The crew of the Barley Rig were a rough, weather-beaten looking set of men, and almost immediately, upon the boy’s arrival, they set to work, under the hoarsely bawled orders of Captain Hoeseason, setting the fisher craft’s great red sails. At last all was ready. Under a brisk breeze, that momentarily grew stronger, the trawler slipped out to sea.
“They’re a rough-looking lot on this craft,” observed Jack to Bill, as the Barley Rig began to toss about in a way that would have been trying to less experienced sailors.
“Yes, I’m glad you’ve got that money in your money-belt,” said Bill, referring to the American gold they carried. “They have none of them seen it, thank goodness, or we might have cause to worry.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” declared Jack. “They may be honest enough for all their rough looks. I imagine that the North Sea fishery doesn’t tend to make men very refined looking.”
“At all events it hasn’t had that effect on this crew,” laughed Bill.
At noon they were summoned, by the cook’s beating on a tin pan, to a dinner of fried fish and boiled potatoes. The little cabin where they ate it reeked of the fish that for years had formed the Barley Rig’s cargo, and was lighted, for it had no openings but the companionway above, by a swinging, smoking lamp of what was known among the fishermen as the “pot” variety. But it would have taken more than this to dull the keen edges of the boys’ appetites, whet to razor sharpness by the freshening wind.
The cook, an old, bent man, with a wild blue eye, stood by his rusty stove watching as they devoured what was set before them. Overhead they could hear the trample of feet and the occasional impact of a big wave as it broke in spray over the bow.
“It’s getting rougher,” remarked Jack.
“Seems to be,” agreed Bill; “this is a small boat to be out in a storm.”
“They say that the trawlers are fine sea boats,” declared Jack.