“Some bait, Main Brace! Do you hear, my lad? Be lively, boy, and get some bait; and then overhaul the Alice, and stand by to be ready when I come down. We’ll go a-fishing to-day,—do you hear, my boy? And we’ll have a jolly time,—do you hear that? So be lively now, and be off with your plum-duff head and your sausage legs. I tell you, away, away! for we’ll go a-sailin’. Away, away! for we’ll go a-sailin’, a-sailin’, a-sailin’. Away, away! for we’ll go a-sailin’,—a-sailin’ on the sea.”
Without another word the sausage legs made off with the plum-duff head, which had no sooner got outside the door than it began to let out in dislocated fragments, from a mouth that gradually expanded until it reached from ear to ear, “Away, away! we’ll go a-fishin’, a-fishin’, a-fishin’; away, away! we’ll go a-sailin’, a-sailin’, a-sailin’; away, away! we’ll all be jolly, jolly, jolly,—we’ll all be jolly”; and so on until the sausage legs had carried the plum-duff head and the refrain together so far down among the trees, towards the water, that all the other “jollys” and the sailin’s and the “fishin’s,” and the rest of it, were blown clean away by the wind.
And off went the Captain, too, hurrying up to the top of the hill behind the cottage, as if the cosey little thing was all afire, and the dear old soul was running up for help; and when he reached the top of the hill, he began swinging round his old tarpaulin hat, making the long blue ribbons fairly whistle and speak, as if they would say, “Old man, old man, stop a bit, and take breath!—can’t you now? and say, what’s this all about, for goodness’ sake!”
The Ancient Mariner becomes excited, and Main Brace makes an effort.
But the old man knew well enough himself what it was all about; for he was signalling his little friends; and every circle of his big arm, and every shake of his long gray beard, and every swing of his old tarpaulin hat, seemed to sing out, “Hurrah, hurrah, for a jolly day! hurrah, hurrah, my children gay! hurrah, hurrah, let’s up and away, upon the bright blue waters!”
By and by the children caught sight of the old tarpaulin hat and the blue ribbons and the Captain himself, all in this state of violent excitement; and down they bore at once upon the ancient mariner, as if he were a regular bluff-bowed old East Indiaman, full of golden ingots, and they were clipper-built, copper-fastened, rakish fore-and-afters of the piratical pattern.
“Heyday!” (the old man never thought he had begun until he had thrown off a heyday or so), “heyday, my hearties!” said the ancient mariner, as the children came up to him,—“heyday, my dears! keep on that same course before the wind, and you’ll fetch up in the right port”; and so, without further ado, he hurried “my hearties” down to the beach, and aboard the yacht; and then very soon Main Brace (whose mouth had never left off expanding at the prospect of “a fishin’” and “a sailin’” and “a jolly day” generally) had the anchor away; and then the Captain spread the white sails to the lively breeze; and there never was, since the world began, a merrier little party, in a merrier little craft, afloat upon blue water on a merrier day. Indeed, the day was so merry, and the craft was so merry, and the waves were so merry as they came leaping round the yacht, and the wind was so merry as it bulged out the sail and went whistling through the rigging, and the little party in the yacht were so merry, and everything and everybody was so merry, that it would be strange indeed if the fish were not merry too; and the finny creatures played round the pretty hooks, too merry by half to touch them; and then they came merrily up, and poked their heads out close to the top of the water, and stared at the merry-makers in the yacht, and they seemed to be whispering to one another, “O, what a jolly lot of coves they are, to be sure! O, don’t they wish they may catch us?—don’t they though?” and then they dropped down again to look at the pretty hooks; but only the sober-sided ones that had no idea of being merry went near enough to bite, and these were surely bitten in return; for, if the hook once got into their red gills, they found themselves jerked up before they could say Lobster, and heard merry voices shouting round them, to their great astonishment.
And of these sober-sided fishes who were so unfortunate as to have no idea of being merry, the Captain and his little friends caught as many as they wanted; and then the Captain said to his little friends, “Put away your fishing-tackle now, and come down below into the little cabin, and I’ll surprise you.” And, sure enough, he did surprise them,—quite as much, perhaps, as if some fairy queen had come, and called them to a fairy banquet; as much indeed, perhaps, as if they had themselves suddenly been turned to fairies, and were doing something that was never even dreamed of by mortal child before; for, while they had been fishing, Main Brace had, by direction of the Captain, been building up a fire in the little stove, and in the very centre of the cabin he had set out a little table, and upon the little table there was spread the whitest little cloth, and on the cloth were set all round the daintiest little plates and knives and forks, and the neatest little napkins, and the cunningest little cups, that were ever seen.