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As I reached the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for deeper water and, across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails rise one by one on the anchored fishing-fleet.
But Disko's board was the Grand Bank a triangle two hundred and fifty miles on each side a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishing-fleet.
This terminus lies close to the port, which is an important place of call for the large passenger and cargo steamers bound for Norway and other countries, as well as being a refuge for the fishing-fleet.
On Saturdays by custom the fishing-fleet of Port Nassau made harbour before nightfall, and the crews kept a sort of decorous carnival before the Sabbath, of which they were strict observers. In the lower part of the town, by the quays, much buying and selling went on, in booths of sail-cloth lit as a rule by oil-flares.
As for the fish, the boats had made small catches dips among the straggling advance-guards of the great armies of pilchards surely drawing in from the Atlantic. "'Tis early days yet, hows'ever time enough, my sons plenty time!" promised Un' Benny Rowett, patriarch of the fishing-fleet and local preacher on Sundays.
For might not the fishing-fleet even now be rounding the point, with darkness coming on, and the misleading light burning on the giant rock to lure them to destruction?
The fishing-fleet, as they call their wretched tubs, will come home, with the usual fuss, to-night, and on Monday it shall be ashes. How like you my programme? Is it complete?" "Too much, too much complete; too barbarous," answered the kindly hearted Frenchman. "What harm have all the poor men done to you?
Through the long night the Pelican crept into the thickening fog with the disabled Curlew. Daybreak found them at the entrance to Crescent Bay. When they reached the Lang docks the masts of the fishing-fleet could be dimly discerned through the shifting mist like a forest of bare-trunked trees. Dickie frowned. "The boys are late getting out," she observed. "I wonder what's the matter."
Now and then an idle puff parted the bank to right and left, their sail flapped impatiently, and in the sudden space they saw the barge that dashed along with the great white seine-boat heaped high with nets towering in its midst, the oars of the six red-shirted rowers flashing in the sun as it cut the channel and rushed by to join the fishing-fleet outside, or they caught a glimpse of some little gunning-float, covered with wisps of hay and carrying its single occupant couched perdu along its length, or, while they lunched and trifled and jested, Eve with her crumbs tolled about them the dwellers in the depths, and in the falling flake of sunshine laughed to see a stately aldermanic flounder, that came paddling after a chicken-bone, put to rout by a satanic sculpin, whereat an eel swiftly snaked the prize away, and the frost-fish, collecting at a chance of civil war, mingled in the mêlée, tooth and nail, or rather fin and tail.
The others went on talking, to be interrupted a few minutes later by a surprised exclamation from the master of the house. "Now, would you believe it! The Company has been bought out!" "What company?" asked 'Duke Radford. "Why, the fishing-fleet owners, Barton and Skinner and that lot," rejoined Astor M'Kree abstractedly, being again buried in his letter.
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