That night Ready sat up for two or
three hours working by candle-light (William keeping
him company), very busily engaged fitting up the fishing-lines
with leads and hooks. At last two were complete.
“What bait must we use, Ready?”
“I should think that the best
would be one of the fish out of the shells which are
in the sand; but a piece of pork fat will, I dare say,
do as well.”
“And whereabouts would you fish, Ready?”
“The best place, I should think,
would be at the farthermost end of the point, where
I got the boat through the reef the water
is deep there close to the rocks.”
“I was thinking, Ready, if those
gannets and men-of-war birds would be good eating.”
“Not very, William; they are
very tough and very fishy: we must try for those
when we can get nothing better. Now that we have
got in the seeds and potatoes, we must all set to
to-morrow morning to fell and carry the timber.
I think Mr Seagrave had better use the axe with me;
and you and Juno can, when I have shown you how, hang
the timber to the axle, and wheel it out to the place
where we have decided upon building the house.
And now we had better go to bed.”
William, however, had made up his
mind to do otherwise: he knew that his mother
would be very glad to have some fish, and he determined,
as the moon shone bright, to try if he could not catch
some before he went to bed; so he waited very quietly
till he thought Ready was asleep as well as the others,
and then went out with the lines, and went down to
the beach, where he picked up three or four shells,
and, breaking them between two pieces of rock, took
out the fish and baited his hooks. He then walked
to the point. It was a beautiful night; the water
was very smooth, and the moonbeams pierced deep below
the surface. William threw in his line, and
as soon as the lead touched the bottom he pulled it
up about a foot, as Ready had instructed him; and
he had not held his line more than half a minute,
when it was jerked so forcibly, that not expecting
it he was nearly hauled into the water; as it was,
the fish was so strong that the line slipped through
his hand and scored his fingers; but after a time
he was able to pull it in, and he landed on the beach
a large silver-scaled fish, weighing nine or ten pounds.
As soon as he had dragged it so far away from the
edge of the rocks as to prevent its flapping into
the water again, William took out the hook and determined
to try for another. His line was down as short
a time as before, when it was again jerked with violence;
but William was this time prepared, and he let out
the line and played the fish till it was tired, and
then pulled it up, and found that the second fish was
even larger than the first. Satisfied with his
success, he wound up his lines, and, running a piece
of string through the gills of the fish, dragged them
back to the tents, and hanged them to the pole, for
fear of the dogs eating them; he then went in, and
was soon fast asleep. The next morning William
was the first up, and showed his prizes with much
glee; but Ready was very much displeased with him.
“You did very wrong, William,
to run the risk which you did. If you were resolved
to catch fish, why did you not tell me, and I would
have gone with you? You say, yourself, that
the fish nearly hauled you into the water; suppose
it had done so, or suppose a small shark instead of
one of these gropers (as we call them) had taken the
bait, you must have been jerked in; and the rocks
are so steep there, that you would not have been able
to get out again before a shark had hold of you.
Think a moment what would have been the distress
of your father and the agony and despair of your poor
mother, when this news should have arrived.”
“I was very wrong, Ready,”
replied William, “now that I think of it; but
I wanted to surprise and please my mother.”
“That reason is almost sufficient
to plead your pardon, my dear boy,” replied
Ready; “but don’t do so again. And
now let us say no more about it; nobody will know
that you have been in danger, and there’s no
harm done; and you mustn’t mind an old man scolding
you a little.”
“No, indeed, Ready, I do not,
for I was very thoughtless; but I had no idea that
there was danger.”
“There’s your mother coming
out of her tent,” replied Ready. “Good-morning,
madam. Do you know what William has done for
you last night? Look, here are two beautiful
fish, and very excellent eating they are, I can tell
you.”
“I am quite delighted,” replied Mrs Seagrave.
Tommy clapped his hands and danced
about, crying, “Fried fish for dinner;”
and Juno said, “Have very fine dinner to-day,
Missy Caroline.”
After breakfast they all set out for
the grove, where Ready had been cutting down the trees,
taking with them the wheels and axle, and a couple
of stout ropes. Mr Seagrave and Ready cut down
the trees and slung them to the axle, and Juno and
William dragged them to the spot where the house was
to be built.
They were not sorry when dinner was
ready, for it was very hard work.
That night, tired as they were, Ready
and William went out, and turned eight more turtle.
They continued felling the cocoa-nut trees and dragging
the timber for the remainder of the week, when they
considered that they had nearly enough, and on Tuesday
morning they commenced building the house.