We were seated on the Head, high above the sea, watching the fleet of punts come from the Mad Mull grounds and from the nets along shore, for it was evening. Jack had told me much of the lore of lobster-catching and squid-jigging. Of winds and tides and long breakers he had given me solemn warnings—and especially of that little valley down which the gusts came, no man knew from where. He had imparted certain secrets concerning the whereabouts of gulls’ nests and juniper-berry patches, for I had won his confidence. I had been informed that Uncle Tom Bull’s punt was in hourly danger of turning over because her spread of canvas was “scandalous” great, that Bill Bludgell kept the “surliest dog t’ the harbour,” that the “goaats was wonderful hard t’ find” in the fog, that a brass bracelet would cure salt-water sores on the wrists, that—I cannot recall it all. He had “mocked” a goat, a squid, a lamb, old George Walker at prayer, and “Uncle” Ruth berating “Aunt” Simon for leaving the splitting-table unclean.
Then he sang this song, in a thin, sweet treble, which was good to hear:
“‘Way down on Pigeon Pond Island,
When daddy comes home from swilin’,[[6]]
(Maggoty fish hung up in the air,
Fried in maggoty butter)!
Cakes and tea for breakfast,
Pork and duff for dinner,
Cakes and tea for supper,
When daddy comes home from swilin’.”
He asked me riddles, thence he passed to other questions, for he was a boy who wondered, and wondered, what lay beyond those places which he could see from the highest hill. I described a street and a pavement, told him that the earth was round, defined a team of horses, corrected his impression that a church organ was played with the mouth, and denied the report that the flakes and stages of New York were the largest in the world. The boys of the outports do not play games—there is no time, and at any rate, the old West Country games have not come down to this generation with the dialect, so I told him how to play tag, hide-and-go-seek and blind man’s buff, and proved to him that they might be interesting, though I had to admit that they might not be profitable in certain cases.
“Some men,” said I, at last, “have never seen the sea.”
He looked at me and laughed his unbelief. “Sure,” said he, “not a hundred haven’t?”
“Many more than that.”
“’Tis hard t’ believe, zur,” he said. “Terrible hard.”
“We were silent while he thought it over.
“What’s the last harbour in the world?” he asked.