130 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



excitement, and I ventured to sing out, 'Hold to him'; 

 but the answer I got was from the winch, that was 

 spinning off its coils at such speed that, before sufficient 

 additional check could be put on it, the third fish was 

 amongst the rocks and the line entangled there beyond 

 recovery. 



'^lisfortunes never come singly,' and are very 

 apt to be with you in threes; and then again, 'Mis- 

 fortunes are never so great but they might be greater,' 

 as I was soon to learn. The two I had started in the 

 first boat came alongside, one of them holding the pieces 

 of a broken rod, and the other with rod erect, but hold- 

 ing in his left hand the end of his running line showing 

 loss, in his case, of trace and worm. There are various 

 w^a^^s of giving expression to your feehngs at such 

 moments, and there is much that might be said to 

 youths while suffering from their losses, but I have 

 long since learned that but few v/ords are really needed, 

 and that '\\'hat hard luck !' answers best. 



At last the untried fisher had Ms chance; he was 

 fast in a weighty fish whose rush compelled him to 

 give line much against his will, but he gave it only 

 when his rod was bent to a half-circle, and then so 

 grudgingly that the movement of the boat kept the 

 fish from off the bottom. It was a fight that tested the 

 rod, line, and fisher, but it ended in the fish, thirteen 

 pounds in w^eight, being gaffed and lifted aboard to 

 the joy of its captor. 



Dusk came suddenly and with it, fortunately, a 

 moon that increased in lustre, as it was needed to 

 give sufucient light for the steersman to keep clear 

 of the many rocks, whose shapes and positions seemed 

 changed, to m.e, in the altered light, and to make 

 doubly sure of safety, we kept farther out in deeper 

 water. 



Almost as suddenly as the change of light came 

 sport in earnest. Our boats seemed to be in the 

 midst of a great shoal of pilchards that noisily beat 



