100 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



for weight, not half as plucky. Indeed, on this 

 occasion we lose a few minutes, for, instead of 

 arriving, as we had hoped, the slack quarter of 

 an hour before low water, we reach the ground at 

 dead low tide (which is later out here than inshore), 

 and by the time George has picked up the distant 

 marks on the hazy shore, beyond Fowey and again 

 westward of the Gwingeas, so as to bring the Eva, 

 with plenty of rope, just over the top of the reef, 

 the tide is just beginning to drain back eastward, 

 so that we cannot expect even a full half hour of 

 slack water. That should suffice us if only the 

 big pollack are on the feed. Each hook is baited 

 with one strip of pilchard and another of mackerel, 

 a combination that has its object, for the oily pil- 

 chard, though the more attractive, is easily pulled 

 off the hook, and it is the more abiding mackerel 

 that tempts the pollack to take a second bite and 

 thus, with the angler now on the qui vive, meet 

 his doom. Down go the baits and leads through 

 the clear water. We dare not let them run by 

 their own weight, with the check off the reel, for 

 there are heavy customers out here, and such a 

 piece of lazinesss might be punished with disas- 

 ter. So we pull the line off the clicking barrel, a 

 foot or so at a time. My own line, which is of 

 wire, goes down almost sheer, for it takes a strong 

 tide to move a wire line out of the perpendicular, 

 and mechanically, my thoughts elsewhere, I pull 



