‘Aye,’ Aaron pointed. ‘Look for ’shimmer on top of ’water. That way you’ll know that there’s fish about.’
‘But not shrimps?’
‘Not shrimps because they stay well below and feed from ’bottom, but then so do cod and halibut and eels. That’s why we use trawl nets for catching shrimps, so that we can scoop them up. I’ll show you how another time. But for now, do you fancy a sail down ’Humber as far as Spurn?’
‘Oh, yes, please.’
Aaron had told him that the shrimp boats were easy to use and the smaller ones like his could be handled by one man. ‘We can boil ’shrimps on board and ’boat will still remain steady.’
‘You can boil the shrimps? Do you mean whilst you’re out on the water?’ Robin was astonished.
‘Aye, it saves time, you see, especially if you’re selling shrimps commercially like some of ’shrimpers do. Then when you get back to shore you can send them off straight away to the buyers.’
‘And do you still do that, Aaron?’ Robin was keeping his eyes on the water for signs of fish.
‘Nay,’ he answered on a sigh. ‘Not any more. I keep ’boat for recreation or bringing summat home for supper. I’m a landsman now. A farmer. But sometimes I’ll go out for a day with my brothers.’
‘I don’t know which I’d like to be,’ Robin said abstractedly. ‘It’s a hard decision to make, isn’t it?’
Aaron nodded and smiled. It had been for him, but in the end there was only one choice; he’d been young and he loved Peggy and if it meant pleasing her parents and receiving permission to marry her he had thought then so be it; and there had been no regrets, except for the odd time when he had seen the sails of the shrimp boats heading down on the tide towards the Humber mouth and had drawn in a deep breath of the salty sea.
‘So do you think you’ll be stopping, then?’ he asked Robin.
‘Oh, aye,’ Robin answered, and Aaron grinned at his expression. ‘I think so,’ Robin went on. ‘I feel as if I belong here.’ He pressed his lips together. ‘That’s if you and Granny Peg don’t mind. You see, before I came here, Aaron, I didn’t know where I belonged. I felt as if I came from nowhere.’
When they arrived back at midday, Robin was full of enthusiasm for sailing and fishing too, except that they had only brought home two whiting and two flounder. Then, triumphantly, he held up the bag that contained the fish and took out his prize.
‘Look, Granny Peg,’ he crowed. ‘Look, Molly. Look what I caught.’
Molly lifted her head from where she was crayoning a picture at the table, and then looked back at her drawing again. Peggy turned her enquiring gaze to him. ‘Salmon?’ she guessed.
‘It’s like a small salmon,’ Robin told her from his new-found store of information. ‘But it’s called a smolt. Aaron says it’s a juvenile salmon and tastes just as nice.’
‘So would you like to have it for your supper whilst it’s fresh?’ Peggy said. ‘We’re having roast beef for dinner.’
‘I know, I can smell it.’ Robin slipped off his coat. ‘I’m starving, but I’d better get washed first.’
‘You’d better,’ Peggy agreed, ‘especially as we’re expecting company. We don’t want you stinking of wet fish. And then later on I’ll show you how to take the head off the fish and fillet it.’
He screwed up his face, but didn’t object. ‘I suppose if I’m going to be a fisherman I’ll have to learn how to do that sort of thing. I’m learning such a lot.’ He continued the conversation as he scrubbed his hands in the scullery sink whilst Peggy put the fish on a cold slab and covered it with muslin.
‘When we were coming back in the cart, a man in Paull touched his cap and said, “Ow do, Aaron?” I asked what it was he’d said and Aaron told me he’d said how do. I didn’t understand it until Aaron told me that it means How do you do?’ He put his head back and laughed. ‘And then Aaron touched his forehead and said back to him, “Awright, Fred, ’n’ you?” It’s much friendlier here, isn’t it? And as soon as I learn the language, that’s how I shall speak.’ He rinsed his hands and face and asked as he dried them, ‘Who’s the company that’s coming for lunch, Granny Peg – I mean dinner? Do I know them?’
Peggy’s mouth twitched. ‘Yes, indeed you do, Master Robin. It’s a company of little girls.’
And before she could say more the back door opened and Louisa, Emma and Rosie burst inside, and Robin felt as happy as he had ever been in his life.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It was just the girls who had come for Sunday dinner. Jack and Susan were still making the farmhouse more comfortable and Susan had asked Jack to paper the parlour with mock flock wallpaper with a red floral design. He hadn’t liked the pattern and said it was difficult to match, but Susan had insisted and said it would cover up some of the cracks in the walls. Her mother had had her parlour papered in a similar pattern and she wanted it too. She had also bought thick red woollen material to make a curtain to hang from a pole over the door to keep out any draughts and had also made some dark red curtains for the window. The curtains that Peggy had given her were going on the upstairs windows.
‘It’ll look like a damned bordello,’ Jack had muttered to his father a few days earlier.
‘Eh, eh! What?’ his father had demanded. ‘What do you know of such places?’
‘Nothing,’ Jack grunted. ‘Never been in one, but I can imagine!’
‘Well, you’d better not let your ma hear you talk about them as if you have, or you’ll get a warning shot across your bows.’
Jack scoffed. ‘I’m not a little lad any more, Da. I’m a grown man; I
