"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! _drop me a line_."

My grandfather kept his fishing-lines in a little skivet under the
stern-sheets. But not a trace of bait had he on board. If he had,
he was too much a-tremble to bait a hook.

"HENDRY WATTY! HENDRY WATTY! _drop me a line, or I'll know why!_"

My poor grandfather by this had picked up his paddles again, and was
rowing like mad to get quit of the neighbourhood, when something or
somebody gave three knocks--_thump, thump, thump!_--on the bottom of
the boat, just as you would knock on a door. The third thump fetched
Hendry Watty upright on his legs. He had no more heart for
disobeying, but having bitten his pipe-stem in half by this time--his
teeth chattered so--he baited his hook with the broken bit and
flung it overboard, letting the line run out in the stern-notch.
Not halfway had it run before he felt a long pull on it, like the
sucking of a dog-fish.

"_Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! pull me in_."

Hendry Watty pulled in hand over fist; and in came the lead
sinker over the notch, and still the line was heavy; be pulled and
he pulled, and next, all out of the dead waste of the night, came
two white hands, like a washerwoman's, and gripped hold of the
stern-board; and on the left of these two hands, on the little
finger, was a silver ring, sunk very deep in the flesh. If this was
bad, worse was the face that followed--a great white parboiled face,
with the hair and whiskers all stuck with chips of wood and seaweed.
And if this was bad for anybody, it was worse for my grandfather, who
had known Archelaus Rowett before he was drowned out on the Shivering
Grounds, six years before.

Archelaus Rowett climbed in over the stern, pulled the hook with the
bit of pipe-stem out of his cheek, sat down in the stern-sheets,
shook a small crayfish out of his whiskers, and said very coolly--

"If you should come across my wife--"

That was all my grandfather stayed to hear. At the sound of
Archelaus's voice he fetched a yell, jumped clean over the side of
the boat and swam for dear life. He swam and swam, till by the bit
of the moon he saw the Gull Rock close ahead. There were lashin's of
rats on the Gull Rock, as he knew: but he was a good deal surprised
at the way they were behaving: for they sat in a row at the water's
edge and fished, with their tails let down into the sea for
fishing-lines: and their eyes were like garnets burning as they
looked at my grandfather