until
after dark, you worry yourself, and having no one to talk to, sit here
wondering and wondering until you fancy all sorts of things. Now, if I
go out in the evening, and I don't come back in the morning at the
hour you expect, you see that it is fine and bright, and that there is
nothing to make you uneasy; or if you do feel fidgety, you can walk
down to the beach and talk to the boatmen and fishermen, and of course
they can tell you at once that there's nothing to worry about, and
very likely point the boat out to you in the distance."

"Well, Ralph, perhaps that is so, although I own I never looked at it
in that light before."

CHAPTER III.

RUN DOWN.

"There's a nice breeze," Ralph said as he joined the fisherman at the
appointed hour.

"Yes, it's just right; neither too light nor too heavy. It's rather
thick, and I shouldn't be surprised if we get it thicker; but that
again don't matter." For in those days not one ship plowed the waters
of our coast for every fifty that now make their way along it. There
were no steamers, and the fear of collision was not ever in the minds
of those at sea.

"Where's Bill, Joe?"

"The young scamp!" the fisherman said angrily. "Nothing will do for
him but to go a-climbing up the cliffs this morning; and just after
you left us, news comes that the young varmint had fallen down and
twisted his foot, and doctor says it will be a fortnight afore he can
put a boot on. Then the old woman began a-crying over him; while, as I
told her, if any one ought to cry it would be me, who's got to hire
another boy in his place to do his work. A touch of the strap would be
the best thing for him, the young rascal!"

"You are not going to take another boy out to-night are you, Joe?"

"No, Master Conway, I knows you like a-doing things. You have been out
enough with me to know as much about it as Bill, and after all there
ain't a very great deal to do. The trawl ain't a heavy one, and as I
am accustomed to work it with Bill I can do it with you."

The Heartsease was a good-sized half-decked boat of some twenty-six
feet long and eight feet beam. She was very deep, and carried three
tons of stone ballast in her bottom. She drew about six feet of water.
She had a lot of freeboard, and carried two lug-sails and a small
mizzen.

They got in the small boat and rowed off to her.

"There was no call for you to bring that basket, Master Conway. I know
you are fond of a fish fried jus