Read Ebook: A Terrible Coward by Fenn George Manville

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Ebook has 378 lines and 17303 words, and 8 pages

"I've not made up my mind," said the young man coolly.

"Not made up your mind!" cried several.

"No," replied the bather.

"Why, you said just now as you would do it!" cried the man with his hands in his pockets.

"Ay, so he did," was chorused.

"Not I," said Harry quietly; "and if you will all clear off, and let me have my swim in peace, I shall be much obliged."

"Why, you are a coward, then," said the man with his hands in his pockets, and to show his disgust he began to sprinkle the boulders about with tobacco-juice.

"I suppose I am," said Harry Paul, smiling. "I can't help it. I suppose it is my nature."

"Bah!" growled the grey-haired man, who, as one of the oldest fishermen, was looked up to as an authority. "You aren't a coward, Master Harry; it's only 'cause you want to make a plucky effort, don't you? Just you make up your mind to do it, and you'd do it like a shot."

"I daresay I could," replied the young man; "but why should I?"

"Why should you!" sneered the man with his hands in his pockets; "why, 'cause every one does."

"Because everyone goes and risks his life just for the sake of gratifying his vanity," replied Harry Paul, "I don't see why I should go and do the same."

"Ah, now you're beginning to talk fine," growled the old fisherman, "and a-shoving your book-larning at us. Look here, young 'un; a lad as can't swim ain't--'cordin' to my ideas--hardly worth the snuff of a candle."

"I don't go so far as you do, Tom," said the young man, smiling; "but I do hold that every young fellow should be able to swim well, and so I learned."

"Yes, but you can't do the dive," said the man with his hands in his pockets mockingly.

"Oh, he's going to do it," said the old fisherman. "The water's just right, Master Harry. You go. Take my advice: you go. Just wait till the wave's coming well up, then fall into her, and out you come, and the current'll carry you out through the Shangles."

"And what the better shall I be if I do?" said the young man warmly.

"What the better, my lad!" said the old fellow, looking aghast. "Why, you'll ha' made quite a man o' yourself."

"But I shall have done no good whatever."

"Oh, yes, you would; oh, yes, you would," said the party, sagely shaking their heads and looking at one another.

"I don't see it," said Harry Paul. "If it was to do any one good, or to be of any benefit, perhaps I might try it; but I cannot see the common-sense of risking my life just because you people have made it a custom to jump off Carn Du."

As he spoke he ran down over the boulders, and plunged off a rock into the clear sea, his white figure being traceable against the olive brown sea-wrack waving far below, as he swam for some distance below the surface, and then rose, shook the water from his eyes, and struck out for the lugger lying becalmed in the offing.

The party of fishermen on shore stood growling together, and making unpleasant remarks about Harry Paul, whom they declared to be a terrible coward--all but old Tom Genna, who angrily took his part.

"He's not a bad 'un at heart, and I believe he's no coward," growled the old fellow.

"Then why don't he show as he ar'n't?" said the man with his hands in his pockets, places they never seemed to leave.

"Ah, that's what no one can't say!" growled old Tom, and sooner than hear his favourite swimming pupil condemned, he walked away, muttering that, "he'd give a half-crown silver piece any day to see Mas'r Harry do that theer dive better than Mark Penelly."

Meanwhile the latter had swum right out to the fishing lugger, where he was taken on board, and it being one of his father's boats, he was soon furnished with a blue jersey and a pair of rough flannel trousers, for he did not care about swimming back. Then seating himself on the side, he began talking and chatting to the men, who were shaking mackerel out of their dark-brown nets, where they hung caught by the gills, which acted like the barbs to their arrow-like flight through the sea against the drift-net, and prevented their return.

They were in no hurry to get in, for there was no means of sending their fish off till morning, hence they took matters coolly enough.

"Did you do the dive to-night, Master Mark?" said the master of the boat.

"Yes, to be sure," said Mark conceitedly. "Bah! it's mere child's play."

"And yet Mas'r Harry Paul never does it," said another, in the sing-song tone peculiar to the district.

"He! a miserable coward!" cried Penelly, contemptuously. "He hasn't the spirit of a fly. Such a fellow ought to be hounded out of the place. Why, I could pick out a dozen boys of twelve who would do it."

"Yes," said the master of the lugger maliciously, "but he's a beautiful swimmer."

"Tchah! I'd swim twice as far," said Penelly. "He's a wretched coward, and I hate him."

"What! because he can swim better than you, sir?" said the master.

"I tell you I'm the better swimmer," said Penelly sharply.

"Then it must be because he thrashed you for behaving ill to poor old Tom Genna?"

"He thrash me!" cried Penelly contemptuously. "I should like to see him do it."

"Here's your chance, then," said the master maliciously. "He's swimming straight for the boat."

Mark Penelly's face grew a shade more sallow, but he said nothing, only knelt down by a pile of loose net, and watched the young man, whom he looked upon as his rival, till Harry, swimming gracefully and well, came right up and answered the hail of the fishermen with a cheery shout.

"Come aboard, Mas'r Harry; we're going to have the sweeps out soon, and we'll take you in."

"No, thank you," was the reply. "I am going round you, and then back."

Mark Penelly had gone over to the other side of the lugger while the conversation was going on, and he did not face the man he looked upon as his rival; while Harry, unnoticed by the busy fishers as he swam round, went on, touching the sides of the lugger as he lightly swam, but only the next moment to find himself entangled in a quantity of the thin mackerel net, which seemed somehow to descend upon him like a cloud, and before he could realise the fact he was under water, hopelessly fettered by the net, and feeling that if he could not extricate himself directly he should be a dead man.

ZEKLE MAKES HAY.

At first sight nothing seems more frail than a herring or mackerel net, one of those slight pieces of mesh-work that, in a continuation of lengths perhaps half-a-mile long, is let down into the sea to float with the tide, ready for the shoals of fish that dart against it as it forms a filmy wall across their way. The wonder always is that it does not break with even a few pounds of fish therein, but it rarely does, for co-operation is power, and it is in the multiplicity of crossing threads that the strength consists.

Harry Paul, as he struggled in the water, was like a fly in the web of a spider, for every effort seemed only to increase the tangle. He could not break that which yielded on every side, but with fresh lengths coming over the lugger's side to tangle him the more. Even if he had had an open sharp knife in his hand he could hardly have cut himself free, and in the horror of those brief moments he found that his struggles were sending him deeper and deeper, and that unconsciously he had wound himself still farther in the net, till his arms and legs were pinioned in the cold, slimy bonds, which clung to and wrapped round him more and more.

A plunge deep down into the sea is confusing at the best of times. The water thunders in the ears, and a feeling of helplessness and awe sometimes comes over the best of swimmers. In this case, then, tangled and helpless as he was, Harry Paul could only think for a few moments of the time when he swam into the sea-cave at Pen Point at high tide, and felt the long strands of the bladder wrack curl and twist round his limbs like the tentacles of some sea-monster; and he realised once more the chilling sense of helpless horror that seemed to numb his faculties. He made an effort again and again, but each time it was weaker, and at last, with the noise of many waters in his ears, and a bewildering rush of memories through his brain, all seemed to be growing very dark around him, and then he knew no more.

On board the lugger the fishermen were busily running the net from one compartment of the vessel into the other, still shaking the fish out as they went on, for a sudden squall at the fishing-ground had compelled them to haul in their nets hastily and run for home. The slimy net grew into a large brown heap on one side, and the little hill of brilliantly-tinted mackerel bigger on the other, and in the evening light it seemed as if the wondrous colours with which the water shone in ripples far and near had been caught and dyed upon the sides of the fish.

Mark Penelly came over from the other side of the lugger, where he seemed to have been busy for a moment or two, while the men were bending over their work, and seated himself upon the low bulwark close to the master.

"Has he got round?" said the latter, looking up for a moment.

"Whom do you mean?" said Penelly, who was rather pale.

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