234 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



now for the second,' he says, happy like for he 

 had been well paid for his trick. 



" * My ma-ate is at the door,' says Colonel Martin, 

 going out. An' there was a brown ass with long 

 woolly hair on her. ' There is me ma-ate,' says 

 the Colonel, ' An' I am Colonel Martin,' he roars 

 out, ' that ye have made a promise to before a 

 friend. An' if ye do not shave me mate I'll break 

 ye,' he says, * an' send ye to prison.' 



"Tearin' an' ragin' the barber used a scissors 

 an' there he was at the brown ass till he was 

 laffing sthock for the city an' men wudn't go to 

 him. But when the Colonel had him rooned he set 

 him up again for that was the gra-ate Martin's 

 way." 



Out off Innestaygle with the seals sucking and 

 crooning on the brown rocks and the boat full of 

 mackerel and codling of plaice and gurnet, and 

 pollock, " coal feesh," we used to hear these 

 stories. Then to see Tom's wrath when he pulled 

 in a squirming evil dog ** feesh " and cut off its 

 head with a penknife, sawing placidly with com- 

 ments of " there's for ye now. You will not ate 

 me baits again, I tell ye." 



We came chasing home before a rising storm 

 one night in the patched elderly coracle, with all 

 the sea leaping with white froth and its hungry 

 lips round us, with the crash and suck of the huge 

 rollers on the islands thundering out through the 

 spray-wet gloom ; we were glad to be in the shelter 



