294 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



bumped us on and off our seats in the funniest 

 fashion. 



From experience I have gathered that boatmen 

 inured to chopping seas like to test the endurance 

 of a landsman and that should he stand the ordeal 

 without distress or murmur they are almost pre- 

 pared to treat him as an equal. If Tony's display 

 of sailing skill in half a gale amongst tumbling 

 waters was prompted by this desire he did it so 

 thoroughly as to prove that there would be some 

 danger to himself before the fishers would see any- 

 thing but what was comic in holding fish while 

 being tossed from seat to floor. Harry tumbled 

 and gathered himself into a kneeling posture, and 

 from that fell over on his side, while holding as 

 firmly as he dared to a pollack that whirred the 

 handle of his winch so near his lips that his laughter 

 and the wheel's noise were blended. I could not 

 help him as I was busy with a determined fish but, 

 as a father should, I offered him sound advice : 

 u Hold to him from where you are until I get this 



one in." 



Then there were hours of soft, warm breezes for 

 easy sailing, when the pleasure of successful fishing 

 was in every detail of each capture. Tony, the 

 venturesome, ventured then to places between rocks 

 where a bigger fish than we had caught might have 

 a home ; perhaps the big one was there that is 

 never caught although so often hooked. It is just 

 as well the monster has not yet been captured as 

 we can still search the seas for him with the certain 

 knowledge that he takes the angler's lures most 

 readily and, when a mighty tug comes and the 

 wheel screams out for help, we can wonder if we 



