A FORLORN QUEST, ETC. 257 



accustomed to fish with a submerged rod, miss 

 the fish and have to bait the hook again. A. K. M. 

 does the same, and after we have missed the next 

 half dozen, we anathematize the local method and 

 fish, as we should at home, with the rod out of 

 water. This makes a difference, for, instead of 

 getting bites and missing the fish, we get no bites 

 at all, for the baits are too high in the water unless 

 the rod is kept well down. One of the men makes 

 us understand by signs that by and by, when the 

 torches burn, they will feed close to the top, but 

 that until then we must fish as deep as possible. 

 Down go the rods again, and this time, having 

 served our apprenticeship of failure, we simul- 

 taneously hook fish, horse-mackerel both of them, 

 which play well on the tight line and pliant cane, 

 until at last we lift them into the boat. The horse- 

 mackerel, or scad, is always the more plentiful of 

 the two, though a two-pound mackerel gives such 

 excellent sport on A. K. M.'s rod that we resolve 

 to meet again on the Cornish coast, where alone 

 in the south of England the water approaches to 

 the clearness of the open Atlantic, in a couple of 

 months' time and try the same tactics over there. 

 And so in part it came about. We did meet there, 

 but too early in the season for the big mackerel. 



All those other boats are fishing in dead earnest, 

 either for tunny bait or for the morrow's market. 

 We alone are there for the fun of the thing ; not 



18 (2272) 



