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ver that Will is better than he at his Latin and Greek, in those days forming a large part of a good education.
Josh, Uncle Abram, and several others complete the principal cast. The boys get out on various boating expeditions, in which they, and we, learn a great deal about the life of a fishing village of perhaps 1850. We learn about the various fishes, and how they are caught, and they have various narrow shaves down mines, in caves, and after various unfortunate accidents.
This book is beautifully written, very informative and interesting, and as full of thrills as any book by G Manville Fenn, the master of suspense.
Of course there is a surprise waiting for us at the finish.
MENHARDOC
A STORY OF CORNISH NETS AND MINES
CHAPTER ONE.
INTRODUCES WILL AND HIS HENCHMAN, JOSH.
"You don't know it, Master Will, lad, but Natur' couldn't ha' done no better for you if she'd tried."
"Why, Josh?"
"Why, lad? There's a queshton to ask! Why? Warn't you born in Co'rn'all, the finest country in all England, and ain't you going to grow into a Cornishman, as all old books says is giants, when you've left off being a poor smooth, soft-roed, gallish-looking creatur', same as you are now?"
The utterer of these words certainly spoke them, but in a musical, sing-song intonation peculiar to the fishermen of the district. He was a fair, short man, somewhat deformed, one arm being excessively short, seeming little more than a hand projecting from one side of his breast; but this in no wise interfered with his activity as he stood there glittering in the bright morning sunshine on the deck of a Cornish lugger, shaking pilchards out of the dark-brown net into the well or hold.
Josh Helston glittered in the morning sunshine like a harlequin in a limelight, for he was spangled from head to foot with the loose silvery scales of the pilchards caught during the