A FISH-DAY. 3C9 



we do not see a " live one," but tack and tack to 

 windward all day long, glad when the setting sun 

 proclaims the time for "heaving to " and going 

 bolow to sleep. After more than a week of this 

 kind of life, there comes a day when fisheimen 

 begin to prophecy the approach of a " regular 

 fish day." 



All day the wind is light and baffling, while a 

 swell comes rolling in from the eastward, which 

 makes our little vessel tumble about strangely 

 sails slatting, and blocks creaking mournfully in 

 the calm. 



Toward evening the wind goes down, the sky is 

 overcast by white clouds, and the weather becomes 

 ii pea-jacket colder. Having found no fish all day, 

 we take in sail early, see everything clear for a 

 " fish-day " to-morrow, and, all but the watch (one 

 man), turn in about eight o'clock. 



At midnight, when I am called up out of my 

 warm bed to stand an hour's watch, I find the 

 vessel pitching uneasily, and hear the breeze blow- 

 ing fitfully through the naked rigging. Going on 

 deck I perceive that both wind and sea have " got 

 up" since we retired to rest. The sky looks low- 

 ering, and the clouds are evidently surcharged 

 with rain. In fine the weather, as my predeces- 

 sor on watch informs me, bears every sign of an 

 excellent fish -day on the morrow. I accordingly 

 grind some bait, sharpen up my hooks once more, 

 see my lines clear, and my heaviest jigs (the tech- 

 meal term for hooks with pewter run on them), 

 24 



