50 WHAT I HAVE SEEN WHILE FISHING 



weeds that grew everywhere in sight before a tussle 

 commenced, which the boatmen felt fully convinced, 

 so we gathered later on, would end in loss of much 

 "consate and gear." Kirk had guessed all this, 

 and was at times dangerously over-careful, and the 

 battle appeared the longest I ever knew with a 

 pollack. I had time to think of the poet Gay's 

 ines : 



" And now again, impatient of the wound, 

 He rolls and writhes his straining body round; 

 Then headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide, 

 The trembling fins the boiling wave divide. 

 Now hope exalts the fisher's beating heart, 

 Now he turns pale and fears his dubious art; 

 He views the trembling fish with longing eyes, 

 While the line stretches with th' unwieldy prize." 



At last I got him on the gaff, and then our 

 boatmen knew that a 1 2 Ib. fish had failed to cause 

 a break. Their eyes were widely open and their 

 hats tilted by fingers that scratched their scalps, 

 which is their method of giving expression to won- 

 derment beyond their power of speech. Another, 

 and another, and yet another, was hooked, played, 

 and gaffed before my rod was ready, and when I 

 did commence it was by no means a rare occurrence 

 for us both to be simultaneously doing our best 

 to thwart the desperate dives of frantic fish to re- 

 gain their home amongst the deep-down, weedy 

 rocks. 



It is really with us now as it was in our youth : 

 we most require what is most in season, be it 



