When Spivin observed that Luke was about to pull out the last loop that held the bag, he shouted in a loud voice of alarm—
“Hallo! Billy, catch hold of this rope, quick!”
Billy turned like a flash of light and seized the rope held out to him. The momentary distraction was enough. Before he could understand the joke the bottom of the bag opened, the ton-and-a-half, more or less, of fish burst forth, spread itself over the deck like an avalanche, swept Billy off his little legs, and almost overwhelmed him, to the immense delight of Spivin, who impudently bent down and offered to help him to rise.
“Come here, Billy, and I’ll help you up,” he said, kindly, as the tail of a skate flipped across the boy’s nose and almost slid into his mouth.
Billy made no reply, but, clearing himself of fish, jumped up, seized a gaping cod by the gills, and sent it all alive and kicking straight into Spivin’s face. The aim was true. The man was blinded for a few moments by the fish, and his mates were well-nigh choked with laughter.
“Come, come—no sky-larking!” growled the skipper. “Play when your work is done, boys.”
Thus reproved, the crew began to clear away the mass of weeds and refuse, after which all hands prepared the trawl to be ready for going down again, and then they set to work to clean and sort the fish. This was comparatively easy work at that season of the year, but when winter gales and winter frosts sweep over the North Sea, only those who suffer it know what it is to stand on the slimy pitching deck with naked and benumbed hands, disembowelling fish and packing them in small oblong boxes called “trunks,” for the London market. And little do Londoners think, perhaps, when eating their turbot, sole, plaice, cod, haddock, whiting, or other fish, by what severe night-work, amid bitter cold, and too often tremendous risks, the food has been provided for them.
It is not, however, our purpose to moralise just now, though we might do so with great propriety, but to tell our story, on which some of the seemingly trifling incidents of that night had a special bearing. One of those incidents was the cutting of a finger. Ned Spivin, whose tendency towards fun and frolic at all times rendered him rather slap-dash and careless, was engaged in the rather ignoble work of cutting off skates’ tails—these appendages not being deemed marketable. This operation he performed with a hatchet, but some one borrowed the hatchet for a few minutes, and Spivin continued the operation with his knife. One of the tails being tough, and the knife blunt, the impatient man used violence. Impatience and violence not unfrequently result in damage. The tail gave way unexpectedly, and Spivin cut a deep gash in his left hand. Cuts, gashes, and bruises are the frequent experience of smacksmen. Spivin bound up the gash with a handkerchief, and went on with his work.
Before their work was quite done, however, a gale, which had been threatening from the nor’-west, set in with considerable force, and rapidly increased, so that the packing of the last few trunks, and stowing them into the hold, became a matter not only of difficulty but of danger.
By that time the sky had clouded over, and the lantern in the rigging alone gave light.