“Well, I’ve hearn a right smart of your exploits, Mr. Harris, in our meetin’s down here on the bay,” said “Blair,” “but I don’t remember ov hearin’ you tell about that.”
“The fact is,” said Billy, “it’s a little out o’ the usual run o’ things, and it’s not every one that I care about telling it to. Some people are so hard to make believe, that there’s no satisfaction in telling them anything; seeing it’s you, though, Lewis, I don’t mind relating that little spree—’specially as the tide won’t serve us up the narrows for some time yet, and Mr. ——, there, seems inclined to do a little napping. Well, to begin at the beginning,” he continued, as old “Blair” assumed the attitude of an attentive listener at the head of his canoe, “it’s just seven years ago the tenth day of this here last month, that I went down to the drumming-ground off the salt-works to try my luck among the thumpers. I know’d the gents were about, for I’d heard ’em drumming the day before while I was out rocking on the outer eend o’ Mills’s; so I got everything ready the over night, and by an hour by sun the next morning I had arrived upon the ground, ready for action. For the first half-hour or so I done nothing. Sometimes an old chanu’ler or a greedy cat would pay his respects to my bait in a way that would make my heart jump up into my mouth, and get me kind o’ excited like, but that was all. Devil the drum ever condescended to favour me with a nibble. A’ter a while I begun to get tired o’ that kind o’ sport, and concluded that I’d just up-stake and shove a little nearer in shore. Just as I was preparing to pull in my line, though, I spied a piece o’ pine bark, ’bout twenty yards off, floating down towards me. ‘Now,’ says I, ‘gents, I’ll give you until that bit of bark passes my line, to bite in, and if you don’t think proper to do it in that time, you may breakfast as you can—I’ll not play the waiting-boy any longer.’ Well, the piece of bark got right off against my line without my getting so much as a nibble, and I begun wind up; but I hadn’t got more’n a foot or so o’ the line outer the water, when I felt something give me a smart tug. At first I thought it might be a crab or an oyster-shell that I’d hooked, but presently my line begun to straighten under a strong, steady pull, and then I know’d what was about. I give one sangorous jerk, and the dance commenced.”
“What was it—a drum?” inquired old “Blair,” a little eagerly.
“Yes, a drum, and a regular scrouger, at that. I wish you had only been there, Lewis, to see the fun. Of all the hard fish to conquer, that ever I took in hand, that chap was the Major. I got him alongside at last, though, and lifted him in. I then run a rope through his gills, and sent him overboard agin, makin’ the two eends of the line fast to a staple in the stern o’ the boat, just behind me.
“Well, this put me in first-rate spirits, and out went my line agin in the twinklin’ of an eye. Before it had time to touch the bottom, it was jerked through my hand for the matter of a yard or so, and then cum another interestin’ little squabble. Just as I got that chap to the top o’ the water, ’way went t’other line!”
“My patience!” exclaimed old “Blair,” who had probably never taken a drum in the whole course of his life, “two goin’ at once?”
“Yes, two at once.”
“And did you save ’em both, Mr. Harris?”
“Save ’em!” said Billy; “did you ever know me to lose a fish arter I’d once struck him?”
“Well, exceptin’ that big rock this mornin’,” replied “Blair,” as a scarcely perceptible smile crept over his ebony visage, “I don’t remember as I ever did.”