"Trawler, lad--trawler. I didn't say crawler," cried Josh. "A mussy me!" he added softly. "Well, trawler, then. What's a trawler?" "Fore-an'-aft rig boat." "Oh, I say!" cried Dick merrily, "it's all like Dutch to me. How am I to know what a fore-an'-aft rig boat is?" "A mussy me!" groaned Josh, to Will's great delight; "how your eddication have been neglected! Don't you know what rig means?" "Yes; the rigging of a ship." "Or a boat," said Josh. "Well, don't you know what fore-and-aft means?" "Not unless it's before and after, or behind." "It ain't no before and no after; it's fore-and-aft," growled Josh. "He's quite right, Josh," said Will, taking his new friend's side; "fore means before, or forward, and aft means after, or behind." "Oh! very well; have it your own way," said Josh, putting a pellet of tobacco in his mouth. "I call it fore-and-aft." "That's right too, Josh. Look here, sir, we call the rig of a boat or ship fore-and-aft when the sails are flat, like they are in a cutter or sloop or schooner. When I say flat I mean stretching from the front of the vessel to the stern; and we call it square-rigged when the sails are put across." "Then there's lug-sails like them," said Josh, pointing to some fishing-boats, whose brown sails stood out against the amber sky; "and there's lots of other rigs as well." "Yes; but what's a trawler?" cried Dick. "It's a fore-and-aft rigged boat that trawls," said Will. "She has a great net like a big night-cap stretched over on a spar, which we call a trawl-beam, and this is lowered down, and as the boat sails it is dragged along the bottom, and catches soles, and turbot, and plaice and sometimes john-dory, and gurnet, and brill. They like sandy banks, such as this is; and if there were no rocks the trawler would soon sweep this clean." "On'y, they can't run their trawl along here a-cause o' the rocks," said Josh. "Which would catch the net, and they'd p'r'aps lose it." "But they might fish it up again." "Oh, yes! I daresay they would," replied Will with a smile. "I say," cried Dick, "I wish you wouldn't call things by such names. What's a creeper?" "These are creepers that we've just put down; grapnels." "Ah, we call them drags in London," said Dick. "I say, I should like to go in a trawler." "Well, you easily can," replied Will, "if you are going to stay here." "Think you've got a bite yet?" "What, at the baits? Let's try." Josh was already putting the boat about, and was beginning to row back over the same ground towards the first buoy. "Oh, you're going to try there first!" said Dick. "Of course, where the line has been down longest," said Will. "See how the tide flows." "Does it?" responded Dick, staring. "Yes; can you see that Josh has to pull harder with one oar than with the other, or else we should be carried right away from the buoy? The line's set right across the tide." "Is it? Why?"