“I told him not to,” he said, in a suffocating voice. “I told him not to. I told him—”
He leaned against the wall, deathly sick, put his arms out feebly, and fell fainting into the traveller’s arms.
THE PEACEMAKER
The harbour was crowded with fishing boats, and fresh arrivals were coming in every few minutes. Until the entrance was reached they came scudding along with every appearance of haste, but then their mainsails came tumbling down to the deck, and the boats with sufficient way left on them moved easily over the still water, and felt their way to a berth. Small boats conveyed the fish to the quay, where embryo fishermen were appraising the catch with a wisdom beyond their years.
There was a glut of whiting. So many whiting, and going so cheaply that it was enough to make them bite their tails from sheer vexation. Small flat fish which slid away from their pile were carefully looked after and coaxed back with the toe of a sea-boot, but whiting slid away unnoticed until they vanished from mortal ken in the pockets of predatory urchins.
In the small market, a short, red-faced man with a scrubby beard walked in a disparaging fashion from heap to heap, using a favourite briar in lieu of a hammer to knock down such fish as found bidders. The latter were few and wary, and turning a deaf ear to eloquence expressed opinions distasteful to an auctioneer’s ear in crude English.
The sense of the meeting being against him, the auctioneer truckled to it, and coming to another heap consisting of a selection of the most undesirable fish that swim Britannia’s realm, gazed at it indignantly. There was a titter behind him, and he voiced his wrath impetuously.
“That’s Joe Gubbs’s catch,” he bawled. “S’elp me, I’d know that man’s luck anywhere.”
He turned the fish over scornfully with his foot, and, with a severe glance at the hapless Gubbs, moved away to something more saleable.
“Where d’ye get ’em from, Gubbs?” inquired an aggravating voice. “We never get such things in our nets. I’ve never seen some o’ them things afore.”