I'll give her a swab out while you're gone, and we'll take a good
reach out to where the bass are playing off the point, and get a few. I
see you've brought some sand eels."

"So we will, Tom. I should like to take home a few bass."

"So you shall, my lad," said the sailor, who had stumped forward to the
fore-locker to get out a big sponge; and he was rolling up his sleeves
over a pair of big, brown, muscular arms ornamented with blue mermaids,
initials, a ship in full sail, and a pair of crossed cutlasses
surmounted by a crown, as Aleck stepped lightly upon the gunwale, sprang
thence on to the steps, and went up, to run the gauntlet of the little
crowd of boys, who greeted him with something like a tempest of hoots
and jeers.

But the lads fell back as, with a smile full of the contempt he felt,
Aleck pressed forward, marched through them with his hands in his
pockets, and smiled more broadly as he heard from below a growling shout
of warning from the sailor announcing what he would do if the boys
didn't mind, the result being that they followed the well-grown lad at a
little distance all along the pier, throwing after him not bad fish and
fragments, which would, if well-aimed, have sullied the lad's clothes,
but what an Irishman would have called dirty words, mingled with threats
about what they would give him one of these fine days. The feud was
high between the Rockabie boys and the bright active young lad from the
Den, for no further reason than has already been stated, and the dislike
had increased greatly during the past year, though it had never
culminated in any encounter worse than the throwing of foul missiles
after the boat when it was pushed off for home.

Perhaps it was something in the air which made the Rockabie boys more
pugnacious and their threats more dire. Possibly they may have felt
more deeply stung by the contempt of Aleck, who strode carelessly along
the rough stone pier, whistling softly, with his hands in his pockets,
till he reached the slope and began to ascend towards where the
fishermen leaned in a row over the rail, just as if after a soaking
night they had hung themselves out in the sun to dry.

And now it was that the boys hung back and Aleck felt that he could
afford to pay no heed to the young scrubs who followed him, for there
were plenty of hearty hails and friendly smiles to greet him from the
rough seamen.

"Morn', Master Aleck."

"Morn', sir. How's the cap'n?" from