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"Hullo, young gentlemen," said the town boatman, when they presented themselves to him, "what can I do for you?" "I know it seems strange," said Dunstable, "but we want a boat. We are the Down-trodden British Schoolboys' League for Demanding Liberty and seeing that We Get It. Have you a boat?" The man said he believed he had a boat.
The other grunted and, drawing nearer to Mr. Carter as they entered the town, stepped along in silence. Questions which Mr. Carter asked with the laudable desire of showing his ignorance concerning the neighborhood elicited no reply. His discomfiture was increased by the behavior of an elderly boatman, who, after looking at him hard, took his pipe from his mouth and bade him "Good-evening."
The young men had asked crusty Simon Conchie, the boatman at the Ferry Croft, to set them over, offering him a groat for his pains. But he was far too busy to pay any attention to mere silver coin on such an occasion, only pausing long enough to cry to them that they must e'en cross at the fords, as many of their betters would do that day.
"You have taken precautions?" he asked, and felt himself flushing at the dishonesty of the question. "I have posted Beesley in charge, and sent the chief boatman off to the pier-head to keep a close watch on the steamer. She sails at seven-thirty to-morrow, and though I never heard a hint against her skipper, it's only right to be careful.
Having threatened the widow that instant death would be her portion if she breathed a word to anyone about the true state of the case, and having arrayed himself in the official robes of the man whom he had stabbed to death, the boatman appeared at the yamen, where he presented the Imperial credentials and was duly installed in his office.
Just as he counted fourteen, both men felt a strike, gave the fateful jerk, and pulled in a large fish, and from that moment their luck changed. This is not the whole of the story, however. Some days later the same boatman was out on the Nevada side with two gentlemen, who could not get a bite. Merely to while away the time the boatman told the foregoing facts.
And then at intervals came the roar of another rapid, like a stirring refrain, with the boatman in the bow to beat the time. So we swept on, now through inky swirls of tide, now through snow-capped billows, moods these of the passing stream, while above the grand character of the gorge remained eternally the same.
An experienced boatman will paddle silently up to within twenty feet of a deer that may be feeding along the shore. The stupid animal will stand, gazing in astonishment at the light, until the boat almost touches him. "That Hank Martin," said Cullen, one of the boatmen, as the hunters disappeared into the darkness, "is a queer boy in his way.
I knew that no boatman put out to sea willingly on a Sunday from Sark; and the last fatal accident, being on a Sunday, had deepened their reluctance. "It will be right, mam'zelle," he answered, with glowing eyes. "I have no fear." "Do not be long away, Tardif," I said, sobbing. "Not one moment longer than I can help," he replied. My name is Martin Dobrée.
The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited hours. "What's that?" cried a boatman, and "Shut up, you fool!" said a man near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud the sound of a gun. The fighting was beginning.
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