354 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



branch, and as they look up to him he directs 

 their course by it, as if it were their compass. 

 What can this mean ? Why the supposed mad- 

 man is sane and sagacious enough. He sees a 

 faint bluish line on the surface of the waters and 

 there are the pilchards in one fluctuating, change- 

 ful, life-abounding shoal. See how they leap, they 

 play, they shift, they sink, they rise again ! 

 Swiftly row the oarsmen, down bend the seiners 

 in less time than common men would think pos- 

 sible, down goes fathom after fathom, and heap 

 after heap of the seine, up float the bordering 

 corks, clash, dash, splash go the long oars again. 

 The cliff watcher is now doubly frantic. He waves 

 and raves, and runs and stamps, and jumps ; the 

 shoal is shifting, warping, eluding, the boat is 

 turned, the telegraphic branch is again eyed and 

 obeyed; and now the cliff-watcher is satisfied. 

 He lowers his branch, he nods, he assents by every 

 primitive symbol and significant action that can 

 be imagined. The entire seine is gradually lowered 

 into the sea, the men bend over and you dread a 

 capsize, and even more and more when you see 

 their motions reversed. Now they no longer let 

 down but haul up. A hearty shore-resounding 

 and echo-awakening shout is their mutual en- 

 couragement up comes bit by bit of the seine. 

 How heavy ! How joyfully full ! Fishermen's 

 heads almost touch the brine, their backs alone 

 are broadly apparent. Now one strong combined 

 haul and nearer together is the seine drawn. 

 What hundreds of glancing, leaping, struggling 



