the arrival of a shoal of fish by the unwonted number of sea-birds we saw flying low and diving into the sea, and indeed gorging themselves. Billy said he had often fished for tiddlebacks in the ditches near his home, though he seldom caught any, and I myself had some angling in our country streams; and our only difficulty being hooks, for we had lines in plenty, made of that fibre of which I have spoken, we set our wits to work to invent hooks, Billy saying what a pity it was we hadn't even a bent pin. We did devise after a time hooks of various sizes, made out of the bones of small birds, and then nothing would satisfy us but we must have a gaff, which we made of tough wood hardened in fire and greased with pork fat, and also a landing-net, which we made of fibres stretched basket-wise on a frame of bent wood. Armed with these implements, and with lines and rods, and bits of shellfish for bait, we went down to the sea and fished from rocks that stood out of the water at low tide, and were little more than covered at high. We did not have very much success, the hooks being easily broken, and I remember one of the first fish we caught made us very ill, so that for some time after we thought no more of this addition to our food. But after a while we determined to try again, and it came into our minds that we had seen the natives of the island we stayed on catching fish with spears, which manner we had not thought of at first, the hook and line being the English way. Accordingly we made some light wooden spears, or rather harpoons, and with these in our hands we stood on the rocks until we saw fish that took our fancy, and then flung our spears at them, as we had seen the natives do. We missed a great many times, for it was not often that we had the chance to throw our spears perpendicularly straight, and except when we could, we were not able for a great while to take good aim, because we did not allow for that strange effect water has of making things appear to be in a different place from where they are.[[1]] We should have been in great danger of losing our spears had we not foreseen this want of success, and attached a thin line to each of them, which we held when we made our cast. After many disappointments, and diligent practice, we contrived to make the needful allowance for the apparent bending of the harpoons, or rather their turning aside from the straight path as soon as they entered the water, and indeed we became fairly dexterous, and could depend on getting a good basket of fish whenever we chose. Our first experience having made us wary, we were careful not to eat freely of any fish until we had proved whether it was good for food, and the course of this proving was somewhat painful to us, for we found that certain fish, even in the smallest portions, caused sickness and giddiness. But after a time we learnt to know the wholesome from the unwholesome, and then we often had fish at our meals, broiled, baked, or boiled, and we cured a quantity, both with salt and with smoke, against the time when they should not be so easily got.