Page 75
He didn’t respond for a moment, but he looked up at her with a contrite expression. “I be sorry.”
His words were simple but heartfelt, and a warmth bloomed in her chest. For so long, he’d defended his fishing near the shoreline. She knew he felt remorse for entangling her, and truly, she knew he never meant to. But to hear his apology void of excuses or animosity meant more than she’d thought it would.
“Thank ye,” she said.
Their eyes locked, but Trevik pulled away a moment later.
She should have taken the continued silence as a signal for her to leave, but it had been so long since the two of them had had a minute alone together.
Every moment ye spend with him will make it harder to leave, she reminded herself.
And yet she couldn’t pry herself away. She’d managed to part from Zennor Prout last year, hadn’t she? And she had been her friend for months. Surely befriending Trevik couldn’t be harder than leaving her.
She set aside the disbelief instantly pouring over her and peered down at the netting once again. “So tell me about this net of yours,” she said. She wasn’t particularly interested in a simple drift net, but she could be if it meant a moment longer with Trevik.
“What do ye wish to know?”
She drew a few steps closer to him, moving to stand on the same side of the net. “Do ye only have just the one?”
“One fleet, yes. But it ’as multiple sections tied to cork rope so we can remove and add on as needed.” He motioned to the section he worked on. “We removed this to repair it, though there be another net aboard the Pilferer already.”
She nodded her understanding, watching as he worked around the hole, left to right, then right to left, one row at a time, threading the hemp through the remaining mesh in a neat pattern.
“So ye don’t have to replace the entire section?”
“If the ’ole was bigger I would’ve ’ad to.” Then he looked up at her with twinkling eyes. “Fortunately ye were a small fish.”
Morvoren pulled her lips in to hide her smile as Trevik continued with his work. She glanced again at the net, noting the small cords looped thickly just below the cork rope. “These can’t be for the pilchards, can they?”
He glanced to where she stroked her hand across the hemp. “No, those just be orsels. They ’old the rest of the nettin’, bringin’ it lower to ensure it stays under the water.”
“Ah, I see. But these are to catch the fish.” She ran her fingers along the rest of the netting, the hemp rough against her fingertips.
He nodded. “The headin’ be ’eavy at the top, the gaurdin’ be at the bottom, and the sides be made up o’ skilven.”
Morvoren listened to the words, surprised that her interest was piqued. She’d seen the large, triangular seining nets Uncle owned, but obviously, she’d paid no attention to them. With Trevik, however, she couldn’t help but hang onto every single word he said about the drifters’ nets.
“Do they take much upkeep?” she asked next.
“A great deal,” he responded, moving horizontally to tie the next strings. “When the fleet be tied together and it drifts in the water, the cork rope stretches ’bout sixty yards and the nettin’ reaches more than an ’undred. Keeping that much nettin’ fitty be difficult. We bring ’em in every Saturday so they don’t heat up and catch fire ’board the lugger. It be then that we see to any repairs, barkin’ every so often to preserve fibers and prevent rottin’.”
“Barkin’?”
“That just be when the nets be dipped in boilin’ bark.”
“Oh, I see.”
“The barkin’ eventually shrinks the meshes and makes ’em less effective to fish with, though. So we ’ave to look at repairin’ the nets then, too.”
He straightened, stretching his back from side to side and unwittingly flexing his arms in the process.
Morvoren struggled to maintain her attention on the nets. “Are they very hard to tie?”
His finger held open another section of mesh, then twisted the free rope around to secure another knot. “Not a great deal.” For the first time, he looked up at her with a long pause. “Would ye like to learn?”
She pulled back in surprise.
“They do be your own ’oles,” he said.
