"Well, I wishes 'ee luck then."
We all wished luck to the Shooting Star—to that cranky old boatload of pluck, ill-luck, and ancient desperation.
Said Uncle Jake: "I'd rather see they come in wi' a boatload o' herring than any boat along the beach. 'Tis a purty craft an' a purty crew, but they du desarve it."
So said we all. 'Twas the least payment we could make for our entertainment.
As soon as they were hauled up, Joe Barker lit his pipe, and, instead of going to bed, he went west along the shore, and carried up and sifted sand till dawn.
"Jest what he be fit for now," Uncle Jake remarked. "That'll get 'en his bread an' baccy far sooner'n drifting for herring in thic Shuteing Star."
But if we only could have looked into the Shooting Star at sea. The Shooting Star of Seacombe!
6
"Us got 'em at last then!" so we tell one another. We have caught the catch of the season.
For three or four days the hauls had been fairly good. Elsewhere on the coast, the snow, sleet, wind and wrecks continued. Here alone, in Seacombe Bay, it got colder and colder, and the sea became calmer and sunnier. "Tis like old days," Uncle Jake said while he spliced a new cut-rope to the drifter. "The herring be come again, in bodies, and the price be up. Us'll hae 'em."