rthing up potatoes in lazy-boy fashion with a chip-chop and a long
think, supplemented by a rest at the end of each row to chew tobacco.

A minute later and the boys were lying down side by side, resting upon
their elbows and kicking up their heels over their backs, what time the
newcomer related what had passed down on the pier, and also what he
should like to do.

The narrative seemed to afford Big Jem intense satisfaction, for he
uttered a hoarse crowing laugh from time to time and blinked his eyes,
squeezing the lids very close and then opening them wide, when sundry
signs of black, green and blue bruises became visible.

When the newcomer had finished his narration, Big Jem crowed more
hoarsely than ever, and indulged in what looked like an imitation of an
expiring fish, for he stretched himself out flat and threw himself over
from his face on to his back, beat the ground with his closed legs, and
then flopped back again, over and over again, putting ten times the
vigour and exertion into his acts that he had bestowed upon the hoeing,
and ending by springing up, stooping to secure his hoe, and then tossing
it right away to fall and lie hidden in one of the newly-hoed furrows
between the potatoes.

"Do, won't it?" cried the new arrival.

"Yes," cried Big Jem, hoarsely. "Sarve 'em both out. Come on!"

No time was lost, the two boys going off at a trot round by the back of
the town and aiming for the shore, where by descending a very steep bit
of ivy-draped and ragwort-dotted cliff they could get down to a row of
black sheds used for fish-drying and the storage of nets, which lay
snugly upon a shelf of the cliff.

The place was quite deserted as the boys let themselves slide down a
water-formed gully, peered about a bit, and then made for one of several
boats moored some fifty yards from the sandy shore.

More or less salt water was nothing to the Rockabie boys, and after a
glance along the shore, followed by a sweeping of the pier, which ran
out between them and the harbour, they waded a little way out till the
water reached their chests, and then began to swim for the outermost
boat, into which Big Jem climbed, to hold out a hand, and the next
moment his comrade had followed and leaned over, dripping away, to cast
loose the rope attached to the buoy, while Big Jem put an oar out over
the stern and began to scull.

"Ibney allus leaves one oar in his boat," said Jem, sculling away.

"But we mustn't go yet