Thus, though their daily toil was severe, and carried on under summer’s sun, or autumn’s gales, and winter’s rain and sleet, they themselves were ever cheerful and contented, and seldom failed to return home with empty creels and well-filled purses.
Paul Trefusis might thus have been able to lay by a store for the time when the dame could no longer trudge over the country as she had hitherto done, and he unable to put off with nets or lines to catch fish; but often for weeks together the gales of that stormy coast prevented him from venturing to sea, and the vegetables and potatoes produced in his garden, and the few fish he and Michael could catch in the harbour, were insufficient to support their little household, so that at the end of each year Paul found himself no richer than at the beginning.
While Nelly and her grandmother and the other women of the village were employed in selling the fish, the men had plenty of occupation during the day in drying and mending their nets, and repairing their boats, while some time was required to obtain the necessary sleep of which their nightly toil had deprived them. Those toilers of the sea were seldom idle. When bad weather prevented them from going far from the coast, they fished with lines, or laid down their lobster-pots among the rocks close inshore, while occasionally a few fish were to be caught in the waters of their little harbour. Most of them also cultivated patches of ground on the sides of the valley which opened out at the further end of the gorge, but, except potatoes, their fields afforded but precarious crops.
Paul and Michael had performed most of their destined task: the net had been spread along the rocks to dry, and two or three rents, caused by the fisherman’s foes, some huge conger or cod-fish, had been repaired. A portion of their fish had been sold to Abel Mawgan, and the remainder had been salted for their own use, when Paul, who had been going about his work with less than his usual spirit, complained of pains in his back and limbs. Leaving Michael to clean out the boat and moor her, and to bring up the oars and other gear, he went into the cottage to lie down and rest.
Little perhaps did the strong and hardy fisherman suppose, as he threw himself on his bunk in the little chamber where he and Michael slept, that he should never again rise, and that his last trip on the salt sea had been taken—that for the last time he had hauled his nets, that his life’s work was done. Yet he might have had some presentiment of what was going to happen as he sailed homewards that morning, when he resolved to tell Michael about his parents, and gave him the account of his father’s death which has been described.
The young fisher boy went on board the “Wild Duck,” and was busily employed in cleaning her out, thinking over what he had heard in the morning. Whilst thus engaged, he saw a small boat coming down from the head of the harbour towards him, pulled by a lad somewhat older than himself.
“There is Eban Cowan, the miller’s son. I suppose he is coming here. I wonder what he wants?” he thought. “The ‘Polly’ was out last night, and got a good haul, so it cannot be for fish.”
Michael was right in supposing that Eban Cowan was coming to their landing-place. The lad in the punt pulled up alongside the “Wild Duck.”
“How fares it with you, Michael?” he said, putting out his hand. “You did well this morning, I suspect, like most of us. Did Abel Mawgan buy all your ‘catch’? He took the whole of ours.”
“No, granny and Nelly started off to Helston with their creels full, as they can get a much better price than Mawgan will give,” answered Michael.