“You an’ me we’ll sluice that out when they’re through. ’Send we’ll hev full pens tonight! I’ve seen her down ha’af a foot with fish waitin’ to clean, an’ we stood to the tables till we was splittin’ ourselves instid o’ them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they’re comm’ in naow.” Dan looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories rowing towards them over the shining, silky sea.
“I’ve never seen the sea from so low down,” said Harvey. “It’s fine.”
The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden lights on the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green mackerel shades in the hollows. Each schooner in sight seemed to be pulling her dories towards her by invisible strings, and the little black figures in the tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys.
“They’ve struck on good,” said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. “Manuel hain’t room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still water, Aeneid he?”
“Which is Manuel? I don’t see how you can tell ’em ’way off, as you do.”
“Last boat to the south’ard. He fund you last night,” said Dan, pointing. “Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can’t mistake him. East o’ him— he’s a heap better’n he rows—is Pennsylvania. Loaded with saleratus, by the looks of him. East o’ him—see how pretty they string out all along—with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He’s a Galway man inhabitin’ South Boston, where they all live mostly, an’ mostly them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away yonder—you’ll hear him tune up in a minute is Tom Platt. Man-o’-war’s man he was on the old Ohio first of our navy, he says, to go araound the Horn. He never talks of much else, ’cept when he sings, but he has fair fishin’ luck. There! What did I tell you?”
A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory. Harvey heard something about somebody’s hands and feet being cold, and then: